Political Economy of Education

Political Economy of Education Maureen W. McClure

University of Pittsburgh School of Education Spring Term (20164) ADMPS 2399 (CRN: 29103)

Time: Tuesdays, 4:30-7:10 Room: 5700 Posvar Hall Office: 5711 Posvar Hall Office phone: (412) 648-7114 Office Hours: Tuesdays, 12:00-3:00 (both in the office and online, other times by appointment) Email: [email protected]

PREFACE

This syllabus is a draft because, in addition to core issues and materials, each class brings to the seminar different expertise and experiences. This can and should influence the choices of some online materials, or books to borrow. Students will also be expected to contribute materials for others to read.

INTRODUCTION

We are going to track some of the most contested questions in education. Who should pay for the education of others? Why? How?

It is a bit less difficult to see the connections between individuals who invest in their own education, and the return they receive for that investment. All of you have made investments not only of money, but also of time, lots of it, studying.

If we can see why individual investments in themselves may make sense (depending on what kind of education they invest in), then why should someone allow their hard earned income to be taxed to pay for the education of children whom they do not know?

Much of this course rests on the problems of framing. Depending on how we “construct” thinking about these questions, we may veer off in very different directions. Our job is to better understand these frames and how many of them underlie our thinking about children and education. And, as some will claim, these frames are inherently political.

A few quick things. First, both the Economics of Education and the Political Economy of Education courses in the School of Education rest on the problems of development and security. So we need to examine how political economy debates in education are rooted in different understandings of the world. DRAFT: January 4, 2016

Second, this course is likely to raise more questions than answers. This is intentional. Mastering good questions can be very useful. Voltaire is attributed with saying “Judge a man by questions, not his answers.” We will build “trails of questions” some enduring, some short-lived, which can help you, moving forward after the course, navigate fashionable educational reform rhetoric both today and in the futures. What types of education should be available to the next generation? Who should decide? Who should pay? How should they pay? What are the consequences of one generation’s choices for the next? Whose interests are served? Why can’t smart people agree on what to do?

Why is this important? It is easy to become lost in the forests of this course in part because it reaches across disciplines, many of them doing great work, but not easily aligned.

Third, have you taken any economics courses before? Have you taken an economics of education course before? If not, that’s fine. If you have, great. Just let me know soon, so I can include supplemental materials that may be helpful. If you haven’t taken an economics course before, why not sign up for a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in microeconomics (best) or macroeconomics (if you have had micro). These courses are online, are free, and some are very good. You can just take the parts of the course you want, you don’t have to take the whole thing unless you want to. I recommend the Khan Academy (basics), edX and Coursera ( a little more detailed), and there are others. We’ll talk about it in class.

Fourth, this class will take difficult material slowly. Parts of the primary text can be complicated. This means we will read less material, but you may need to go over it multiple times. It works, especially for good students who were studying one area, and then find themselves in “new territory.” Students who may already know much of the material can move on into more specialized areas.

And finally, we will be taking advantage of free online courses to deepen our understanding of what we are reading. The rapid development of MOOCs has opened up new vistas for shared learning. There are also advantages to MOOC use, including, watching videos conveniently, repeating some, skipping others, speeding them up or slowing them down, close captioning (still pretty bad), readings, joining in discussions with people from all over the world (unless the course is archived).

TEXTBOOKS

Peet, R. & Hartwick, E. (2015). Theories of development: Contentions, arguments, alternatives. 3rd ed. New York: The Guildford Press. If the 3rd edition is costly for you, go ahead and buy an older edition (used, very good shape), and let me know.

Strunk, W., Jr. & White, E. B. (1999). The elements of style. 4th ed. London: Longman. [ISBN: 978-0205309023] A classic. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php? storyId=103140512

2 DRAFT: January 4, 2016

Others (required and recommended) online in CourseWeb. It is also expected that students will discover and contribute related news and articles that other students may find useful. In addition to more traditional readings, videos will be assigned. Finally, you will be encouraged to join other online courses to tap into wonderful, free resources you can use, not only for this course, but for later as well.

ASSIGNMENTS

The purposes of the course are simple and clear. First is to help you become more fluent in the political and economic ideas that help shape education policy, both domestically and internationally. Second, is to help you better understand and explain what is important to you, compared with others who may or may not share your interests.

How can this be accomplished? 1. One page weekly summaries of your assigned and other readings, along with two good questions to ask the class. (20%) 2. Weekly engagement in class discussions. Class debates will give you chance to help sort out your positions, relative to others. (20%) 3. A group map. The map will follow a “trail of questions” and answers related to your readings. A trail of questions emerges, as questions are located as backward, peer or forward concepts. Once others are backward and forward mapped, each person in the class will place themself on the map and present a three page executive briefing paper as to the map contents and why the located self. (30%) 4. A policy briefing paper that states a problem related to the course topic, offers solutions and then argues why the solutions you have designed are better than others. (30%)

The course topic is “Education in a Generational Interest.” Most of the literature in the economics and politics of education focuses on “stakeholder” interests. This usually means the interests of institutions, groups and individuals. Given its importance in the future of both economies and polities, one group that is rarely included, despite its centrality to education, is the next generation (and beyond). Children are often discussed, but more often as static rather than dynamic stakeholders who grow up to replace us.

Under classical metaphors of resources scarcity and competition, one might expect to see generations competing with each other for resources. If, on face value, the more competitive generations won over the more vulnerable ones, markets might clear, but civilizations could end.

So while it may be good to help prepare individual children with the knowledge and skills they need to survive in globalizing markets, this narrative could also be a cautionary tale. Why? What if it also demonstrates the problems that can arise if 3 DRAFT: January 4, 2016 school leavers lack the knowledge and skills needed to take the reins of government in a democracy? And what if they then vote in ways that simultaneously support their short-term and hinder their longer-term interests? For example, rapidly changing demographics in the US project both rapidly rising numbers of elderly and children in poor districts. This could soon be problematic. Add to it falling numbers of good, taxable jobs and how might all three indicators affect successful future financing of education?

The answers to this question rest on our views of generational rights and responsibilities. How do we “construct” the next generation? Not us?

Throughout the centuries, the answers to this question and the reasons for its answers have changed. And they continue to change. On one level this looks like a fairly straightforward economic question with a cost/benefit answer. Those who should pay for education are those who should benefit from it. The only problem with this approach is, of course, the problem of the generational interest. Young children may be the greatest beneficiaries of education, but alas, they have no means to invest in it. What then are the solutions to this and other problems such as poverty, economic change, etc.?

This is where all of the trouble starts. Our technology fails. Why? One reason is because we have so many different ways to think about children. Are they family members first? If so, then are the greatest beneficiaries the family? And if so, then shouldn’t families pay for their own children’s education? But what if they are poor? Should someone else pay? But why should someone else pay? What if someone claims that they shouldn’t have to pay for a poor person’s children because first, it takes money away from their own children’s education; and second, why did poor people have children they couldn’t afford in the first place? As you can see things can become very complicated very quickly. And mean. The problem of paying for poor children can turn ugly. These are "wicked" not "tame" problems, and must be attended to.

SCHEDULE

January: Principles: Foxes and Hedgehogs

Peet and Hartwick. Pp. 1-118 Growth versus development Classical and Neoclassical Economics Keynesian to Neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus Berlin files Camillus and Wicked Problem files Khan Academy Salman Khan opens school in Mountain View. Lots of coding. Review of microeconomic basics

Investment and consumption (human capital) MOOC: The Power of Microeconomics: Economic Principles in the Real World (UC Irvine) MOOC: Saving Schools Mini-Course 1: History and Politics of US Education (Harvard) Stiglitz files

Other materials on CourseWeb.

Frames for Debate Once politics and economics in education start bumping up against each other, trouble starts. 1. Review (Start as soon as possible) a. What do we mean by politics? Economics? And what can we learn when put them together? And why are these two concepts so often discussed separately? And why is there so much disagreement? b. Khan Academy: Introduction to basic microeconomics terms – To get started, look at (Khan Academy - microeconomics - supply-demand-equilibrium) c. For a more detailed review of basic microeconomics, see c.i. MIT Open Courseware http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/14-01sc-principles- of-microeconomics-fall-2011/index.htm c.ii. Coursera.org is offering a free online course (that has just started) called The Power of Microeconomics: Economic Principles in the Real World (University of California, Irvine) – you can sign up for the course and just watch the videos when you have time – and repeat them if needed- (I just signed up for it.) d. Classical economics rests on the concept of rational choice. This means, that, all things being equal, people are likely to make the best decisions for themselves. The newer field of behavioral economics, however, studies decision making that doesn’t appear to be rational, such as “Why did those folks know better, but didn’t make the best decision for themselves?” And what do we mean by concepts such as “bias,” “interest” or “influence”? (The University of Toronto offers a self-paced MOOC on Behavioral Economics in Action that you could sign up for). Finally, many educational problems are wicked, not tame. They are too complex for permanent standardized solutions. Education for generational succession is not only a wicked problem, it is a super-wicked problem, like climate change. A super-wicked problem means d.i. Time is running out d.ii. The people who are the sources of the problem are also the sources of solutions 5 DRAFT: January 4, 2016

d.iii. No central authority d.iv. Irrational discounting of the future 2. The political economies in education reaches across the sector and its systems – allocating decision rights and resources a. Basic (Primary and secondary education) b. Postsecondary (Higher education) c. Adult education (training, enrichment) d. Nongovernmental (Nonprofit) education 3. Brief introduction to applied social theories: Frames (Lakoff) and Choices (Rational, behavioral) a. Stories and voices: The narratives of affiliation and interests to help shape identity: Mixing moral obligation/duty with realpolitik b. Political security and identity: Protection through solidarity b.i. Family/clan/ethnicity - legacy, heritage –ways of being b.ii. Religious affiliation – codes of conduct to be a good person b.iii. Human rights – secular with religious roots and legal expressions (e.g. democracies) b.iv. Governments - legal systems (local, national, international)- issues of protection, fairness, justice b.v. Other c. Economic security and identity: Protection through markets for production and trade c.i. Workplaces as meritocracies c.ii. Markets as summed personal choices c.iii. Fair and winnowing competition - Social Darwinism c.iv. Cooperative trade alliances – Pluralism d. Generational security and identity: Protection through alliances of time d.i. In the past generational relationships were often assumed d.ii. Today’s complex and rapidly changing demographics may threaten security issues across the board 4. Development and capital a. Human capital b. Social capital c. Cultural capital d. Knowledge capital e. Technology capital f. Moral capital g. Other

Who’s on first and why? Miscommunication is common, especially when one is thinking in concrete and literal terms, and the other is thinking more in conceptual terms. (See famous “Who’s on first”? YouTube videos – the original by Abbott and Costello, and the "Who's On First?": The Sequel (w/ Jimmy Fallon, Billy Crystal & Jerry Seinfeld). Why do many Americans think this is so funny?

February: Comparative Methods and Framing

Peet & Hartwick, pp. 119-221 Khan Academy: GDP, National Income and Inequality George Lakoff files on CourseWeb MOOC: Configuring the World: A Critical Political Economy Approach (University of Leiden)  Data quality critical in social science research  Methods to critique data quality MOOC: Framing: Creating powerful political messages (Delft University of Technology)) Other materials on CourseWeb

Studying political economies in education in action.  Costs and benefit, time value of money  Centrality of data quality…underscore….  Methods for understanding both measurements and meanings.  Measurement for shared understanding.  Meaning framing to understand difference.  Comparing domestic and international  Comparing institutional stakeholder decisions and policies in depth through case studies, using mixed (quantitative and qualitative) methods  Comparing literatures through conceptual mapping

March and April: Applications

Peet & Hartwick, pp. 222-324 Berlin, I. On value pluralism (pluralism) v. monism https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/notes/berlin.html MOOC: Behavioral Economics in Action (University of Toronto) MOOC: Globalization's Winners and Losers: Challenges for Developed and Developing Countries (Georgetown University) Other materials on Courseweb

Domestic US Context – Private foundations and public schools Case: Zuckerberg in Newark in The Prize Markets in tension with national security International context Concerns for economic competitiveness 21st Century skills Daniel Pink Global focus International agencies: education, UNICEF and UNESCO-

Concern for provincialism Human rights Cosmopolitan, pluralistic views