I've never known whether to classify myself as a liberal-minded conservative or a conservative-minded liberal. When people ask, I usually just say I'm independent. I'm generally more interested in political process than I am political issues, and partisanship is my litmus test to whether I will discuss politics with a person: if you hold to a party line on every issue, let's talk about something else.
There is one issue, however, that I've always been interested in: education. I personally believe it is one of the three biggest issues facing the country today, along with energy policy and our pending water shortages in the West. In a recent column by David Brooks at the New York Times, he argues that education the most important issue, and he discusses a very interesting angle on it.
Some researchers have argued that America's productivity and growth (and therefore its long-term prospects) arise out of its belief in education. Historically, America dominated other countries in terms of the education-level of its populace. That stopped in the 1960s, however, and our current educational progress has been lagging behind the rate of technological change in our country. This shift has helped to increase the inequality gap in America (no technical skills = no bargaining power) and left us less competitive with other countries (who have caught up in terms of human capital).
Interestingly, Brooks juxtaposes two aspects of this issue in the column. He doesn't explicitly draw the connection, however, so I'm doing so here.
First, he asserts that the main difference in America is not the deterioration of public institutions but "the family institution". More children grow up in family environments that don't promote the development of human capital such that, "By [age] 5, it is possible to predict, with depressing accuracy, who will complete high school and college and who won't." One would think that, given the growing evidence to support this argument, the Republican party would connect the dots with their "family values" agenda and be the leader in promoting a solution.
But they're not. In fact, while the debate rages as to what policies need to be put in place--labor market reforms vs human capital policies--the debate itself is taking place solely within the Democratic party. Barack Obama is on the side of the human capital policies (as am I), but McCain and the rest of the Republican party have very little to say about human capital policies or even the greater issue itself. The best they can argue is that we don't need radical labor market reforms. That's great, but tell us what we do need.
Personally, I can't help but wonder if the research is tossing them a softball and the Republicans are busy trying to use the bat to bash Democrats.
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