Rampant Capitalism - Part II: How it has affected education in the US

For those of you who missed it, I urge you to read my earlier post:

Rampant Capitalism: A Detriment to Society in the US

Before moving forward, you might notice that I changed the title of the previous post. Although I do strongly believe that rampant capitalism could lead to the death of the US as we know it, I decided that the revised title was more appropriate.

Education is the single most important investment we can make in our own future. Yet, we pay teachers the same as what we pay garbage collectors. According to Simply Hired, the average salary of a garbage collector is $43,000 per year. Simply Hired also indicates that the average teacher salary is $43,000 per year. CBSalary.com shows similar results for both teachers and garbage collectors. In the meantime, professional ball players (football, basketball, baseball, etc), actors, and other professionals with much less important jobs than teachers are making millions of dollars. Where are our priorities when we treat a ball player or actor like a god and, in contrast, a teacher like an undesirable? Seriously, many people go weak in the knees, cry with joy, and would give their right arm to just shake hands with a ball player or actor. Yet, many people don't even bother getting involved with their children's teachers. It's no wonder they are seen as "less important" or "undesirable" and, thus, do not earn the wages they deserve. Lawyers are a dime a dozen. It's harder to find a good lawyer than it is a good doctor. Yet, lawyers, in general, are paid twice as much as teachers. In fairness, Simply Hired indicates $64,000 as an average salary for a lawyer, but that's still over $20,000 more than what the average teacher earns!

The bottom line: I strongly feel that the current starting pay for a teacher should be about $45,000. In contrast, the average pay should be about $55,000 and the cap at the high end about $65,000. Please keep in mind that I am referring to primary and secondary school teachers and not college or university professors.

Teachers put in much more than 40 hours per week; even Pre-K teachers! Sure, they might only be at the school for 8 hours per day, but they will spend an additional average of 3 hours per day grading papers, preparing lessons, making games and such for younger children, and organizing their stuff. So, that's 11 hours per day or 55 hours per week (not including time they spend doing work related stuff on the weekend)! Yet, they do not generally get paid for overtime. Nor due they get reimbursed for much of the money they spend on supplies. They might get an "allowance" of $100 to $200 per year for supplies in which they will be reimbursed. Yet, they'll easily spend 4 to 5 times that between paying for printer paper, printer ink, supplies to make decorations, borders, boards, etc. All of this comes out of their pocket! While it's not unreasonable to expect someone to invest a little bit in their job, their pay should be at a level such that they could do that and still live comfortably.

OK, I have given you a couple of examples of how rampant capitalism has affected education in the US. However, I'd like to really hit the nail on the head. Rather than CEO's of giant corporations hording money by the billions, they should reinvest in their community. Rather than having a net income of $5 billion per year or more, they should reinvest 95% (that's right, I said ninety five percent!) of that net income back in their community. After all, a net income of $250 million is still enough to live quite comfortably. For example, S. (Sam) Robson Walton's net worth as of March 2011 is $21 billion. Let's say that his net annual income is 0.5% of that; $105 million. He would still take home $10.5 million if he reinvested 90% of that income back into the community. If the hundreds of other billionaires joined him, this would help communities become more prosperous. It would give schools districts the much needed funds to keep their schools on the cutting edge of technological advancement. Thus, giving children the opportunity to have hands on experience with the latest technology. A high school education got you a lot further 50 to 60 years ago than it has since then. Also, back then, those who went to college could essentially write their own ticket. Thus, the overall success of generation 11 (those born between 1920 and 1940). Now, even a Bachelor of Science degree doesn't guarantee you a job. What happened? Our priorities shifted. Over the past 50 years, we went from a society who saw the importance of education to a society where idolizing ball players and actors are more important. Thus, they're making millions while the vast majority of adults between the ages of 25 and 45 are struggling to survive. We need to stop investing so much in a "pastime" and start investing more in our future!

This has to start as a grass roots effort. Parents need to step up to the plate and treat teachers as investments instead of "investing" so much in pastimes. Can't afford to give money? No problem. Offer services. Offer to construct new playgrounds so kids can do more physical activities. Offer to do repairs on air conditioning units. Many schools have teachers and kids working under deplorable conditions like 80+ degree classroom temperatures due to non-working air conditioning. Offer to form a parent group to help make schools safer. Talk to teachers and do things to let them know that you care! Parents could also take action to encourage companies to reinvest more in their communities by supporting education.

In the long run, this would trickle up through local, state, and federal governments. Then, hopefully, the federal government would force CEO's currently earning a net income of $500 million or more to reinvest at least 70% of it back into their community or pay a penalty by being taxed up to 95%! Does this sound like socialism? Well, maybe it is a flavor of socialism. However, companies can't just take from society. They need to give too! And not just "pocket change"! I strongly feel that this is the only way that the US will continue to have a strong, successful middle class in the long run. Otherwise, we'll end up like countries in South America and Africa with 10,000 people raking in the dough and millions of others scraping to survive.

In closing, I'd like to elaborate upon some of the comments that I made in my previous post regarding universities. I didn't mean to imply that the top 10 universties were the only good universities. My main point was that most people do not get to attend the "best universities". Thus, all of them, including the smaller community colleges, need to strive to provide the best higher education can offer so that we can continue to compete on a global level. There are lots of good universities. University of Virginia, University of North Carolina Asheville, Virginia Tech, and Johns Hopkins just to name a few. In fact, the inventor of the analog synthesizer, Robert Moog, taught at UNCA during his later years. Even Christopher Newport University has had some excellent professors over the years. Companies reinvesting in their communities would also help those seeking higher education by ensuring that their local colleges and universities have the best equipment and professors to teach young adults what they need to know to succeed in a given field.

Rampant Capitalism: A Detriment to Society in the US

Related posts:

The world's billionaires - What's wrong with this picture?

The World's Billionaires - Part II

Change We Must - A Call To Action

Since President Obama is talking about this tonight, I'd like to start off with my thoughts on health care in the US. An in depth study done by the World Health Organization back in 2000 shows the US ranked at #37 in health care. Despite arguments as to methodology of the ranking system, I think WHO's findings are pretty accurate within a margin of error (see pages 9-14). Note from the previous link that the majority of western European countries are well ahead of the US. In fact, France is rated #1. However, it is more alarming to me that even countries such as Singapore, Colombia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco rank much higher in quality of health care than the US. However, you might note that the countries who rank the highest are those with socialized health care systems: France, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Norway to name a few. You might also note that 4 out of those 5 countries are in the top 10!

Am I saying that the US should move toward socialized health care? In a word, yes! Earlier today, I heard a few doctors very publicly announce that less fortunate people should not receive the same level of health care as rich people. This was on ABC News at 6pm, folks! It could have been your doctor! Even if it wasn't, your doctor might very well share the same sentiment! Are you going to allow the greed of doctors to dictate who gets the best health care in the 21st century US? Or are you going to take a stand and say that every American deserves the same high standard of health care? Are you not tired of paying outrageous health care premiums? Even if your employer is "paying" the premiums, you are ultimately paying them. Your annual salary could realistically be 10% to 15% higher if your employer wasn't "paying" 75% to 100% of your health care premiums. That could be money in your pocket instead of lining the pockets of health insurance companies!

The bottom line is that if socialized health care is really "that bad", why do so many countries with such health care rank above the US in health care quality? Even England (UK) and Ireland are in the top 20. These countries, especially, are often ridiculed by the US for the perceived problems with their health care systems. Yet, the US ranks significantly below them. Do you know what it is that American doctors really fear about socialized health care? How much it will affect their bank accounts. That's right. Greed is what drives fear in the US as pertains to socialized health care! Would you prefer your doctor to "earn" $100K+ per year and receive the same crappy health care? Or would you rather your doctor earn $50K per year and receive higher quality health care? I vote for the latter. It should be a genuine caring for other people and not greed or perceived social status that drives people to become doctors. What about surgeons? They make the real money. $200K+ per year!! Some over $500k per year! I'd rather see them max out at $200K per year while the average surgeon makes $120K per year and provide the same or better quality service. Again, genuine care, not greed should drive people to become surgeons.

Also in recent news, it's about time that someone put some serious checks and balances on the tobacco industry. I cannot believe that this industry was allowed to grow into a multi-billion dollar machine over 60+ years before someone had the courage to call "fowl"! While the new law signed into affect by President Obama has it's flaws, I still see it as an excellent first step in the right direction. A direction heading staunchly away from rampant capitalism.

Now, if we can just follow suit with serious steps away from oil, a failing health care system, a failing education system, and a less caring society and move toward alternate, renewable energy, universal/socialized health care, an education system that's firmly rooted in the 21st century, and a society that promotes care instead of greed, the US might be able to pull itself out of the hole that it dug. Oil, as used by humans, is one of the environment's worst enemies. I will go into detail about oil and other factors and how they contribute to global warming in a future post. Right now, suffice it to say, the sooner we break all ties with oil the better the next 100 years will be for Earth and its inhabitants. As for education, according to a 2008 survey, 6 out of the top 10 universities are in the US. While 4 of them are in the UK. This alternate ranking by an independent group shows similar stats. Still, one has to ask: How many out of over 300 million people in the US get to attend these universities? About 15,500 students per year (taking the sum of the actual student count for each of the 10 universities and dividing by 10). That 155,000 people over a ten year period. Heck, let's say 200,000 over 10 years to account for growth. That's less than 1% of the current population in the US that's going to attend one of the top 10 universities in the world in the next 10 years! Perhaps more important, the US currently ranks #12 in human development in which education is a major factor. Meanwhile, our neighbor, Canada ranks #4 and Iceland ranks #1. You can find much more detailed data on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development site. However, a nice summary such as one found on the previous link seems to be a bit more elusive on that site. Nevertheless, according to a 2005 article on the CBS News site, the U.S. ranked #9 in education as per data from the OECD.

Continue to part II

Maximum Big Surprise - Why I Voted For Barack Obama

As I am sure many have noted, I took quite a long hiatus. This is due largely in part to my acquiring a new job back in June. Without spending too much time on the topic, let's just say that I was working a lot of overtime and then the holiday season rolled in. . . . you get the idea. Life happens.

After tearing into Barack prior to him winning the primary, it probably comes as a big surprise that I voted for him. In short, after hearing the debates, I liked Barack's ideas on the economy and health care more than those of McCain. Also, I honestly thought that Barack was the stronger debater. I am hoping that he can rebuild the bridges that GWB burned with many of our European friends. I am also helping that he can help improve our relations with Russia. If we don't improve diplomatic relations with Russia, they could become a much larger problem than Al Qaeda. Alas, that is a topic for another series of posts. In essence, I am hoping and praying that Barack will truly bring us "change we can believe in". It will be interesting to see where we are on March 31 (the end of the first quarter). I don't expect miracles with regard to the economy, but it will be nice to see some positive changes in affect.

So far, the first few days of his presidency have been relatively quiet. Hopefully, that's a good thing. I remember when Clinton first came into office. One of the first things he did was to help enact the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the military; a risky gesture to do as one of your first actions in office. Hopefully, instead of doing something extreme, Barack will just improve on existing policies like No Child Left Behind and the Patriot Act. Also, I'm praying that he'll help the economy improve to be as good or better than it was between 1987 and 2000 in the next 4 years.

In closing, I'll simply thank the good lord that GWB is no longer president and hope that I made the right choice in voting for Barack.