Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
The picture above really says it all. Walmart, our country’s largest retail operation is run by people who are so clueless that they’ve created a culture that doesn’t even understand the massive irony in running a Thanksgiving Food Pantry for its own employees. The photo comes from a Walmart in Canton, Ohio. The concept of food collections for the poor at retail establishments is widespread in America, even as many Americans deny that anyone in this country goes hungry. The irony of this food drive though is that it is asking Walmart employees, who are already low paid, to donate food to fellow employees who are even worse off than they are. It is also ironic that the food drive is for Thanksgiving Dinner, since almost all Walmart Stores have been open all day for Thanksgiving for many years, so one wonders what type of Thanksgiving Dinner Walmart associates will have at all? What is new this year is that “Black Friday” for Walmart customers will begin at 6:00pm on Thanksgiving Day and run through the night.
The average Walmart Associate makes $8.81 per hour which translates into a yearly income of $15,576 if the Associate works a full time schedule. Most Associates don’t work full time because working full time would entitle them to benefits that Walmart doesn’t want to pay. Interestingly, the current U.S. poverty level for a three person family in our country is $19,530. So we see that the rare Walmart full time employee, with two dependents, earns about $4,000 per year below the nation’s poverty level. Indeed, Walmart has made it a practice to inform its employees about benefits like Snap and Public Assistance. At the risk of being portrayed as a “bleeding heart” by some of our readers, let me state that I think this company is disgusting in its personnel policies and is an example of what is worst about our country. Let me explain further.Here is an insider’s view on the specific Walmart situation in Ohio, from an Ohio State Representative:
“A recent study concluded of all the companies in Ohio, Wal-Mart has the highest number of employees on public assistance. Of the 50,000 Wal-Mart employees and dependents, almost 13,000 are on food stamps, and 15,000 on Medicaid. What part of the American dream can the employees of this giant “welfare queen” expect? The Waltons, America’s wealthiest family, knows they are exploiting their workers, and all at the cost of American taxpayers. Wal-Mart wants its employees to take care of one another while everyone else foots the bill for health care, food and housing assistance.
Last year during the Thanksgiving season, Wal-Mart associates bravely spoke out and rallied on Black Friday to protest the company’s low wages and poor labor practices. And on cue, the retail giant’s management illegally harassed and even fired employees who participated in the protests. Thankfully, the National Labor Relations Boards found that Wal-Mart’s actions broke the law, but it is yet another example of the company’s ill treatment of their workers.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-hagan/walmart-ohio-food-drive_b_4321122.html?utm_hp_ref=business&ir=Business
From the Huffington Post article that supplied the picture and gave background to it.
“When their paychecks don’t cut it, many associates turn to public assistance to make up the difference. Walmart’s low wages and insufficient scheduling are behind the enormous costs to the taxpayer incurred by each store. One Walmart Supercenter costs taxpayers $900,000 in Medicaid, SNAP, housing assistance, and other forms of public assistance.” http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/18/1256468/-If-You-Aren-t-Sure-Walmart-Needs-to-Pay-Higher-Wages-This-Photo-Will-Erase-All-Doubt?detail=email
This is in essence the dirty little secret of Walmart. This company, whose ownership has been among the largest funders of those who would gut all federal regulation, makes a good deal of money from government “entitlements.” One could almost say that they are the real “welfare cheats”. This doesn’t account for all of the local governments who give tax breaks to Walmart for the honor of having a store located in the community, or that fact that in many of these small communities Walmart “buys off” local officials. Stories detailing this have become so common that there is a website devoted to watching the government subsidies being given to Walmart:
“A secret behind Wal-Mart’s rapid expansion in the United States has been its extensive use of public money. This includes more than $1.2 billion in tax breaks, free land, infrastructure assistance, low-cost financing and outright grants from state and local governments around the country. In addition, taxpayers indirectly subsidize the company by paying the healthcare costs of Wal-Mart employees who don’t receive coverage on the job and instead turn to public programs such as Medicaid. This website brings together available information on both kinds of subsidies involved in Wal-Mart’s “double-dipping.” In the future we will add data on other ways Wal-Mart relies on taxpayers to finance its growth.” http://www.walmartsubsidywatch.org/
This website is very helpful because it allows you to search its archives by putting in a location of your choice and supplying the information. At random I typed in Florida as the State and when given a menu of locales to choose from I chose Crescent City, a place I know nothing about. Here’s what I found:
“This distribution center project, announced in 2005, was approved by Putnam County over the objections of neighboring Volusia County, where there was concern over the traffic impact. In 2006 Wal-Mart warned a group of residents that their land would be seized through eminent domain if they did not sell to the company, which apologized after the story came out in the media. The state, through Enterprise Florida, has agreed to pay for infrastructure improvements in the area, including $2 million for upgrading roads and $675,000 for water and sewer plant upgrades. The project is also expected to be eligible for benefits under the enterprise zone and Qualified Target Industry programs, which could be worth thousands of dollars in tax credits for each worker hired.”
At the close of this guest blog I will supply links to much of the information I am synthesizing to write this piece. Everything that I am writing is backed up by copious evidence. I think that my contempt for this company is well-founded and well-grounded in facts. The case against Walmart is proven, but the problem of the Walmart syndrome is one that continues to plague this country. The object of any corporation should first be to make money. I believe that is a valid observation. Since I also believe that a mixed Capitalistic system can assure the most benefit, for the most people, I don’t object to people making money. However, where I draw the line is the difference between making money and using a corporation’s resource to exploit its own workers, as it continues to exploit the rest of us. This is the Walmart business model. From a management perspective I believe it is a horrible one, which may make money, but eventually damages not only the corporation itself, but the entire society in which it operates.
When Henry Ford began his company he purposely paid higher than the prevailing wage at the time. Ford explained that it was just good business since if his employees got higher pay they could afford to buy his cars, which they then did. We know that when working class and middle class people earn more, they spend more. Giving workers a good wage isn’t bad business, it is good business. Better paid workers are better workers and better workers make the company even higher profits. This isn’t rocket science after all. Even business-centric commentators believe this as was stated in this article from Fortune Magazine, which uses the ideas of conservative economists to make the case that Walmart can and should pay its workers more, without sacrificing either the bottom line or their stock prices.
There are a number of ways to answer the question of what Walmart should pay its employees. One possibility is this: The lowest wage that Walmart can get away with paying. That is probably the way many employers do it, but it’s far from the best economic answer. Better-paid employees are likely to work harder and stick around longer. If employees made more, they would have more to spend at Wal-Mart. http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/12/wal-mart-pay-raise/
I’m sure most readers will remember the former electronics giant Circuit City, which is now defunct. In 2007 this company made a fatal decision that hastened its downfall. The decision was premised on the same lines as those who use the Walmart theory of employment, which is that employees are merely easily disposable cogs in the corporate wheel and should be treated as such:
In 2007, the starting wage [at Circuit City] for new employees was dropped from $8.75 an hour down to $7.40 an hour ($6.55 being the federal minimum wage at the time). In a press release on March 28, 2007, Circuit City announced that in a “wage management” decision in order to cut costs, it had laid off approximately 3,400 better-paid associates and would re-staff the positions at the lower market-based salaries. Laid-off associates were provided severance and offered a chance to be re-hired after ten weeks at prevailing wages. The Washington Post reported interviews with management concerning the firings.[24]The Post later reported in May 2007 that the layoffs, and consequent loss of experienced sales staff, appeared to be “backfiring” and resulting in slower sales” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_City
Far too many insufferable young adults at the nation’s MBA factories have come away with degrees and with a feeling of superiority and contempt for the average worker. They see workers and treat workers as somehow a sub-human species to be used, abused and thrown out to the streets when they are no longer useful to the company. When I was a business major in Marketing and Management many years ago this was known as “Theory X”. Back in those early days of the 60’s “Theory X” was viewed as counterproductive and outdated. Somehow “Theory X” has reemerged to become the norm for worker treatment in America and perhaps our decline as an industrial nation has been spurred by it. I think when Ronald Reagan signaled corporations that it was okay for them to reopen their battle with Labor Unions via firing the striking air traffic controllers, “Theory X was resurrected. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATCO_strike
Right now Walmart is suffering labor problems of its own as a Union is trying to organize its workers. The company has resisted any possibility of its workers organizing into a Union and has fought it in the courts and by firing and/or harassing those workers who are trying to organize.
“The wheels of the National Labor Relations Board grind slow and not especially fine, but they have ground to the point of authorizing complaints against Walmart for several alleged violations of workers’ rights, including threatening retaliation against workers for striking and actually carrying out such retaliation. According to the complaints, which will be brought before an administrative law judge if Walmart and the workers don’t reach a settlement:
- During two national television news broadcasts and in statements to employees at Walmart stores in California and Texas, Walmart unlawfully threatened employees with reprisal if they engaged in strikes and protests on November 22, 2012.
- Walmart stores in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Washington unlawfully threatened, disciplined, and/or terminated employees for having engaged in legally protected strikes and protests.
- Walmart stores in California, Florida, Missouri and Texas unlawfully threatened, surveilled, disciplined, and/or terminated employees in anticipation of or in response to employees’ other protected concerted activities.”
The truth about Walmart is that they actually have a negative effect on our nation’s economy and the economy of other nations that they insinuate themselves into:
- Walmart store openings destroy almost three local jobs for every two they create by reducing retail employment by an average of 2.7 percent in every county they enter.
- Walmart cost America an estimated 196,000 jobs – mainly manufacturing jobs – between 2001 and 2006 as a result of the company’s imports from China.
http://walmart1percent.org/issues/top-reasons-the-walton-family-and-walmart-are-not-job-creators/
As shown above Walmart jobs are jobs that ensure, rather than rescue workers from poverty and also:
- “Walmart pays less than other retail firms. A 2005 study found that Walmart workers earn an estimated 12.4% less than retail workers as a whole and 14.5% less than workers in large retail in general. A 2007 study which compared Walmart to other general merchandising employers found a wage gap of 17.4%.
- Last year, Walmart slashed already meager health benefits again, dropping health insurance for new hires working less than 30 hours a week and leaving more workers uninsured.”
As mentioned above Walmart puts a tremendous burden on the taxpayers in this country and in doing so harms the tax base in the localities where they set up shop.
- “Taxpayers subsidize Walmart’s low wages and poor benefits. Just one Walmart store costs taxpayers an estimated $1 million in public assistance usage by employees, according to a new report from the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
- In many of the states across the country that release such information, Walmart is the employer with the largest number of employees and dependents using taxpayer-funded health insurance programs. A few examples:
- In Arizona, according to data released by the state in 2005, the company had more 2,700 employees on the state-funded plan.
- The company also topped the list in their home state of Arkansas, with nearly 4,000 employees forced onto the state’s plan according to data released by the state in 2005.
- In Massachusetts, in 2009, taxpayers paid $8.8 million for Walmart associates to use publicly subsidized healthcare services.
- Despite all the damage they have done to US workers and communities, a 2007 study found that, as of that date, Walmart had received more than $1.2 billion in tax breaks, free land, infrastructure assistance, low-cost financing and outright grants from state and local governments around the country. This number has surely increased as Walmart continues to receive additional subsidies.
- Meanwhile, the Waltons use special tax loopholes to avoid paying billions in taxes. According to a recent Bloomberg story, the Waltons are America’s biggest users of a particular type of charitable trust that actually allows the donor to pass money on to heirs after an extended period of time, without having to pay much-debated estate and inheritance taxes. According to Treasury Department estimates reported in Bloomberg, closing the two types of loopholes the Waltons appear to use would raise more than $20 billion over the next decade.” http://walmart1percent.org/issues/top-reasons-the-walton-family-and-walmart-are-not-job-creators/
This Thanksgiving Season Walmart has been running a syrupy TV commercial that shows veterans returning home from our wars overseas. It guarantees that it will hire any veteran with an honorable discharge. To me this is yet another bitter irony that this company seems oblivious to. Walmart is “showing its support for our troops” how? By offering them some of the lowest paying jobs in America. This honors our troops in what to me is a rather backhanded way. Our veterans deserve to be well-treated after their service in these awful wars. Far too many of them can’t find work when they leave the service, but is working at Walmart honoring them, or is it offering them another low paying career, albeit without the danger?
When all of the truth began to come out about Walmart’s treatment of its workers I stopped shopping there. The truth is I can afford not to shop at Walmart, even though I’m on a fixed income that leaves me hanging onto the middle-class. There were times, when my family was young, that our income kept our heads barely above water. Therefore I can understand what it is like to clip coupons and go to multiple stores looking for sales. So I won’t say that anyone who shops at Walmart is bad because I’m not in a position to judge an individual family’s financial needs. I would ask people though, to raise their voices about the way that Walmart treats people. My request is that we find ways to oppose the “Walmartization” of our country, because if we don’t we will soon become one of those “third world” nation’s that we used to talk about disparagingly. My view in this is neither a liberal, nor conservative view. It is a question of fairness and it is an ethical question of how a capitalist enterprise should treat its workers. One can be a conservative, in the true meaning of the word and still decry such backward employment policies. From the perspective of those who don the mantle of fiscal conservatives alone, a fair analysis is that this company is costing us all billion$.
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
http://www.ilsr.org/new-study-finds-walmarts-miserly-wages-cost-taxpayers/
http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/wmtstudy.pdf
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/01/03/wal-mart-declares-war-on-us-history/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/21/walmart-black-friday-death_n_4312210.html
DavidM, The Walton family have been a VERY low profile philanthropic family. My sister has worked for several nonprofits both in the education field and homeless area. She currently does fundraising for the Boston Food Bank. The Waltons are down to earth, little bureaucracy, extremely generous people in her dealings w/ them. They never want publicity or their names on buildings. They want to know the needs of the charity and support that need.
Nick Spinelli wrote: “The Walton family have been a VERY low profile philanthropic family. … They want to know the needs of the charity and support that need.”
That has been my experience too. I remember some volunteers last year going around trying to get some monetary support. Walmart was the first to respond. Apparently the local Walmart has a fund setup just for community help, and so they just wrote them a check right out of that fund. It sure did encourage them to keep up the good work in the community.
Yes, Walmart has a fund. It’s employees fund it by payroll deduction.
I have a part-time employee to help with my children. I pay her $15.00 an hour. If I take some portion of her paycheck and send it to charity, and take credit for it, that doesn’t make me philanthropic. It makes me a publicity hungry a$$hole.
Juliet N wrote: “If I take some portion of her paycheck and send it to charity, and take credit for it, that doesn’t make me philanthropic. It makes me a publicity hungry a$$hole.”
I think you are only talking about one fund, the “Associates in Critical Need Trust.” You make it sound like a forced thing. This is a voluntary fund to help other Walmart associates who are in need. Read more about it at:
http://www.walmartstores.com/sites/sustainabilityreport/2009/s_cg_wmfoundation.html
rafflaw wrote: “your idea that union are mostly to blame for Wal Mart going away from an American made product is preposterous and inaccurate and an insult to American workers. Wal Mart and other corporations sent jobs overseas to save money by paying workers less.”
I agree. Actually, they just looked for low priced products, and where did lower priced products come from? Companies who produced the products overseas. And what have unions advocated for? Paying workers more. So by unions causing American companies to manufacture products while paying workers a higher rate of pay, they caused these companies to be unable to compete with companies that manufactured products overseas at a lower rate of pay. Virtually all retailers have followed this path, not just Walmart, because it makes good business sense.
Just to be clear, I did not say unions were “mostly” to blame; rather, I said that we would thank unions “in part” for leading to a situation where retailers like Walmart have non-American made products that out sell American made products. Ultimately it is the consumer who makes that choice, not the retailer. If Americans preferred the price and quality of American manufactured products, they would choose them, causing a retailer like Walmart in turn to stock those products.
rafflaw wrote: “Daddy Walton and his kids just want more money in their pockets and refuse to pay a living wage.”
Sam Walton made it clear that his business model was one that would sell items at “Always Low Prices.” That naturally leads to buying merchandise from companies manufacturing products overseas where labor was less expensive. I’m not sure why you have to impugn a selfish profit motive when the goal of lower prices is sufficient motivation for what happened.
The profit of the Walmart enterprise is actually a result of its expansion of multiplying the business model over many stores. There are more than 10,000 stores. If there was only one Walmart store, none of us would care much about Walmart and the profits, because there really would not be much profit to talk about. The Walton family owners in the business would not even be millionaires if there was only one Walmart store operating exactly the same way.
“Boys seem to favor construction type jobs, and girls seem to favor higher end department store management positions over a discount store like Walmart.”
DavidM,
What I find interesting about your evolution here is that with almost each new comment you reveal more and more about what a priggish, elitist snob you really are.
david,
your idea that union are mostly to blame for Wal Mart going away from an American made product is preposterous and inaccurate and an insult to American workers. Wal Mart and other corporations sent jobs overseas to save money by paying workers less. The quality of the goods made here was not the issue. Making more money off of cheap labor was the reason and if the playing field had been level, the American made workers would still be making those products. Daddy Walton and his kids just want more money in their pockets and refuse to pay a living wage.
Posted by:
Po @minutebol 1, November 26, 2013 at 12:21 pm
Just in support of Mike’s point, today’s Democracy Now show. Let the attack on the show, the host, and the guests begin.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/11/26/as_wal_mart_workers_plan_record
(Thanks, Po. I’m reposting, so that your link/comment isn’t buried by my last few comments.)
Report:
Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations
http://www.corporatepolicy.org/spookybusiness.pdf
Report:
Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations
http://www.corporatepolicy.org/spookybusiness.pdf
There are two segments and the published report:
Part 1:
http://youtu.be/XzdIfgaf_eI
Part 2:
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/11/25/pt_2_us_corporations_enlist_ex_intelligence
Two comments that didn’t post. The last one is the one to be recovered, if possible.
Corporate espionage undermines democracy
By Ralph Nader
November 26, 2013
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/11/26/corporate-espionage-undermines-democracy/
Excerpts:
“A diverse constellation of corporations has planned or executed corporate espionage against these nonprofit civic organizations. Food companies like Kraft, Coca-Cola, Burger King, McDonald’s and Monsanto. Oil companies like Shell, BP and Chevron. Chemical companies like Dow and Sasol. Also involved are the retailers (Wal-Mart), banks (Bank of America), and, of course, the nation’s most powerful trade association: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Plenty of mercenary spooks have joined up to abet them, including former officials at the FBI, CIA, NSA, Secret Service and U.S. military. Sometimes even government contractors are part of the snooping.
In effect, big corporations have been able to hire portions of the national security apparatus, and train their tools of spycraft on the citizens groups of our nation.
This does not bode well for our democracy.”
…
“It’s time for law enforcement to focus some attention on such corporate spies and their flagrant invasion of privacy.
Where is the Justice Department? In France, when Électricité de France was caught spying on Greenpeace, there was an investigation and prosecutions. In Britain, Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World newspaper was ensnared in a telephone hacking scandal involving British public officials and celebrities. The Guardian newspaper excavated the story relentlessly, government investigations followed, with prosecutions ongoing. Here in the United States, the Justice Department has been silent.
How about Congress? Corporate espionage against nonprofits is an obvious topic for a congressional investigation and hearings. But, alas, Congress too has been somnolent.
How much corporate espionage against nonprofits is taking place? Without investigations, subpoenas and hearings, no one really knows. But it is likely that there is more corporate espionage than we know about, because the snooping corporations and their private investigators toil mightily to hide their dirty tricks — which are designed to intimidate and deter people from speaking out and standing up against corporate crimes, frauds and abuses. Is the little we know merely the tip of the iceberg?”
“Corporate espionage undermines democracy”
“Also involved are the retailers (Wal-Mart), banks (Bank of America), and, of course, the nation’s most powerful trade association: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”
By Ralph Nader
November 26, 2013
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/11/26/corporate-espionage-undermines-democracy/
It’s not just the NSA that has been caught spying on Americans. Some of our nation’s largest corporations have been conducting espionage as well, against civic groups.
For these big companies with pliable ethics, if they don’t win political conflicts with campaign donations or lobbying power, then they play dirty. Very dirty.
That’s the lesson of a new report on corporate espionage against nonprofit organizations, by my colleagues at Essential Information. The title of the report is Spooky Business, and it is apt.
Spooky Business is like a Canterbury Tales of corporate snoopery. The spy narratives in the report are lurid and gripping. Hiring investigators to pose as volunteers and journalists. Hacking. Wiretapping. Information warfare. Physical intrusion. Investigating the private lives of nonprofit leaders. Dumpster diving using an active duty police officer to gain access to trash receptacles. Electronic surveillance. On and on. What won’t corporations do in service of profit and power?
Many different types of nonprofit civic organizations have been targeted by corporate spies: environmental, public interest, consumer, food safety, animal rights, pesticide reform, nursing home reform, gun control and social justice.
A diverse constellation of corporations has planned or executed corporate espionage against these nonprofit civic organizations. Food companies like Kraft, Coca-Cola, Burger King, McDonald’s and Monsanto. Oil companies like Shell, BP and Chevron. Chemical companies like Dow and Sasol. Also involved are the retailers (Wal-Mart), banks (Bank of America), and, of course, the nation’s most powerful trade association: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Plenty of mercenary spooks have joined up to abet them, including former officials at the FBI, CIA, NSA, Secret Service and U.S. military. Sometimes even government contractors are part of the snooping.
In effect, big corporations have been able to hire portions of the national security apparatus, and train their tools of spycraft on the citizens groups of our nation.
This does not bode well for our democracy.
Our democracy is only as strong as the civic groups that work to preserve and protect it every day. To function effectively, these groups must be able to keep their inner workings secure from the prying eyes and snooping noses of the spies-for-hire.
Corporate espionage is a threat to individual privacy, too. As citizens, we do not relinquish our rights to privacy when we disagree with the ideas or actions of a corporation. It is especially galling that corporations should employ such unethical or illegal tactics to deprive Americans of their fundamental rights.
This is a subject with which I have some familiarity. In 1966, when I was working on auto safety, an enterprising young journalist at the New Republic wrote a story about private investigators tasked by General Motors to find “dirt” using false pretenses to interview my friends and teachers and by following me around the country. A Senate Committee, chaired by Senator Abraham Ribicoff, conducted a celebrated hearing confirming in detail General Motors’ unsavory tactics to try to silence my criticisms of unsafely designed automobiles. The uproar helped to pass the auto and highway safety laws in 1966.
The journalist’s name is James Ridgeway, and he kept at it. More than forty years later, he broke another important story — this time for Mother Jones – about Dow Chemical’s massive corporate espionage operation against Greenpeace, and other espionage activities by a private investigation firm called Beckett Brown International.
Ridgeway’s more recent articles, and the work of other journalists, make it clear that the self-regulation of private investigative and intelligence firms is a complete failure.
It’s time for law enforcement to focus some attention on such corporate spies and their flagrant invasion of privacy.
Where is the Justice Department? In France, when Électricité de France was caught spying on Greenpeace, there was an investigation and prosecutions. In Britain, Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World newspaper was ensnared in a telephone hacking scandal involving British public officials and celebrities. The Guardian newspaper excavated the story relentlessly, government investigations followed, with prosecutions ongoing. Here in the United States, the Justice Department has been silent.
How about Congress? Corporate espionage against nonprofits is an obvious topic for a congressional investigation and hearings. But, alas, Congress too has been somnolent.
How much corporate espionage against nonprofits is taking place? Without investigations, subpoenas and hearings, no one really knows. But it is likely that there is more corporate espionage than we know about, because the snooping corporations and their private investigators toil mightily to hide their dirty tricks — which are designed to intimidate and deter people from speaking out and standing up against corporate crimes, frauds and abuses. Is the little we know merely the tip of the iceberg?
Just in support of Mike’s point, today’s Democracy Now show. Let the attack on the show, the host, and the guests begin.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/11/26/as_wal_mart_workers_plan_record
http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2010/09/designed-to-fail-education-in-america.html
Our educational system is designed to encourage students to pursue a career at companies like Walmart:
“Schools should be factories in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products. . . manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry.” – Elwood Cubberley’s dissertation 1905, Teachers College, Columbia University
“We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.” – Woodrow Wilson
RWL wrote: “Our educational system is designed to encourage students to pursue a career at companies like Walmart:”
Nonsense. Walmart is not a factory, and even if it was, schools track students into different paths: college or not college.
Most students on the college track do not perceive Walmart as an ideal career path. I don’t know as much about students on the non-college track because all my children have been college track students, but I would be VERY surprised if a majority of them saw Walmart as a highly valued career opportunity. Boys seem to favor construction type jobs, and girls seem to favor higher end department store management positions over a discount store like Walmart.
Mike S.,
Would you like to know that both of your articles(Elaine’s ‘Rotten to the Common Core?’ article) are related?
DESIGNED TO FAIL-EDUCATION IN AMERICA: PART ONE (http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2010/09/designed-to-fail-education-in-america.html)
BY
IRA SOCOL
“Before Barnard saw schools as a path to fame and eventual fortune, he was a mercantile-oriented state legislator in Rhode Island with no interest in education. And yet before the 1840s would end he had seized the Public School Movement from Mann and had twisted that father of public education’s words into something quite different. In the end Horace Mann became the Geoffrey Canada of the 19th Century. A man who set out to make a real difference, but whose image ended up licensed to people with an entirely different agenda.
Barnard, like Mann, looked at schools, education, and childhood from ‘way above.’ But his was not the view from heaven of Horace Mann. Rather, his view was from the banker’s office and the factory foreman’s post, and the mine supervisor.
At first, he sounds a bit like Mann – without the learning. “The primary object in securing the early school attendance of children, is not so much their intellectual culture, as the regulation of the feelings and dispositions, the extirpation of vicious propensities, the pre-occupation of the wildeiness of the young heart with the seeds and germs of moral beauty, and the formation of a lovely and virtuous character by the habitual practice of cleanliness, delicacy, refinement, good temper, gentleness, kindness, justice and truth.” But quickly the purposes behind this desired docility are apparent. “By means of such schools, the defective education of many of the youth of our manufacturing population would be remedied, and their various trades and employments be converted into the most efficient instruments of self-culture.”
In Barnard’s world education was training, not learning. And in pursuit of this he imports the Prussian Model of education to simulate the assembly-line (recently appearing in the gun factories of his native New England) with age-based grades. He introduces rigid time schedules to schools in order to prepare the students for the emerging shift-work of textile mills. He also pushed to lower teacher pay (through replacing male teachers with women) and status, and to standardize both school buildings and instruction. (Mann had brought a dualism to the “women teacher issue” – “That females are better fitted by nature than males to train and educate young children is a position, which the public mind is fast maturing into an axiom. With economical habits in regard to all school expenditures, it is a material fact, that the services of females can be commanded for half the price usually paid to males. But what is of far higher moment is, that they are endowed by nature with a stronger affection for children; they have quicker sympathies, livelier sensibilities, and more vivid and enduring parental instincts.” – Common School Journal (Boston), vol. 1, no. 6 (March 15, 1839), p. 85 – Barnard would use Mann’s words while emphasizing the savings and ensuring that women never held decision-making positions within the system.)
Why this matters
From this beginning with see two fundamentally different ways of viewing the purpose of education, or, perhaps, two and a half. And these visions persist today and explain our current battles over schools.
Teachers, and most teacher educators, are, as Dr. Becker says, “blindly focused on their classroom and kids.” From Linda Darling-Hammond to Lisa Parisi, Dan McGuire, Patrick Shuler, Punya Mishra, Pam Moran, Dave Britten, Dave Doty, and tens of thousands more, are working with students every day, trying to make the changes we can in the lives and learning of our students. “We” are the William Alcotts of today, the Maria Montessoris of today.
At the other end are today’s Henry Barnards (or Andrew Carnegies). Those building careers or reputations by making education work for American capitalism. Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates, Eli Broad – they look down from corporate suites and see that education is not producing the kinds of compliant worker/citizens their businesses need. These are education’s industrialists, with absolutely no sense that a student is different than any other industrially processed part, and no sense that a teacher is any different than any industrial worker. For this group, education is measured as industrial processing is measured, parts (students) which are not successfully processed in any industrial step (grade) are re-processed (retained), and unions for the line workers (teachers) interfere with cost structure.
These two groups cannot conceivably understand each other because they simply do not see the same thing when they look at “school.”
That half step – Horace Mann or Geoffrey Canada or Cory Booker or African-American leaders who sign-on with the industrialists – are the missionaries. Their heavenly view, however well meaning, plays into the industrialists hands, giving moral cover to brutal capitalism.
And brutal it is. We cannot really understand why American schools use age-based grades and standardized tests, and why two-thirds of students do badly – consistently – unless we understand why Barnard and his successors built the system they did. Because the system they built endures, operating, as Cubberley noted, “factories in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products,” and discarding “defective” raw materials along the way.”
pdm,
It is not unusual for a plaintiff’s attorney to hire a forensic economist to present that information for the jury’s consideration. I don’t know if they called an economist or not.
One of my business partners was also a forensic life-care and rehabilitation expert. He has a vast database in his computer, and formulas for calculating what a disabled person will need over a lifetime. For example, he could tell you how many donut cushions Amanda would wear out in her wheelchair over her actuarially predicted life expectancy. I don’t believe they consulted him, but he is not the only expert in that field. I have no idea whether they consulted a life care expert.
MadDog,
“Walmart may not pay them right but they seem content.”
I’m spending the winter season at this awesome hostel in this awesome little town of Nelson, British Columbia, a stone’s throw from an awesome awesome community ski hill that gets some of the best powder snow on the planet. Anyways, it turns out that there’s a bunch of young Australians that also found their way down here for a season of skiing and snowboarding, all of them without jobs or lodging lined up, and of course living on a shoestring budget but following their dreams. They just showed up and started searching for work and a place to live.
General consensus work-wise is “anywhere but Walmart.” It’s embarrassing to work there, desperation be damned.
Nate wrote: “General consensus work-wise is “anywhere but Walmart.” It’s embarrassing to work there, desperation be damned.”
LOL. We have the left to thank for the poor education on that front. Walmart is a great American success story. I guess these Aussies will take a lower paying job at McDonald’s instead. C’est la vie.
I think I’m going to talk to one of my teenage daughters about getting a job at Walmart this summer in order to get the inside scoop of working conditions there. I was leaning toward a fast food place, maybe Dairy Queen, for the food benefits that might be available there, but I guess a 10% discount on Walmart products might be nice. Ultimately she decides, but I think I will nudge her toward Walmart.
My Walmart has the best lunch or dinner deal in town. For Four dollars and forty cents you can get a plate with two sides at the hot food counter. We get General Tshos chicken, potato wedges and brocholli salad. They pile it on. We go immediately to the car (my half blind guy and I). They let me in the store because I am guide dog. At the car my half blind guy gives me half. We both savor it. Then we have the driver go back to the crib and we both crash. The driver gets a whole plate of his own but only eats half. He is only a third blind but he can drive. Walmart may not pay them right but they seem content.
OS, thanks for getting back to me. One other question: I thought the original award was too little to take care of two people with lifetime injuries and asked if it was just too difficult to get a jury to recognize the effect of 50 years or more of inflation. Any thoughts on that?
pdm,
Keep in mind that an appellate court’s written opinion is only a summary of the evidence, and only the evidence which was preserved for appeal purposes. After a ten day trial and a trial transcript that looked like the original manuscript for “War and Peace,” there is no doubt a lot of things were presented at trial that did not make into the written opinion.
DavidM:
I am pretty sure that most who post here dont understand your post or its implications.
The fix is simple, free up the economy. Capitalism is such a powerful tool, we could be producing oil rigs, tractors and trucks and ships in 2-5 years if the people who think free markets dont work would just get out of the way.
They can sit on the side lines and make sure the rest of us are playing ethically. They should be the national conscience, God knows they certainly dont know how to have a prosperous economy.