Twitter Blog 10/6

I chose to focus on growing economic disparities between the top bracket of income earners and the rest of the American population. I see many parallels between both the economic and educational favoring of the already-rich as opposed to support of the “American Dream” and social mobility, as the ‘branding’ of America so strongly boasts. The article “The Benefits of Economic Expansions are Increasingly Going to the Richest Americans” by Neil Irwin, published on “The Upshot” provides the reader with a series of income-gains statistics which are divided by time period and income-level. It states that throughout the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s income gains were experienced at a nearly equal rate across the board of income-levels. Since the 60’s, for every economic expansion, the top 10% has been receiving a larger and larger portion of income-gains. Between 2009 and 2012 income-gains actually fell for the bottom 90% of income-earners while the top 10% received 116% of income gains.

The rich are and have been favored in recent years because they boost the aggregate. But since when is a country judged only on the top of society and not on the population as a whole? By investing and allowing the rich to get richer, a country may seem much better off than it is in actuality. One of my favorite personal examples of this is in my International Business course two years ago. My professor walked into class and declared Brazil as one of the most developed countries in the world because its GDP per capita was increasing so much over the past few years. What he; however, failed to mention was the incredible levels of inequality and the fact that much of the Brazilian population actually lives in poverty. When we judge a country based on the top, we ignore inequality and the social implications caused by it.

Labaree describes the most recent goal of education as “social mobility” — but not in the American Dream sense. What is meant of this is the usage of educational attainment as a credential, which reinforces stratification and affords those that already possess economic advantages, more economic advantages. Labaree describes this as the dominant schooling theory of our time, citing capitalism and globalization to be contributing factors. What this form of schooling does is fuel income-gains inequalities by presenting the already-rich with opportunities to further their fortunes, leaving low-income students in the dust. Because both of these systems rely and thrive on inequalities, the gaps are increasing exponentially.

All this, in addition to penalizing schools for loan defaults (thus incentivizing the acceptance of affluent students) contributes to an America that seems to not be concerned with the American Dream, but rather the promotion and excellence of those already on top. For this to be fixed, schools must commit to a more diverse student body, accommodations for non-traditional students and a less-emphasized rankings system. These ‘fixes’, in essence, undermine capitalism and its promotion of aggregate achievement as opposed to the real status of educational benefit.