EDUCATING WITH COVID

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. ~ William Butler Yeats

The fabric of education has been ripped apart by the coronavirus. In a different era (before March), the contact-full classroom relationships between students and teachers and the myriad of their daily interconnections served to build knowledge and personal self-awareness, the heart of education. No longer. It is purposefully missing in the now-necessitated norm of online distance-learning (DL) education for this fall’s expected 70.40 million primary, secondary and college students. That’s over 20% of our population.

Education specialists believe that DL in most school districts is not working and that some students are falling behind. A middle-school teacher states, “We know this isn’t a good way to teach.” Black, Hispanic and low-income students are struggling the most, research suggests, according to a NYTimes story.

Dana Goldstein reports the richest and poorest parents are spending about the same number of hours on remote school, but wealthier parents are inevitably able to provide more books and supplies at home, more quiet space, educational toys and often more knowledge of the curriculum. High-income school districts are usually providing strong remote instruction, rather than basic worksheet-like activities. Inequalities often are magnified.

What DL diminishes is the constructive, essential interactive nature of multi-student, classroom-based education – students’ vocally intermingling face-to-face with their teacher and their peers on a continuing basis. It’s something that we’ve taken completely for granted, until recently. Online meeting software like Zoom, TeamViewer or Google Meet allow some simultaneous serial communication, but screens afford a wholly different experience than actual physically-direct collaboration for a classful of students.

So the critics are correct, DL is a threadbare approximation of the education we all remember. It sucks, no matter what grade-level is being discussed. But what do DL critics recommend instead? Mum's the word.

I’ve seen discussions about “split-session” teaching (e.g., having only a portion of the students physically come to classes at any given time), but I can’t imagine how teachers could deal with this possibility – that, in effect, would multiply their required class-time, depending on what the allowed portion is. Also, if “double-time” teaching could be more viable in any context (letting in one-half the class’s students at a time), it would challenge everyone.

Double-timing in-school teaching for the earliest grades, where the students’ education happens in a single classroom and is as much social-learning as academic, would call for schools to “create” twice as many school hours each week in order to comply with state-mandated requirements. California, like 27 other states, requires a minimum of 180 days of formal school instruction each year.

Raise your hand if you’re in favor of a 12-day week (10 school days’ worth of double-time teaching and 2 “recovery, week-end” days; although I think at least 3 recovery days for teachers would be far better after working for 5, double-time days). Or how about daily day and night classes for PK-12 grades? Or mandated home-schooling? What a surprise, I don’t see any raised hands. No wonder local school districts are stymied.

College students face a similar dilemma, but they’re (or someone else) is directly paying for the privilege of being there, unlike public PK-12 schools. At least 100 lawsuits demanding that colleges-universities provide refunds for tuition, fees and/or room and board have been filed so far. The students are claiming that the online DL college experience they received this spring (with the unaccepted, uninvited coronavirus on campus and no “regular” classes) is an academic encounter that is not what they bargained or paid for. The courts have yet to decide whether these students have a legitimate claim for refunds. It’s apparently not a slam dunk for the students. Even if they’re successful, will the colleges-universities be able to provide the reimbursements? According to a person who works for an association representing state higher education programs, colleges’ ability to pay refunds would be “incredibly challenging” due to public education’s sizeable budget cuts and increased costs.

Many colleges-universities are now planning online DL-based education for the fall, including the California State University system, the nation’s largest. Universities are rewriting the rules for on-campus student life in order to avoid a Tragedy of the Campus Commons. Colleges will be demanding their students diligently wear masks, as well as drastically restricting sporting events and somehow curbing social gatherings as well. Will college administrators be able to trust their 18- to 21-year-old undergraduates to follow such decrees? These rules will require behavioral changes that will tax the very being of young immortals. Time will tell.

College is a significant life-event for ever-more people. Thirty-six percent (36%) of US adults now hold at least a B.A. degree, the highest share ever, shown in the chart below. Over 19.64 million people were enrolled in colleges, universities and other “degree-granting institutions” in 2018, 57% of whom were female. This fall, 19.74 million are expected to register. Yet it’s worth remembering that despite the well-deserved praise for our decades-long increase, college degree-holders still represent only a smidgen more than one-third of US adults. At times we may act like a deserving majority, but we’re far from it. 

 Percent of US adults with a BA or higher degree, 1950-2019

 Source: NCES.ed.gov

Thus, even though it sucks, DL is the only practical, nontoxic means of providing public education now. It’s a version of formal education that can nearly adapt to the present, fraught circumstances amidst the scythe of the coronavirus, existing school-university infrastructure and available teachers and staff.

That is, unless I’ve missed a magical, superior education method that remains unmentioned because Albus Dumbledore never disclosed the Hogwarts’ secret handshake. In our current, pre-vaccine, coronavirus-filled world, it’s overwhelmingly online distance-learning, like it or not. And most of us don’t. Economists have a term for such schemes; they’re called “second-best.” At best, DL is a second-best solution, but better than any others.

Almost lost in the dark mists of this pandemic and our cavernous recession are progressives who continue roaring for free college and student debt-forgiveness. Yup, Bernie and Elizabeth have lost the race to be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, but some of their backers still actively pursue the provision of much vaster subsidies for college-goers. In the midst of giant, covid-related federal, state and local revenue reductions, adding these policies’ substantial costs ($2.2 trillion) makes little sense for reasons I’ve previously mentioned. Enacting such expensive, flawed plans for free college fade in importance compared to far broader, more pressing human priorities like public safety, adequate food and sufficient housing. Stow it free-college folks; instead seek the secret handshake.

MODERN MONEY ILLUSION

Money is an abstraction, a political confection, a set of castles built on air. ~Sebastian Mallaby  

The aura of money has existed for a very, very long time. Ecclesiastes 10:19 asserts: Money answereth all things. During the course of human history many objects have been used as money to transact sales and pursue commerce including cocoa beans (in Mesoamerica) and cowrie shells (in Africa, India and China). Paleo-economists believe the first precious-metal coins were used as money in several places about the same time, around 600-500BC; in China’s Yellow River valley, in India’s Ganges River valley and by the king of Lydia in western Asia Minor (modern Turkey). In 1024, the Chinese government started issuing paper notes in standard denominations, which showed that banknotes (paper currency) could be a viable and facile form of money. The first European banknotes were issued in late 17th century Sweden.

But what about money here in the United States (US)? Glad you asked. In the 17th and much of the 18th centuries each of the original 13 American colonies issued their own banknotes (paper money). Thus, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island each had their own distinct currencies. Understandably, this was a hindrance to trade between the colonies, probably promoting a fair amount of barter exchange. Foreign coins, including the Spanish dollar, were also widely used as currency in the US until 1857. After a previous and unsuccessful attempt to create a useful, single currency for the new country, the US Continental Congress authorized the issuance of the US dollar in July 1785, backed by gold and silver.

US Federal banknotes were issued as the currency of our nation in 1863 to finance the Civil War. We finally discarded the Gold Standard in August 1971; meaning the government no longer officially backed its banknotes with gold bullion stored at Fort Knox and the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Somehow, we’ve survived much to the surprise of the gold “bugs.” After 1971, the only “promise” the government offers for your $20 Hamilton bill is another $20 bill.

Naturally, not everyone was happy about this lack of precious metal “backing.” Remember William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech? It’s what’s lurking somewhere behind Martin Amis’ quote: Money is a fiction, an addiction and a tacit conspiracy. So it goes…

In January 2020, the US economy has $1.75 trillion circulating as Federal Reserve banknotes and about $245 million in coins. Interestingly, the $100 bill – with the almost-smiling Ben Franklin on its front side – is the most common bill now in circulation, just ahead of George Washington’s $1 bill. There were 13.4 billion $100 bills circulating at the end of 2018, representing over 75% of the total value of our currency.

As much as 80% of all our Ben Franklins is being used outside the US, making them one of our largest, and unreported, exports. Economically-ruptured Venezuela is the latest nation to become more “dollarized,” given that its peso is next-to-worthless. In fact, Ecuador and Zimbabwe officially use US dollars (especially $100 bills) as their currency. Other countries, including Panama, Cambodia, and the Bahamas, use the US dollar alongside their own currencies. Ben Franklin has taken many foreign excursions.

Now there’s a panoply of alternative “currencies” beyond cash, including credit cards (the pioneering Diners Club card was first used in 1950), debit cards and various electronic forms, including the (in)famous Bitcoin, as well as Apple Pay. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, US consumers use credit and debit cards for 34% of their purchases, electronic payments for 34%, checks for 20% and cash for only 9% of (mostly low-value) purchases.

Because money is such an elemental part of any economy, economists have spent lots of time thinking about it over the years and examining how the amount of it and its use affects economic conditions. Concepts such as the “velocity of money” and “money illusion” have sprouted from lofty ivory towers. We’ve come a long way from just using cowrie shells and precious-metal coins.

Money illusion was first discussed over 90 years ago by Yale professor Irving Fisher who observed that most people believe the illusion that the face value of their money (say the $20 value of Hamilton’s bill; the bill’s “nominal value” in econ-speak) represents its actual purchasing power. That’s not necessarily true. Such people aren’t aware that money’s purchasing power depends on general price level changes, the $20 bill’s “real value.” If overall prices rise due to inflationary forces, the $20 bill’s actual purchasing power is reduced; it doesn’t buy as much as it used to. Thus, this money illusion is present if there’s underlying broad pressure affecting many goods’ prices, but not (yet) changing people’s income/wage levels.

After 1990 the US average annual inflation rate has been very low, 1.6% per year, despite the vociferous, misguided fears of many conservatives. That’s in stark contrast to 1974 and 1980 when the OPEC-induced oil price shocks pushed our annual inflation rate to 11.0% and 13.5%, respectively. Those were the days. Not.

I believe there is a newer version of Prof. Fisher’s money illusion. It has arrived along-side several progressive Democrats’ plans for dramatically changing the scope and operations of the federal government.

Bernie Sanders and, to a lesser degree, Elizabeth Warren have expansive ideas about reprioritizing domestic policies to guarantee every man, woman and child their “basic economic rights” (BERs). Bernie has stated, “We must take up the unfinished business of the New Deal.” His unfinished BERs consist of:

Quality health care	As much education as needed to succeed	A good job paying a living wage with 12-weeks family leave
Affordable housing	Living in a clean environment	A secure retirement

The possible costs of providing Medicare for All, “free” college tuition, elimination of student loan debt, government-guaranteed jobs, increased Social Security payments, renewed environmental protection and other, unstinting progressive programs have been dutifully estimated. One guesstimate stated these programs could cost $42.5 trillion (T) over the first decade.

This titanic sum, $42.5T, would almost double the size of the federal government’s current expenditures. In the current fiscal year the government has budgeted $4.75T for all its expenditures, which represents about 21% of our GDP. Possibly doubling the size of the government over a fairly short period would be a very big deal that so far doesn’t seem to have garnered very much real (or nominal) discussion; it’s an illusory topic.

In a sense, because these costs are so profuse, and in the future, we seemingly don’t have to worry now. This thinking is consistent with the liberal Modern Money Theory which suggests that the government can pay for its expenditures and achieve full employment by issuing more money.

The above sum does not include undertaking the extensive Green New Deal (GND) programs announced last February by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markley. If implemented, the GND endorses a “ten-year mobilization” that would include large-scale, national social programs like universal health care, food security and government-guaranteed jobs as the “new deal” portion of the GND. Its substantial Green initiatives portion would include creating net zero emissions energy production from both a thoroughly updated, totally non-fossil-fueled national electricity grid and an electrified national transportation network.

Ten-year cost estimates for the GND programs by Doug Holtz-Eakin, previously director of the Congressional Budget Office and very familiar with government fiscal programs and expenditures, are $52T to $93T. Mr. Holtz-Eakin believes the bulk of the estimated costs would be faced in implementing the GND’s new deal programs, although the Green initiatives would also have a very substantial price tag due to their inclusive scope and tight schedule.

The trillions of dollar sums for the progressives’ programs and the GND are unimaginably large, and thus subject to a more modern type of money illusion, principally because of these programs’ size, complexity and span.

If we arbitrarily assume there’s a 25% overlap between the GND’s new deal programs and Bernie’s BERs programs and use the mid-point of the mentioned GND cost estimates, the grand total of the combined efforts of the GND and BERs for ten-years would be $97,000,000,000,000 or ninety-seven trillion dollars. It’s nearly five times as big as our current GDP, the world’s largest.

To get a better visual sense of just how large $97T is, imagine Ben Franklin $100 bills that have been tightly stacked upright on their long side, so we can answer the question; gee, how long a heap of such Franklin $100s would equal $97 trillion? Not how large is $97T; how long is it? This stack would go around the world about 2¼ times at its circumference; a bit more than 56,400 miles of $100 bills. That’s a lot of money.

Our inability to sense just how large these numbers (and the programs’ expenditures/activities) could be is likely why we can’t fathom exactly what is being proposed. It’s a next-to-impossible illusion to imagine in much detail because it’s so big. Certainly, the Law of Unintended Consequences will be functioning throughout these efforts, as always.

This very progressive political vision would be very distinct from others that are now being promoted by different candidates. But should we as a nation try it? That’s what the true left-field progressives pretty much demand. When asked, how can we afford this? They evasively reply, how can we not afford it; continuing the illusion. Our collective answer is what this year’s primaries and election, in a mere 285 days, will hopefully help decide. The inaugural Democratic caucuses and primaries begin in a mere 12 days across farmy Iowa. 

Not to worry if you don’t get to Des Moines in time. After Iowa there are 56 more Dems primaries and/or caucuses, including the Northern Mariana Island caucuses, the Democrats Abroad primary and last but certainly not least, the US Virgin Island caucuses on June 6. No wonder we call it a party. I hope our money and programmatic illusions will be at least partially dispelled after mid-July’s convention. As Adam Smith aptly stated, all money is a matter of belief. So is politics.

RISING TO THE CHALLENGE: MT. EVEREST AND COLLEGE

It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves. ~ Sir Edmund Hillary 

There’s a straightforward relationship that explains both the horrendous end of Mt. Everest’s spring climbing season this year and the added challenges increasing numbers of students face of graduating from US colleges. These two trends in one sense display a victory for the marketing of these arduous “projects” to a larger, broader public that’s not completely ready for them. In cold economic terms, it’s consumer demand exceeding available supply. But at what cost? Deaths and drop-outs.

The recent deaths on Mt. Everest have once again peaked the media’s interest. The adventure media while berating the agonies of defeats and deaths fawns over the thrills of the quest each and every season.

Why has this season seen 11 climbers die on the mountain, the most since 2015 when at least 22 people perished due to avalanches? There were 5 deaths last year. For a change, it wasn’t this year’s weather or earthquakes or avalanches. It was because climbing Everest has for some time been commercialized and sold as something folks beyond just the hardest of hard-core, capable alpinists can successfully attempt. Nepal’s tourism ministry, seeking hard currency, issued permits to summit Mt. Everest to a record 381 climbers this season, at a cost of about $11,000 each. Beyond the permit, the trip itself can cost $45,000 or more.

That’s a very long way from Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s initial ascent 65 years ago. According to veteran mountaineers, this year there have been too many inexperienced climbers who have bought their way into attempting Mt. Everest who haven’t been adequately trained or supported. Dreadful results have precipitated. These results were created in no small part because of the sheer numbers of climbers attempting to simultaneously reach the peak, shown in the picture below. This is what it looked like last week when too many people (probably over 200) were waiting to capture their moment of glory on the narrow, cold (-13^oF) confines of the summit at 29,029ft. Fascinatingly, Mt. Everest continues to grow about 0.25” each year. With the extended wait, often two hours or more, unprepared climbers can run out of oxygen among other life-threatening challenges.

The summit jam at the top of Mt. Everest, May 2019.

Source: Getty Images via The Washington Post.

Meanwhile back in the lowlands, more than 16.8 million undergraduates traversed the academic slopes at colleges and universities last fall, representing a 27.8% increase since 2000. The number of US adults that have a B.A. or higher degree has increased 36.7% since 2000.

For decades, post-high school academic education has been proclaimed by many authorities, including educators and politicians, as the very best way of ensuring career success. Students and their families have listened and acted on this advice. In 2018, 35% of US adults have received a B.A. or higher degree. This proportion of college-educated adults has never been higher, as shown in the chart below. College enrollment has been increasing for young adults for over a century. This is a very good thing because a more educated, skilled workforce is more productive and more engaged. This achievement reflects not just individual successes but collective ones that have benefited society.

Percent of US adults with a B.A. or higher degree

 Source: NCES.ed.gov 

This chart illustrates that the growth of adults having at least a B.A. degree follows a logistic curve during the nearly 90 years shown. From the 1970s through 2000, the percentage of adults with college degrees rapidly increased; it more than doubled. After 2010 the incremental increases in adults with a college degree are smaller than before. This is expected to continue. The total number of undergraduates enrolled in US colleges peaked in 2010, at 18.1 million.

There are certainly sound reasons why growing numbers of young adults have elected to follow the college pathway to hopeful success. One reason, beyond possessing increased knowledge, is being able to receive higher compensation at work. In his superb Kenyon College commencement speech, This is Water, David Foster Wallace offers a much different and appropriately broader perspective when he stated, "It is about the real value of a real education has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: ‘This is water.’”

The median annual earnings of young adults with a B.A. were $50,000 in 2016. The college income premium is often used as a justification for those of us who are fiscally-focused. It offers a rationale for devoting the considerable time, effort and expense required to receive a B.A. Several studies that have examined the size of the college income premium have found that it has ranged from about 70% to 100% more than income earned by people without a college degree. This premium has neither grown nor fallen very much over the last two decades; it’s plateaued. Other studies imply that the premium may have started to decline for specific cohorts of college students.

What has grown are college tuition and fees, which have greatly climbed for two reasons. First, states have provided a much smaller proportion of public university budgets; and second, the demand for an A.A. or B.A. degree has increased significantly. It’s been a sellers’ market for a long time, especially at “selective” schools. Since 1978, college tuition and fees have increased more than three times as fast as consumer goods and services’ prices have. Student debt has consequently risen; 69% of all college students have taken out at least one loan; the average loan owed is $29,800; the median monthly payment is $222.

I don’t think this necessarily comports as a general, capital “C” Crisis that’s often mentioned in the media. Student debt has increased because a lot more students have chosen to go to college. It’s principally demand-driven. Student debt that enables earning a college degree eventually provides added value to each and every student who graduates, as mentioned above. But defaults on student debt are the highest by a large margin of any type of private debt, especially for students who don’t graduate.

Entering and thriving in college, like climbing Everest, is not for the unprepared. As more and more students are going college, more have found it difficult to summit the academic mountain facing them. According to one report, anywhere from 40% to 60% of first-year college students now require remediation in English and/or math. These remedial courses cost students crucial money – about $1.3 billion each year. Also, these courses don’t count towards graduation requirements. On-time graduation rates of students who take remedial classes are consistently less than 10%. Basically, remedial education in college represents a deep crevasse into which all too many students are unlikely to emerge. The “who’s responsible for this” fingers are pointed in many directions regarding why this increased level of needed remediation has occurred and, of course, who should pay for it. More remediation is needed.

Today’s first-year entrants into college are more broadly representative of all our young adults, rather than a much narrower slice of them in decades gone by. This breadth is requiring more support services on the part of colleges and secondary schools, and more determination on the part of these students. Students who have the required determination and available resources graduate. But a lot don’t.

The travails of our ever-increasing number of college attendees have also risen, with only 40.7% graduating within four years across all US post-secondary educational institutions. For-profit schools’ graduation rate is contemptibly much lower, only 17.6% which is less than one-third the rate for non-profits.

Interestingly, there were several for-profit colleges named after the Earth’s highest peak. Unfortunately, none of the Everest Colleges ever reached high-altitude academics. Their owner/operator, Corinthian Colleges Inc., was successfully sued by the State of California in 2016 for defrauding their students. Everest College graduates have legitimately expressed concerns that their Everest degrees are effectively worthless. If colleges like Everest have been offering worthless degrees, perhaps they should be removed from the education business.

Higher education in the US now is far different than it was even 20 years ago, let alone in the more distant past. When I graduated from college, just after the Iron Age, having a B.A. was quite extraordinary, just one-in-ten adults received a B.A. or higher degree.

Neither the industrial-education complex, nor politicians, nor young people will allow a return to even the 2000s, when just one in four young adults graduated with a B.A. Now it’s one-in-three, which sounds like a small change, but it most assuredly isn’t. Getting a college degree has never been so culturally and socially hard-wired into our successful futures. Some folks even believe it’s a right, rather than an option. Go figure. For now and forever-more, returning to the recent past isn’t going to happen in terms of college access, and shouldn’t. And there are consequences when college degree holders become ever more widespread and less extraordinary.

Student loans have always been subsidized, reflecting the positive externalities associated with being a college graduate. Recently, several Dem presidential hopefuls have proposed increasing these subsidies in several ways. I do not think we should adopt policies like free public university that consequently will incent even more high-school grads and others to enter colleges. Visually think of such programs’ aftereffects as similar to the above picture of the overly long queue of cramped climbers waiting for the momentary grandeur of summiting Mt. Everest. Instead, multitudes of additional college students will be waiting and waiting not only to get into already-filled classes, but also to find a place to sleep and eat. Will these additional collegians, who would not have otherwise applied if it weren’t “free,” be adequately prepared academically? I have my doubts.

Policies like those Bernie and Elizabeth have been pushing for “tuition-free” and “debt-free” college are a doomed fantasy without also dramatically increasing public colleges/universities’ federal funding for expanded faculty, facilities and especially for remediative programs. If such free college programs were to see the light of day, listen for the anguished cries of progressives who whine that such policies will end up subsidizing un-poor people, mon dieu how inequitable! Such expensive, expansionary programs are likely to devalue the worth of attaining a college degree and increase drop-out rates. An A.A. or B.A. would become less exceptional and more normal. More eateries, and other businesses, would begin requiring wait-person jobs to have a post-high school degree. At best, smaller wage premiums would be willingly paid for such normality, just like when high-school degrees became ordinary starting in the 1970s; 55.2% of US adults had a high-school diploma in 1970. So, regarding “free college;” be careful what you wish for.

As Sir Edmund stated, it’s not a real adventure when you have to pay for it. Nevertheless, here’s to prepared adventuring in high places and higher education.