We Don't Invest

As it turns out, the giant sucking sound I heard this week wasn’t the rapture—it was my job disappearing, vacuumed away by a one-two punch of mismanagement and a lack of revenue in the Salem-Keizer School District. But I’ll leave the local problems aside.
Maybe it took losing my job to see it—it’s easy to look past unemployment when you’ve got one—but if it wasn’t clear before, it is now. I had an epiphany. It is simple. It is something that deep down, we all know is true; and yet, somewhere along the way, this country forgot about it.
See, what happened to me, and what is happening to teachers all over this country, represents a greater philosophical choice, that involves not only teachers, students, and parents, but every single person that lives in and loves this country: We don’t invest in education. We don’t invest in our young people.
If we did, class sizes would be getting smaller, not ballooning past 35 or 40 as they are in so many school districts. Tuition would be affordable—not crippling. And we’d see to it that there were living wage jobs available for high school and college graduates. We might even provide affordable health care. But we don’t invest in education. We don’t invest in our young people.
Instead, we invest in the rich. Currently, the wealthiest 1% of Americans owns 40% of our wealth. We’ve had the top marginal tax rates go from 47.7% in 1982 under Reagan to 32.4% with the Bush tax cuts in effect. We’ve cut capitol gains taxes so that the very rich pay a smaller percentage (15%—less if they have a good accountant, and they usually do) than someone who makes $50,000 a year earning paychecks.
Just last year, Republicans in congress held the President hostage over extending these tax cuts in order to agree to extend unemployment benefits for out of work Americans. They wouldn’t even agree to end these tax breaks for millionaires. And most recently, Republicans in the Senate, joined by a few Democrats, voted to continue giving billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies to the 5 biggest oil companies in this country.
So we invest in the rich, we incentivize their success with tax breaks and subsidies, and like all investors, we expect a return. So…where are the jobs? Where is the reinvestment in American industry? Where is the thriving capitalist marketplace this trickle down dogma was supposed to create? Oh yeah, I remember now: it’s in China, where labor is cheap and consumer laws are non-existent.
As a result, what do we see for our young people, our future? Shrinking opportunity. We give them larger class sizes, less or no elective and industrial classes, fewer student loans, rising tuition, and a job market that is bleak at best. We tell them to work hard in school, go to a good college, and then…good luck schmuck. We don’t invest in education. We don’t invest in our young people.
And yet, who are the consumers that are going to buy washing machines, cars, furniture, refrigerators, televisions, and houses? Young people. We’re culling our society’s ability to produce consumers, because we don’t provide an environment where young people can be successful, and we don’t provide job opportunities for those who are.
That is what hit me when I was told my teaching job was going away. I worked hard in school. I paid good money to go to Willamette and earn a Masters in teaching. I coached baseball, worked summer school, was a member of SITE council, and taught my classes with passion and intelligence. I did everything I could, and in the end it wasn’t enough, because our society has made a decision.
We don’t invest in education. We don’t invest in our young people.