Progressive Opinion

newdeal20.org — Education was rightly big on Obama’s agenda in his State of the Union address last week. As he noted, “[T]o prepare for the jobs of tomorrow, our commitment to skills and education has to start earl[y].” He proposed solutions to getting better outcomes from kindergarten to higher ed. But his eyes were mostly on containing the system we have. Yet on a more general level, we’re still having a conversation as a country about what we mean when we say that we owe every child a decent education. We’re currently trying to fix an issue fundamentally about social justice by focusing on accountability, competition, and choice. A conversation about values — the purpose of education and what it should bring each child — is lacking. Why do we educate children? Is the end goal a higher salary? High test scores? Or something else?

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newamericamedia.org — In his State of the Union, President Obama stressed the importance of keeping manufacturing in America. The reasoning is that in order to continue to innovate and develop the next generation must-have products, the U.S. needs manufacturing that uses leading edge technology. Nothing wrong with the reasoning, but it may be too late. A lengthy analysis on why jobs are flowing to China based on the Apple iPhone experience appeared in the New York Times. One of the most important findings was that America simply no longer has the skill sets to meet Apple’s demands for a high quality, technology product. America has lost the edge to make things. The training programs Obama talked about might serve as temporary Band-Aids that might keep certain production from leaving in the short term. But to maintain a world leadership position, the U.S. will need far more technicians, engineers and scientists than the country is producing.

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newdeal20.org — Last night, listening to the State of the Union, I felt really proud of my president. I felt inspired. He spoke to me as a member of the Millennial generation. There seems to be a lot of chatter in politics about how to help out my cohort — talk of how to save my generation from a dystopian future of mountains of federal debt, an oppressive federal health care system, and illegal immigrants stealing our jobs. Last night, President Obama showed that he understood that this kind of rhetoric is not what my generation needs. Fairness is at the heart of the solution. Millennials know it, and the president gets it. He also understands that fairness is not merely a virtue to aspire to, but a core value that we can tangibly work on — and one that is at the center of what makes our country as strong and resilient as it is.

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huffingtonpost.com — When President George W. Bush joined congressmen John Boehner, George Miller and Edward Kennedy to sign the No Child Left Behind Act in January 2002, he touted the moment as a bipartisan victory for America's children. "Today begins a new era, a new time in public education in our country," Bush proclaimed in Princeton, N.J., as he signed the bill into law on Jan. 8, 2002. "As of this hour, America's schools will be on a new path of reform, and a new path of results." But 10 years later, results matching Bush's rhetoric haven't yet arrived — and the law itself is unlikely to change any time soon.

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alternet.org — I’ve been in a panic these last few months. Making minimum payments on my student loans was no longer merely a challenge – it was getting impossible. After making some awful sacrifices to refrain from defaulting, I’m in a corner. I am aware of the total lack of consumer protection associated with student debt. I knew that if I was unable to make my minimum payments, they would hit me with late fees, penalties, etc. They would harass me. In ruining my credit history, they would make it impossible for me to get access to basic services. Forget about taking out another loan – I’m talking about not being able to rent an apartment. And defaulting would not only mean a ruined credit history, it would mean that my debt would double, triple, quadruple, etc…I would be a slave forever. But I took a long, hard look at the numbers, and I realized that I am already a slave.

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truthdig.com — The deliberate pepper-spraying by campus police of nonviolent protesters at UC Davis on Friday has provoked national outrage. But the horrific incident must not cloud the real question: What led comfortable, bright, middle-class students to join the Occupy protest movement against income inequality and big-money politics in the first place? University students, who face tuition hikes and state cuts to public education, find themselves victimized by the same neoliberal agenda that has created the current economic crisis, and which profoundly endangers democratic values.

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thenation.com — I grew up in a blue-collar middle-class family in Middletown, Ohio, once named an All-American City. My dad worked at the local steel factory as a machinist, and my mom was an office manager at the local orthodontist’s office. I had a good life growing up—we took vacations every year to Myrtle Beach, four kids and six suitcases crammed into a Chevy. We always had healthcare and didn’t really lack for anything. My parents were able to pay for me to go to a state college out of their own pocket. I worked only during winter and summer breaks, and that was basically so I would have money to spend on college life, not on college itself. I focused on my studies, graduated in four years and left college with zero debt. Today, my story isn’t possible for a new generation.

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newdeal20.org — As credit card and housing debt become unbearable, there’s a point at which they get written down. That point is too high, but because of various laws regarding debt collection that shift the strategy and potential end results between the actors, there’s a logic to it. As far as I can tell, there’s simply no equivalent chart, or even logic, for student loans. Because of legal choices we’ve made in how to set up this relationship, it stays forever, is virtually impossible to discharge under hardship, churns fees when it goes bad, and creditors can get to anything, including Social Security, to get it repaid. Meanwhile, we have a Great Depression-like event that is throwing college graduates into a labor market that is far too weak. How is this not setting a generation up for complete disaster?

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washingtonmonthly.com — When it comes to the student-loan reform measure that was approved in 2010, Paul Ryan is either deeply ignorant or he’s shamelessly lying. The reform measure didn’t “confiscate the private student loan industry”; that’s idiotic. Under Ryan’s preferred model, before reform, the student-loan industry received taxpayer subsidies to provide a service the government could perform for less. Democrats removed the middleman, streamlined the process, saved taxpayers a lot money, and helped more young people get college degrees. No one “confiscated” anything — the “private student loan industry” still exists — and the officials simply stopped giving money to banks for no reason as part of the federal student-loan system. If Ryan wants to return to an inefficient and needlessly expensive model, he’s welcome to make the case, but he shouldn’t lie about the existing policy.

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politics.salon.com — USA Today says that at some point this year, student loan debt will exceed $1 trillion, surpassing even credit card debt. Felix Salmon says the number is closer to $550 billion. Either way total student loan debt is rising as other debts have tailed off. Delinquency has increased, too, since the height of the financial crisis. It’s a huge mess. Some people have noticed that “student loan debt” comes up a lot among the Wall Street Occupiers and the members of the 99 percent movement. Often, older people, who attended school when tuition was reasonable, tend to think this is all the entitled whining of spoiled kids. They don’t understand that these kids accepted a home mortgage worth of debt before they ever even had a regular income, based on phony promises, and that the debt is inescapable, regardless of life circumstances or ability to pay.

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