"To be super clear, let’s distinguish between three claims here: Education is a way to end poverty. Education is the best way to end poverty. Education is the only way to end poverty. These are all false, but since number three is the one Rhee and Duncan and the education reformer crowd pushes, let’s start there. It is flatly not the case that to end poverty you need to alter education. Americans should know this. Starting from the 1960s, we as a society cut outrageously high rates of elderly poverty by 71%. We did that by sending old people checks called Social Security. We also know from international data that low-poverty countries get that way through tax and transfer schemes, not unlike Social Security (I, II). If you are saying nothing but education will dramatically cut poverty, when things other than education absolutely will and have, you are an enemy of the poor. You are contributing to a discursive world where people ignore the easiest, most proven ways to cut poverty. You are a bad person."
Posted on: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 17:03:07 +0000
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