Teacher Education Quarterly, Spring 2007
\nNo Child Left Behind
\nas an Anti-Poverty Measure
\nBy Jean Anyon & Kiersten Greene
\nListen, the No Child Left Behind Act is really a jobs act when you think about it.
\n\u2014President George W. Bush, Oct. 13,2004, Third Presidential Debate
\nThis article argues that, although No Child Left Behind is not presented a jobs policy (Bush’s slip during a Presidential Debate being the only place it is gi such a moniker), the Act does function as a substitute for the creation of dece paying jobs for those who need them. Aimed particularly at the minority poor its 1965 predecessor, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, NCLB ac an anti-poverty program because it is based on an
\n\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\u00a1\u00a1M implicit assumption that increased educational
\nJean Anyon is a achievement is the route out of poverty for low
\nprofessor of educational income families and individuals. NCLB stands in the
\nand social policy and place of policies like job creation and significant
\nKiersten Greene is a raises in the minimum wage which\u2014although con
\ndoctoral student, both siderably more expensive than standardized test
\nwith the Doctoral ing\u2014would significantly decrease poverty in the
\nProgram in Urban United States.
\nEducation of the We demonstrate that there are significant
\nGraduate Center of the economic realities, and existing public policies,
\nCity University of New that severely curtail the power of education to
\nYork, New York, New function as a route out of poverty for poor people.
\nYork. The weakened role of education in upward mobil
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\nNo Child Left Behind as an Anti-Poverty Measure
\nity, of course, vitiates any premise that better scores on achievement tests, and
\nincreased education, will secure for low-income folks the jobs and income they
\nneed. Let us make our case.
\nEducation and the Economy
\nFor more education to lead to better jobs, there have to be jobs available.
\nHowever, there are not now, nor have there been for more than two decades, nearly
\nenough jobs for those who need them. Labor economist Gordon Lafer demonstrated
\nthat over the period 1984 to 1996\u2014at the height of an alleged labor shortage\u2014the
\nnumber of people in need of work exceeded the total number of job openings by
\nan average of five to one. In 1996, for example, the country would have needed 14.4
\nmillion jobs in order for all low-income people to work their way out of poverty.
\nHowever, there were at most 2.4 million job openings available to meet this need;
\nof these, only one million were in full-time, non-managerial positions (2002).
\nFurthermore, the jobs the U.S. economy now produces are primarily poverty
\nwage jobs\u2014and only a relative few highly paid ones\u2014making it increasingly less
\ncertain that education will assure that work pays well ( Anyon, 2005). Seventy-seven
\npercent of new and project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees)ed jobs in the next decade will be low-paying. Only a
\nquarter of these are expected to pay over $26,000 a year (in 2002 dollars). A mere
\n12.6% will require a college degree, while most will require on-the-job training
\nonly. Of the 20 occupations expected to grow the fastest, only six require college
\ndegrees\u2014these are in computer systems and computer information technology
\nfields, and there are relatively few of these jobs overall (Department of Labor, 2002).
\nGender discrimination can work to reverse\u2014or even eliminate\u2014wage gains
\nthat accrue to individuals with more education. Female high school graduates earn
\nless than male high school dropouts. And women with post-bachelor’s degrees earn
\nless than men who have just a bachelor’s (Lafer, 2002; Mishel, Bernstein, &
\nBoushey, 2003 ; Wolff, 2003). If you are female, more education does not necessarily
\nmean higher wages.
\nRace as well can cut into the benefits of further education. A study of entry-level
\nworkers in California, for example, discovered that Black and Latino youth had
\nimproved significantly on every measure of skill in absolute terms and relative to
\nWhite workers. Yet their wages were falling further behind those of Whites. In this
\nexample, the deleterious effects of racism outweighed the benefits of education,
\nwith minority workers at every level of education losing ground to similarly
\nprepared Whites (Lafer, 2002).
\nVarious other economic realities\u2014such as lack of unionization, multiple free
\ntrade agreements which outsource jobs, and increasing use of part-time workers\u2014
\ncut across the college-wage benefit, lowering it significantly for large numbers of
\npeople, most of whom are minorities and women.
\nEven a college degree no longer guarantees a decent job. One of six college
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\nBy Jean Anyon & Kiersten Greene
\ngraduates is in a job paying less than the average salary of high school graduates
\n(Anyon, 2005). Between 8.8% and 11% of people with a bachelor’s degree make
\naround the minimum wage. This means that an increasing number of college
\ngraduates\u2014about one in ten\u2014is employed at poverty wages (ibid.). Even the
\neducation levels of welfare recipients are high. The share of welfare recipients who
\nhave high school degrees has increased from 42% in 1979 to more than two-thirds
\n(70%) in 1999 (U.S. General Accounting Office, 2001).
\nThese realities suggest that the promise of good jobs and better pay underlying
\nNCLB is a false one for many people\u2014especially low-income minority students and
\nwomen\u2014because for them educational achievement brings no guarantee of eco
\nnomic success.
\nConsider, finally, that the vast majority of low-income students who do
\nattend college do not have the funds or other supports to complete their bachelor’s
\ndegree. The majority of low-income students who attend college are forced to
\nwithdraw, and only 7 percent of very low-income people attain a bachelor’s by
\nage 26 (Ed. Trust, 2004b).
\nIn addition to these economic realities, there are federal policies that contradict
\nthe implicit premise of NCLB that higher educational achievement leads to good
\njobs. Minimum wage policy and job training policy are two examples.
\nMinimum Wage Policy
\nThe minimum wage in 2006 was $5.15, which produces a yearly income of
\n$ 10,712. This sum means that full-time, year-round, minimum-wage work will not
\nraise people out of poverty (Mishel, Bernstein, & Boushey, 2003). An analysis in
\n2004 found that minimum-wage standards directly affect the wages of 9% of the
\nworkforce (9.9 million workers). When we include those making just one dollar
\nmore an hour than the minimum wage ($6.15 an hour or $12,792 annually), this
\nlegislation affects the wages of as much as 18% of the workforce (17.8 million
\nworkers)(Economic Policy Institute July, 2004).
\nIn fact, an almost universally ignored reality is that nearly half of the workforce
\nearns what some economists call “poverty-zone wages” (and what Anyon defines
\nas up to and including 125 percent of the official poverty level) (Anyon, 2005).
\nAnyon’s analysis demonstrated that in 1999, during a very strong economy, almost
\nhalf of all people at work in the U.S. (41.3%) earned poverty-zone wages\u2014$10.24\/
\nhour ($21,299\/year) or less, working full-time, year-round (Mishel, Bernstein &
\nSchmitt, 2001, Table 2.10, p. 130). Two years later, in 2001,38.4% earned poverty
\nzone wages working full-time, year-round (in 2001,125% of the poverty threshold
\nwas a $ 10.88 hourly wage) (Mishel, Bernstein, & Boushey, 2003). This suggests that
\nthe federal minimum-wage policy is an important determinant of poverty for many
\nmillions of U.S. families.
\nThus, it seems to us that realistic anti-poverty policies would include signifi
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\nNo Child Left Behind as an Anti-Poverty Measure
\ncant raises in the minimum wage. Indeed, during the decades following World War
\nII, when working-class Americans prospered, the minimum wage was indexed to the
\nwages of well-paid, unionized, industrial workers: when their wages increased, so
\ndid the wages of the un-unionized (Galbraith, 1998).
\nWe would note that education did not create the problem of wide-spread
\npoverty wages, and education will not solve the problem. No Child Left Behind will
\nnot raise wages for the millions who work at poverty jobs. Only employers and
\ngovernments can raise wages.
\nJob Training Policy
\nA second policy that weakens the assumption that increased education is a
\nroute to economic advancement for the poor is federal job training legislation.
\nIn 1982 President Ronald Reagan cut the Comprehensive Employment and
\nTraining Administration (CETA) program, which had created more than two million
\nfull-time jobs for the unemployed. Since the early 1980s, the federal government
\nhas depended on job training instead of job creation as the main method by which
\npeople are to move from poverty and unemployment to solvency. (Although the
\nfederal government does fund job creation for high-tech, high end positions.)
\nAnalyses have consistently demonstrated that job-training programs cannot
\nsucceed for more than a few low-income trainees because there are not enough jobs
\nto be had. Moreover, the jobs these programs prepare people for are almost always
\nlow-wage employment (such as janitorial work, or truck-driving) (Lafer, 2002;
\nPigeon & Wray, 1999).
\nRealistic anti-poverty policy would have to include job creation across the
\nboard. Job creation for the unemployed was in fact a long-term federal policy begun
\nin the 1930s during the Great Depression\u2014until it was eliminated by Reagan. If we
\nexpect students who achieve at high levels to obtain better jobs, we need to begin
\ncreating those jobs.
\nThe Social Costs of NCLB
\nNCLB is often criticized for the ways in which it attempts to privatize a p controlled function by moving to a capitalistic market model in which edu service creates profits for private business.
\nSchools that fail to raise test scores, for example, give way ultimatel vouchers in the market model, but first to a variety of expensive, pre-p curricula, testing, and tutoring programs. As a result, companies have al accrued billions of dollars of profit (Bracey, 2005). Among the largest bene of these newly expanded markets are long-term business friends of President Bush\u2014e.g., the McGraw family of test-makers CBT-McGraw Hill, powerfu ist Sandy Kress, and the developers and publishers of Reading First, a billio a-year, federally funded primary reading program for which districts must c 160
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\nBy Jean Anyon & Kiersten Greene
\n(ibid.). The privatization built into NCLB accelerates the 20th century trend toward
\nshaping public education in the interests of corporate concerns. Our concluding
\nargument builds on this point.
\nWe have alleged that NCLB is a federal legislative substitute for policies that
\nwould actually lower poverty\u2014legislation that would create jobs with decent
\nwages for those who do not have them. Our critique has been that an assumption
\nunderlying NCLB, that increased educational achievement will ultimately reduce
\npoverty, does not prove valid for large segments of the population. We want to make
\na further point here.
\nIf businesses were mandated by law to create jobs for those who need them\u2014
\nand if business had to pay decent wages and benefits\u2014the costs to business owners
\nwould be enormous. As we know, neither small nor large corporations pay such costs
\nnow. Instead, the costs of the poverty produced by insufficient and poorly paid
\nemployment are passed on to the tax-paying public in the form of programs to
\ncompensate: public tax dollars pay for welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid\u2014among
\nother publicly-funded programs that attempt to ameliorate the individual and social
\npain of unemployment and underemployment.
\nWhen the federal government and the business communities rely on education
\nto reduce poverty, the social costs of the failure of such an approach are enormous,
\nand taxpayers shoulder the burden.
\nPolitical economists have pointed out that in the last half century taxpayers
\nhave paid for an increasing number of supports that make private business\u2014
\nespecially large corporate conglomerates\u2014profitable. Economist James O’Connor
\nnoted in 1973 that taxpayers increasingly paid for more infrastructure, research and
\ndevelopment, and education:
\nCapitalist production has become more interdependent\u2014more dependent on
\nscience and technology, labor functions more specialized, and the division of
\nlabor more extensive. Consequently, the monopoly sector [energy conglomer
\nates, concentrated banking and finance, giant information technology firms, and
\nmanufacturing].., requires increasing numbers of technical and administrative
\nworkers. It also requires increasing amounts of infrastructure (physical overhead
\ncapital)\u2014transportation, communication, R&D, education, and other facilities.
\nIn short, the monopoly sector requires more and more social investment in relation
\nto private capital…. The costs of social investment… are not borne by monopoly
\ncapital but rather are socialized and fall on the state [i.e., upon tax payers].
\n(O’Connor 1973,24)
\nThat is, public funds subsidize the research and development, technology, and
\neducation that the corporate community says it needs.
\nWe want to extend O’Connor’s argument to include the social costs of the
\npoverty produced when jobs are lacking and pay is low. When businesses and large
\ncorporations pay poverty-range wages to 41 % of the people at work in America, the
\ncosts of supporting people’s needs are socialized to the tax-paying public, just as
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\nNo Child Left Behind as an Anti-Poverty Measure
\nthe technological and other costs of doing business have been. The private sector
\nis not liable for the social costs of the poverty its actions produce.
\nNCLB is part of this process of socializing the costs of poverty. When the Act
\nassumes\u2014even implicitly\u2014that poverty is a result of low scores on standardized
\ntests, rather than on the fact that there are not enough decently paying jobs, it lets
\nthe business community off the hook. It saddles the poor with unrealistic expecta
\ntions and the rest of us with unwitting support of corporate irresponsibility.
\nReferences
\nAnyon, J. (2005). Radical possibilities: Public policy, urban education, and a new soc movement. New York: Routledge.
\nBracey, G. (2005). No Child Left Behind: Where does the money go? Policy Brief, Educat Policy Studies Laboratory, Education Policy Research Unit, Arizona State University Department of Labor (2002). Occupation project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees)ions to 2010. Washington, DC: Author Education Trust. (2004b). A matter of degrees: Improving graduation rates in four-y colleges and universities. Washington, DC: Author.
\nGalbraith, J. K. (1998). Created unequal: The crisis in American pay. Twentieth Century F Book. New York: The Free Press, Simon & Schuster.
\nLafer, G. (2002). The job training charade. Ithaca, NY :Cornell University Press.
\nMishel, L., Bernstein, J., & Boushey, H. (2003). The state of working America: 2002\/2003 Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press.
\nMishel, L., Bernstein, J., & Schmitt, J. (2001). The state of working America: 2000\/2001. Itha NY : Cornell University Press.
\nO’Connor, J. (1973). Fiscal crisis of the state. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
\nPigeon, M.-A., & Wray, R. (1999). Down and out in the U.S.: An inside look at the out of t labor force population. Public Policy Brief No. 54. Annandale-on-Hudson, NY: Th Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.<\/p>\n
——-<\/p>\n
Spring 2007 issue of Teacher Education Quarterly
\nThere will be no child left behind.<\/p>\n
as a form of anti-poverty action<\/p>\n
Kiersten Greene and Jean Anyon<\/p>\n
When you think about it, the No Child Left Behind Act is essentially a jobs act.<\/p>\n
\u2014President George W. Bush, Third Presidential Debate, October 13, 2004<\/p>\n
Although No Child Left Behind is not marketed as a jobs policy (Bush’s slip during a Presidential Debate being the only time it is given that label), the Act does serve as a substitute for the creation of decent-paying employment for people who need them, according to this article. NCLB is an anti-poverty program since it is based on an assessment of poverty. Its 1965 predecessor, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, was aimed specifically at the minority poor.<\/p>\n
\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\u00a1\u00a1M increased implicit assumption<\/p>\n
U.S. General Accounting Office. (2001, March). Welfare reform: Moving hard-to-emp recipients into the workforce. Report GAO-01-386. Washington, DC: U.S. Gener Accounting Office.
\nWolff, E. (2003). Recent trends in living standards in the United States. Annandale-on-Hudso NY : Bard College, Jerome Levy Economics Institute.
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