Entry
The Truth About Economic Mobility
February 24th, 2008
A few weeks ago, Chris and I got into an online debate with our well-meaning fellow ward members about the virtue of paying taxes for public education. As a home-schooling family, they felt that it was unfair that their property taxes should go to pay for a broken system that they've already opted out of. I support their reasons for homeschooling, but I still feel that public education is a good thing and that it should be supported with taxes from the community. (See Debate #1 and Debate #2.)
This week I came across some statistics that nicely supported my fundamental position. I wish I could have had them in my arsenal back then!
The Economic Mobility Project released a study this week about the viability of the idea that anyone can be successful if they are hard working and determined (a.k.a the American Dream). According to the press release:
- "Across every income group, Americans are more likely to surpass their parents' income in absolute terms if they earn a college degree, reinforcing the conventional wisdom that higher education provides a means for opportunity." You are four times more likely to move from poverty to wealth if you earn a college degree than if you do not.
- "Family background plays an equally, if not more important, role than education." If you are born into wealth, you have a 23% chance of remaining wealthy if you don’t obtain an education. Yet if you’re born into poverty, you only have an 19% chance of moving to the top, and that’s if you earn a college degree. (There’s only a 5% chance if you don’t get an education.)
- "Data show that…there is ’stickiness’ at the ends of the wealth distribution." About one-third of those born into poverty remain in poverty. About one-third of those born into wealth remain wealthy. (There’s a lot of movement up and down among the middle-class, however.)
Other interesting findings are that "family incomes of both sons and daughters resemble their parents' to a similar degree". But "only 31 percent of black children born to middle-income parents make more than their parents' family income, compared to 68 percent of white children".
Allow me to go on a tangent here... I remember back when I taught writing classes at the U of U, I had my students choose between 3 different essays that had flawed arguments and gave them an assignment to write a brief essay pointing out the logical fallacies. One of the essays was in defense of Affirmative Action. The author argued:
I come from generations of moderate wealth. My family came over on the Mayflower and made money in the slave trade. Doctors, lawyers, judges, and comfortable business people go back several generations in my clan. I was never wealthy, but I could not have devoted myself to college and graduate work without support from my family and a timely inheritance. I am standing on the shoulders of my ancestors and their discriminatory behavior.
My students usually thought it was a fallacy to say that you should have to pay for the sins of your ancestors because you are reaping the indirect benefits of their actions. "I'm my own person," they would say. "I make my own choices and the only one I'm accountable for is myself. I shouldn't have to pay for what my ancestors did." And I supported them in that argument.
But now, I'm not so sure. I think that the choices made by my parents and by my ancestors absolutely affect me. We all inherit blessings or curses from our parents based on their choices. Take, for example, the cycle of physical abuse. It's incredibly hard to break that cycle. It is possible to break it---but it's incredibly difficult.
Likewise, you inherit your parents' race, class, and religious/political beliefs (even if you choose to discard those beliefs later in life, you are still influenced by them). And you inherit all of the boons or pitfalls that come along with those circumstances.
As the economic mobility study shows, education is the only true equalizer. Flawed or not, I still believe that the public education is worth supporting and worth paying taxes for.
Comments
Ammon said on Feb 24th:
Earlier this week I was getting angry in my head about paying taxes for all of these complete stranger's kids to go to school. Then I thought about how I would like to live in a community where only the parents of school children paid for their schooling only if they could afford it and only if they wanted to. My very poor uncle once said to my very poor dad, "poor people have poor ways." Just like any blanket statement this doesn't apply to everybody, but I agree with it. I believe it is worth the money to help provide, especially those poor, in my community an opportunity to better themselves and their living circumstances. I believe it is a good thing to do on their behalf, and it will better our world and community.
Maryanne said on Feb 25th:
I don't think I can express my thoughts clearly enough that if someone you were arguing with were to wander past here they wouldn't think I was judging them, so I won't go on at length- but let's say that one of the issues I struggle with as far as homeschooling goes is that the "broken system" will never be fixed if strong families continue to separate themselves from it rather than applying themselves to fixing it, and that plays into paying for it as well. I apparently also have issues with run-on sentences.
biffy said on Feb 25th:
I am on your side of the debate and I agree with Maryanne. It only corrupts the system further to deplete it's most precious resources. Also in the scriptures when it talks about cursing generations for the sins of the parents, like 7 generations or whatever, they are specifically referring to this very problem of behavior modification. To Alyssa's credit she identified the very solution that the Lord presents, education.
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