Factories, Wal-Mart and Paul on the importance of great urban teachers

Urban Context (1.0)

Recently, I posted a blog describing the forces impacting large urban cities, like Memphis. Most significantly, technology and outsourcing have significantly reduced the number of mid-level jobs in American cities. Mid-level jobs are those jobs that required mid-level skills and paid wages that supported middle-class lifestyles. These jobs were mostly the industrial / manufacturing (unionized) jobs. The industrial revolution provided ample access to these jobs and therefore to a rising standard of living.

Today, however, things have changed. Automation and cheap overseas labor have taken away these mid-level jobs leaving "most of the lesser-skilled city workers employed in the services rather than in the more promising unionized factory jobs. As a result, the city's (Memphis) racial and ethnic ghettos have become repositories for a sizable number of extremely poor residents with very limited job prospects." (Opportunity Lost, Pohlmann, page 37)

More recently, see Belaboured (Economist, May 29, 2010). This article chronicles the transition of a Chicago South Side neighborhood that has seen the loss of factories give way to a potential opening of a Wal-Mart... with much lower wages: "Mildred McClendon, who has lived on the South Side since 1968, is one of those who say they would welcome Wal-Mart if it paid a middle-class wage. She remembers when the area’s factories whirred. Her husband worked at Automatic Electric and the Wal-Mart site in Pullman was home to a steel plant. The retail stores that replaced the factories, she insists, must pay more. If Wal-Mart agrees to raise wages, other retailers will follow suit. This is the argument put forward by Chicago’s unions and their supporters. But remembering the old days is unlikely to do them much good."

Into this urban economic reality we go to teach the next generation... Into this urban economic reality, education is more important than ever. It means life or death.

Recognizing that God, speaking through the writer Paul in the book of Philippians (chapter 2), has called us to "look not only to our own interests but also to the interests of others", entering Memphis' highest-needs schools to be fantastic math, english, science, spanish, french, history or elementary teachers is absolutely a valid and necessary response to the gospel. For what is the alternative?

Won't you join us?

Harvard, Solzhenitsyn and a Christian Take on Urban Education

For important urban context (1.1) see "As jobs fade away" in the May 8th Economist.

This is an excellent overview of what is significantly impacting our lower-educated urban population. In summary, over the past 30 years or so, technology has drastically improved efficiencies and therefore drastically eliminated whole classes of middle-skilled jobs that provided middle class lifestyles. As a result, there continues to be large numbers of both very low skilled minimum wage jobs and high skilled high paying jobs. The jobs in the middle, however, have shrunk.

In addition, due to population trends (see last blog entry, "Deep Magic") there is a growing percentage of a lower educated population and a declining percentage of a higher educated population. This fact has had the supply and demand result of putting a declining wage pressure on the middle and low skilled jobs and a rising wage pressure on the high skilled jobs. As a result, since 1979 there has been significant positive change in real income for highly educated persons and a significant decline in real income for those with limited education. See chart and excerpts below.

"Americans were keenly aware of this growing inequality even before the recession; in 2007, the top 1% of earners took home 23.5% of all income earned, the highest share since 1928. In recent decades the American economy has become increasingly polarised. Jobs have been plentiful for low and high-skilled workers, but employment opportunities for middle-skilled labourers have become much scarcer. Technology is the main culprit. Automation and outsourcing have claimed whole classes of jobs. The supply of skilled workers has failed to keep pace with demand, so the college wage premium (see chart) has increased."

"Middle-skill jobs have declined as a share of occupations across Europe as well, and inequality has increased, though not as much as in America. How to maintain a stable middle class amid sweeping technological change is a problem the developed world is only beginning to appreciate. Governments will be sorely tempted to protect workers, but a flexible, well-educated labour force is likely to fare best in the transition."

So, a new issue is upon us (as stated in the article): how to maintain a stable middle class amid sweeping technological changes (advancements and efficiencies). A well-educated workforce is the Economist's best answer.

So what is the "Christian Context" of this new western issue?

In his commencement speech to Harvard in 1978, Alexander Solzhenitsyn spoke these fascinating words: “However, in early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because man is God’s creature. Thus, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were discarded everywhere in the West; a total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice… The West ended up by truly enforcing human rights, sometimes even excessively, but man’s sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer. The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.”

This is fascinating. What began as “theology”… that because you were created by God, then you do have certain rights – no matter your race, religion, economic or educational status, etc. And so “individual’s rights” were created by God because He created us in His image… the same Maker is the maker of us all. However, the other side of this theological coin is that man not only has INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, but also has been gifted by this same God with INDIVIDUAL OBLIGATIONS.

Now, in “modern history” we have thrown off God (Time Magazine April 8, 1966 “Is God Dead”) but have quite conveniently kept the notion of individual rights. Yet we have twisted these "rights" to mean that one may do whatever one wishes. Rarely in this culture that screams for the right to do and say and be anything does anyone still clamor for the right to do and serve and love and help others.

So the Christian context is that it is time, again, to defend not so much our human rights as our human obligations. And our obligations - as mandated by a good God - is to (among other things) look out for the poor and the needy. To seek injustices and make them fair and right. To do unto others as we would have others do unto us. To look out for our neighbor.

This is a great leadership point. We need people-of-courage who will think in terms of (Godly) obligation and not personal rights. Or, in different terms, we need people who will think of rights in terms of other’s rights, and not simply our own.

And there is no greater unmet "right" today than the right for every child in America to sit before a great teacher within a great school.

Who's game?

The Deep Magic of Jesus, Narnia and Urban Education

See Minding the Education Gap, from Miller-McCune on May 18.
(http://www.miller-mccune.com/business-economics/minding-the-education-gap-16074/)

He points out what we already know... that there is a large, and growing, education gap between whites / asians and blacks / hispanics. Thirty-two percent of whites and asians have college degrees while only 15% of blacks and hispanics do - a larger disparity than a decade ago.

However, he points out another trend that is important to understand, "Non-whites are expected to outnumber white Americans by 2042, and among the under-18 population in the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, they already do. At the same time, good-paying jobs that don’t require a college degree are dwindling, as the country transitions away from manufacturing jobs that once supported the middle class into an ever-more high-tech economy.Taken together, these trends suggest a mismatch between the future American workforce and the type of work a country must produce to stay competitive in the global economy. Educational disparities are growing at a time when the population of those less likely to be educated is growing, and as the proportion of jobs requiring higher education is growing, too."

The result of a growing U.S. percentage of a lower educated population is that "If we do nothing to close the (education) gap, we’ll wind up with an economy that matches our less-educated workforce."

Something has to give, as he puts it. He proposes three solutions to maintain a US global competitive advantage and sustain a large US middle class: (1) change the structural direction of the US economy so that it can financially support a growing non-college degreed population; (2) reverse the population growth trends of the nation; or (3) CLOSE the education gap. It goes without saying that only option #3 is viable.

There are several takeaways to this article and issue. First, and most obvious, but as a reminder, this is the SINGLE GREATEST SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUE in America today.

Second, and very important to get, is this: the situation is so desperate and the education bar is so low in high poverty areas that real and meaningful gains can, should and WILL be made. The significance of these gains, I believe, will be a creation of momentum that will draw the more hesitant and pessimistic into the battle. But for now we need the "first followers"... those who are drawn not to the progress but to the need. The first followers will be the ones that seem crazy to jump into "despair". But soon, their hard plowing will produce fruit. And the sweetness of the fruit will attract a crowd, and a tipping point will have been reached.

Need is the new opportunity. Turning negatives into positives. Using the low bar to demonstrate huge gains to bring the masses. Taking advantage of dysfunction to bring progress. Just like the "deep magic" of Narnia... death being tricked to usher in life.

Just the way Jesus did it.

And so shall we.