David Bly https://davidbly.com/index.php Former Member of Minnesota House of Representatives Mon, 26 Apr 2021 23:25:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 The 2nd MMT Conference https://davidbly.com/index.php/archive/the-2nd-mmt-conference/ Fri, 16 Nov 2018 16:20:18 +0000 http://davidbly.com/index.php/?p=5216 Related posts:
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At the end of September I attended The Second International Conference of Modern Monetary Theory:”Public Money, Public Purpose, Public Power” at The New School, in New York City.

I was fortunate to participate in a panel on “MMT and Electoral Politics” I believe I was the only elected official in attendance. Before I share my remarks from the panel here’s a bit about MMT and some links to how you can learn more about it:

Modern Monetary theory is a new way to look at money and how governments with sovereign currency (that is with the power to print their own currency) can use monetary policy to meet the needs of there citizens. It is a theory that has come into some prominence in the last decade but still has not completely entered the mainstream. But my sense is that it could transform the kind of economy we are able to create for our nation. It coincides with the ideas I talked about in my book We All Do Better : Economic Priorities for a Land of Opportunity . It suggests that we could create the kind of economy that provided for the needs of Americans, much like what Franklin Roosevelt called for in his economic bill of rights. MMT is also reflective of the efforts of Roosevelt and Keynes put into the Bretten Woods accord along with getting us off the gold standard, which freed our currency from constraints domestically and internationally and Nixon finalized on the international scale.

The theory has been developed by a small group of economists (most who were at the conference) and have been followers of Hyman Minsky (who you may have heard of in relation to the phrase ‘Minsky Moment’ which describes his ideas about the instability of Capitalist economies) his ideas were used to understand what happened to cause the 2008 world recession.

Minsky would be described as an Institutionalist (a school of economics often associated with Thorstein Veblen). He advocated a job guarantee as opposed to welfare to end poverty. The job guarantee has become one of the major policy suggestions of MMT advocates. He also pointed out the difference between true Keynesian economics and the divergent path that Neoliberal economists like Milton Friedman took a divergent path when they tried to rewrite Keynes. Economists at the Levy Institute, and at the University of Missouri in Kansas City carried on his work. New institutions and organizations are also beginning to champion this approach as well.

The most noted advocates who appear in publications and can be found on numerous websites are: Warren Mosler, L. Randall Wray, Bill Mitchell, Mathew Forstater, Stephanie Kelton, Scott Fullwiler, and Pavlina Tcherneva among others.

Here is a recent lecture by Stephanie Kelton of Stonybrook University speaking to the objection most often raised by conservatives when progressives talk about spending on social programs like medicare for all, “How you gonna pay for it?

This question is what motivated me to write We All Do Better but my emphasis was more on providing an economy where a middle class and upper mobility would continue to be possible.

So what MMT offers is an understanding that governments that have control of their own currency do and can set their priorities differently than those that do not. You might wonder the next time you hear conservatives say deficits don’t matter when they want to spend money on tax cuts or a war or disaster relief but then when it comes to spending on social programs all of a sudden insist that liberals have to show how they will pay for what they want.

What MMTers have discovered in their research looking at economies shaped by nations that have the power to mint and print their own currency is that there is no connection between the taxes they take in and decisions they make about spending.

They print money so that the can spend (and in modern economies the money is created by spending it – a key stroke on the computer). One of the reasons they print money is so that they can tax citizens and the act of taxing is important because there are times when it is important to reduce the money supply to avoid inflation.

Taxing is not used to raise the funds to pay for anything because the printing or creation of money is controlled by the state and it spends on what it wants to. So claims that if we spend more than we take in or if we fall into deficit by spending creates a problem – are a misunderstanding of how things work because the money supply is controlled by the state.

Actually, running a deficit means that the state has spent into the economy often giving private citizens funds which creates a debit on the state ledger, but a credit in the private sector. When the government sells bonds that is a collecting of funds from the private sector, which over time will be paid back as the bonds are paid back with interest to the individuals who have them. So this is not a drag on the economy – as red ink on the State ledger becomes black ink on the private sector ledger.

If this is not clear yet here are a few more links that will help you understand:

We are asking the wrong questions” – (video) Stephanie Kelton

“Trump’s Socialism claims rejected” – (video) Stephanie Kelton

“Rockstar appeal of Modern Monetary Theory” – The Nation

“Why U.S. Deficit Spending is a Good Thing” – (video) Bloomberg Politics

“But How Will We Pay For It?” – (video) Stephanie Kelton

“Democrats attacks on GOP tax cuts misses the point” – Stephanie Kelton

The profound message in all this is that we can have ‘Medicare for all’ and don’t have to explain how we will pay for it; because if we have the system in place to provide health care to everyone (a mix of private and public institutions and employees) we can do it. Here is a little video of the late Alan Greenspan attempting to explain this very thing to a disgruntled Rep. Paul Ryan, who as you know continues to make the argument that we can’t afford Medicare and Social Security, which is a lie.

Greenspan Schools Paul Ryan On Future Retiree Benefits and SOLVENCY

This is a profound change in our thinking and the most effective way to return our government into a functioning institution that can actually address the real problems that we face, like climate change and failing infrastructure. It changes our thinking away from ‘taxpayer money’ for individual good to ‘public money’ for the common good, which in a democracy means we have some say in what priorities we as a nation should set as opposed to allowing a ruling class set those priorities. I find it fascinating and the most hopeful way to think about our future I have found.

So here are the comments I made relative to MMT and electoral politics:

I live in a small college town in south central Minnesota. I am not an economist but I like to think of myself as a curious problem solver. I was trained as a high school English teacher and spent most of my 30 year career working with at risk students. Before I begin I want to state a couple of truisms I’ve learned about pedagogy – 1) You can’t learn anything you don’t already know (which is why I was trained to offer an anticipatory set to lay the groundwork for new concepts). 2) Prior knowledge supercedes later knowledge, (which means it is difficult for a new way of thinking to take hold and is often overtaken by an accepted way of thinking). All of which is to say the new concepts of MMT are not easily learned or taught and is why I value coming to this conference with clear thinking folks who have spent some time thinking through these ideas.

As I said, I am not an economist but I like to think that my pathway into economics came when I discovered that I grew up and live 13 miles from the home of Thorstein Veblen, who once taught here at the New School. Being also of Norwegian ancestry, I took pride in associating myself with his thinking. My favorite book of his is The Instinct of Workmanship where I learned about his ideas about how institutions are formed and sustained, how science emerged from idle curiosity and the force that habits of mind have on our thinking and behavior and finally how we are not creatures who are naturally adverse to work and need to be coerced or threatened to be steered away from perpetually seeking leisure. Work is not irksome unless forced on us by others and we as individuals will work hard on a chosen vocation because it is an expression of who we are and it is our nature to continually improve on the work we are engaged in. Many of his ideas like the dignity of work support the notion of a job guarantee.

Some years ago I wrote a play about Veblen’s ideas. I was struck by his observation in The Theory of the Business Enterprise that under different economic systems the concern was whether or not the economy could provide the goods and services needed by the people but under the current system it is never seriously considered. He claimed that everything he knew about economics he absorbed working along side his father, a craftsman and farmer.

My political mentor was Paul Wellstone who was fond of using the phrase, “We all do better, when we all do better” and he believed politics should be about improving people’s lives. It is because of Wellstone that I chose to run for office. He lived down the street me and taught at Carleton College in my hometown. He was running for his third term in the US Senate when he was killed in a plane crash days before an election he would have won.

I ran in a district that was very competitive divided between a liberal college town and a more conservative rural agricultural base. The first time I ran I lost by 20 votes and eventually won by 60 votes. I served two terms and then lost in 2010 by 30 votes. I was re-elected in 2012 and re-elected twice after that. When I was first elected in 2006 I was concerned about what was happening to a shrinking middle class and inequality. I asked the Legislative non-partisan research staff to tell me what was the history in Minnesota of income disparity. They reported back that Minnesota up until 2000 had the lowest income disparity in the country. After the election of Jesse Ventura and a huge tax cut we have seen that disparity rise until we now look just like the rest of the country.

It was because of that and the call for more tax cuts and pleas to sign the no-tax pledge that I wrote a pamphlet called “The Middle Class Amendment”, describing how we might save our middle class economy by government investment not in tax cuts but in five foundational constitutional commitments that would bolster a middle class in Minnesota. A constitutional amendment if I could get it to a ballot would by pass a Republican Governor’s veto. Those five vital investments would be in Education, Healthcare, Transportation, a clean and safe environment and living wage jobs. In Minnesota our constitution already had two of these provisions – Education and Transportation so to me it didn’t seem that much of a stretch.

Needless to say I did not get the necessary support to advance my idea. I had hoped thought that by introducing the idea I could continue to talk about it in the next election and maybe even interest politicians at the Federal level to embrace it.

In 2008, when we were facing cuts to important programs the programs ran ads saying, “Can you believe Rep. Bly wants to spend your tax dollars on education, health care, transportation, the environment and living wage jobs. Voters would answer, “Yes.” When I presented my idea to other various groups they wondered why I had not addressed the issue of housing.

In 2011 I heard Professor William A. “Sandy” Darity debate his idea for a ‘universal job guarantee’ and decided to include it in my book We All Do Better and when I returned to the legislature introduced a bill to consider such a policy in Minnesota, knowing that funding it would be more difficult at the State level. In my book I abandoned the idea for a constitutional amendment and just argued for the big picture investments arguing that the piecemeal approach we so often see in legislative action was not going to get us where we needed to be as every proposal was met with the “how you going to pay for it” refrain.

My approach was simply to ignore their question and counter with the evidence of a shrinking middle class and the growing corporate control of the economy that continued the economic divide. Then I discovered MMT. It seemed the perfect answer to the “How you gonna pay for it?” question. The only issue was how do you make it work for state governments. In my mind we already had an example for it in the Obama energy efficiency investment that gave states federal money to improve energy efficiency. There were other investments that came with the recovery stimulus plan that Obama put in place that similar investments would make MMT workable for states even when they are bound by balanced budget restrictions.

The question posed to us on this panel was is MMT a good election campaign talking point. I believe MMT is difficult to use for a campaign but policies like the “Job Guarantee” and “Medicare for All” are things you can run on.

When I talked about the five foundations in my book, We All Do Better, these were ideas that people could grasp especially when combined with policy initiatives like single payer health care, or multi-modal transportation or student debt forgiveness, or college tuition. In addition to these policy ideas, which I introduced as bills, I explored the idea of a state bank like the one in North Dakota. A state bank I believe can help solve some of the problems faced by the necessity to have a balanced budget.

In his book The Folklore of Capitalism Thurman W. Arnold, FDR’s best anti-trust lawyer argues that in 1936 politicians refused to talk about he biggest problem facing the country because they were afraid of being called a socialist or communist. This shows the power of the corporates and the plutocrats to distract us continually from the real problems we face. This remains true today. FDR tried to dislodge the control of our economy from the big banks and corporations but he ultimately failed and ever since the powers that be have undermined the protections he put in place for our democracy.

I believe MMT is related to FDR’s efforts to turn the power of our government away from corporate interest to the public good. His vision include a world wide rescue but this remains our struggle. I believe policies like ‘a job guarantee’ and ‘Medicare for all’ are steps in the right direction. So are the other tenants of the ‘Economic Bill of Rights’ FDR are spelled out for us. As I have said this is essentially the message in my book We All Do Better. It is also I believe much of what inspired the populist movement that was advanced by the Farmer Labor Party of Minnesota and the Non-Partisan League of North Dakota. It also is the main theme of Thorstein Veblen’s message to return to where I began. Also is well expressed by the title of this forum, “Public Money, Public Purpose, Public Power.”

Veblen argued against the dominant view of most in his day that ‘exploit’ and the pursuit of power and dominance by predatory actors was the natural state of human endeavor. It was without doubt at the center (along with the notion that the pursuit of self-interest was good for society as a whole) of the Capitalist ideology. Through his writing Veblen sought to discover and share the idea that there were other possibilities for human beings to organize their societies around. He proposed a theory of what he called fundamental human ‘instincts’ for the survival of the human species. To quote Sidney Plotkin, “The durable and self-reinforcing effects of human experience give increasingly greater weight to culture, habit, and environment in the evolving human make up. But the basic instinctual factors in human psychology have lasting significance. These factors include instincts of workmanship, which encourage us toward useful, effective work; a parental bent that stimulates our concerns for the future well-being of children, community, and species; and an ‘idle curiosity,’ which presses us to search for conceptual, theoretical understanding of the world and its phenomena.”

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Touring Storm Damage at Far-Gaze-Farm https://davidbly.com/index.php/archive/touring-storm-damage-at-far-gaze-farm/ Thu, 11 Oct 2018 20:41:04 +0000 http://davidbly.com/index.php/?p=5180 Related posts:
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On Wednesday I joined Dept. Ag. Commissioner Dave Fredrickson on a tour of Far Gaze Farm recently hit by a tornado. Damage was devastating as you can see in the before and after shots.

 

 

 

 

 

Commissioner Fredrickson observed, “the power of nature is overwhelming how quickly it can destroy so much hard work.” We met with the Petersons and a small group of public officials, legislators, local media, and farm group representatives to assess damage and begin the process of sorting out how the State might be of help.

Jennifer Hauer-Schmitz, Emergency Management Dir. of Rice County Sheriff’s Dept. reported that at least seven tornadoes touched down in Rice County and damage was extensive although mostly to trees. Clean up is on going and her office is looking to announce more volunteer opportunities to help. She described what data she has been able to gather about the damage to farms, homes, businesses and public land and structures. She indicated the data is incomplete and more information is needed to determine what programs might be able to help. “I need to hear from people who have damage especially damage to uninsured property. Though it is unlikely we will reach the threshold for Federal Damage assistance she encouraged us to get the word out to people so she can complete her report. So if you have damage or know someone who does do what you can to contact Jennifer at jhauer@co.rice.mn.us or 507-332-6119. She also reported that few injuries and no loss of life have been reported, “the weather service saved lives by getting warnings out to people.”

This tour was organized by Joshua Solano, staff at MN House. If you have pressing needs that you think my office might be able to help with please don’t hesitate to contact me at rep.david.bly@house.mn or 651-296-0171.

The storm got some immediate attention from local media:

Storm story Sept. 21: Northfield News

KSTP Weather

After the meeting Commissioner Fredrickson did send out the following information from his Department:

 

Disaster Information Center
The Minnesota Department of Commerce helps consumers in the event of a natural disaster.
click here

Emergency Manager Resources

Government Assistance for Farmers

Home Owners and Renters

MN Dept. Ag. Disaster Recovery Loan Program

Free financial farm counseling available

Soon after the storm Northfield City Council member Suzie Nakasian sent out the following information for city residents:

I am writing to share a recap of the storm, an update on the citywide clean-up that’s now underway, and some information to assist your Storm clean-up efforts.

As always, please feel free to contact me with questions or additional information about this and other events and issues in our community. I am easily reached via email or phone 507-301-6756.
Suzie Nakasian, Ward 1 Representative, Northfield City Council

I. Storm Recap:

• The attached Storm Damage Map shows areas of the City that were hit the hardest – most of those in Ward 1 especially the southeast region near Sibley School and further out east to Prairie, Mayflower, Heywood and Parmeadow
• City Staff have been working 24/7 – starting in the hardest hit areas
• Thankfully, there were no human casualties of this storm: with a shift of wind just a few blocks to the west, it could easily have been otherwise! Thank you for heeding the City’s Storm sirens!
• Carleton College reports significant tree loss but no serious structural damage to buildings
• The most significant structural damage was to properties on the edge of or immediately outside the city limits to the east and south
• Within the City Limits, significant damage was done to the City’s Urban Forest: by the end of the day on Sunday, 2700 truckloads (!) of felled trees had been added to the City Compost site – find more information below.

II. Update on the CityWide CleanUp
1. The City’s citywide clean-up efforts will continue into late October:

• Crews are currently working to remove boulevard trees and limbs that require heavy equipment
• Next step is to commence a citywide “sweep” of smaller tree limbs and branches . . .this is where you come in – read on- –

2. Starting Monday, October 1, City Crews will begin the work of removing all smaller downed tree limbs and branches that are piled on the boulevard.

• When crews come through, they will grab any tree limbs and branches that are piled on the boulevard – regardless of whether those are from felled boulevard trees or trees that are (or were ?) located on private property.
• Please note this one-time policy change which comes at the direction of the City Council: If you have downed tree limbs on your property, it is okay to pile those limbs and branches on the boulevard for removal by the City.
• City crews will make one pass through each city street over several weeks starting on Monday, October 1.
• A schedule of pick-up dates is in the works – I will forward it when it becomes available on the City website.

In the meantime. . .

III. Here are some tips to assist the City Crews with your storm clean-up efforts:

• when possible, cut branches that are on the boulevard to lengths of approximately 4′ or less (not an exact science)
• stack branches so that stems are perpendicular to the curb, with the stems a few inches away from the street (makes ‘e, easy to grab)
• keep the street and gutter clear of leaves, branches and other debris
• (while you are at it, check to make sure that nearby storm-sewer drains are clear of leaves and debris (this helps our water treatment plant)
• boulevard piles should include only trees and branches! piles that include weeds, grass clippings or other debris will not be picked up by City crews
• leaves, weeds and grass clippings may be bagged in compostable paper leaf bags (available at Econo/Family Fair) and brought to the curb for or pick up by DSI Dick’s sanitation on your trash pick up day (purchase curbside tickets at Econo/Family Fair). Residents may also bring bagged leaves to the Rice County LandFill or the City Rodeo Grounds (see below)
• If possible, please hold off on putting leaf bags at the curb until after the larger limbs are carted away- – let’s get the big stuff off the boulevard first.
Compost Site UPDATE:-
• Northfield’s Rodeo Grounds is new Compost Site: starting at 8am TODAY, Tuesday, Sept 25, Northfield and Dundas residents who are able/willing to haul their trees and branches may bring them to Northfield’s Rodeo Grounds (enter at Woodley and Highway 3) instead of the City Compost Site on Armstrong Road [Note: The City Compost Site on Armstrong Road is completely full and is now CLOSED until further notice.]
• The Rodeo Grounds is now open as a Compost Site, with extended hours: 7am – 8pm, 7days a week for the receipt of trees limbs, branches and leaves in compostable bags. There will also be a container at the Rodeo Grounds for the collection of household organic waste.
• The Rice County Landfill (located 3 miles south of Northfield on Highway 3) is open for extended hours M-F 7:30am-4:30pm M-F and Saturday, Sept 29, from 7:30am-1pm. Northfield and Dundas residents may bring to the Rice County Landfill yard waste including leaves, brush, grass clippings, branches, and other garden residue; No non-composable leaf bags, lumber, rocks, or stumps.
• The Rice County Landfill also accepts construction and building related debris and household hazardous waste and unused paint and chemical products. For more information contact: RCSolidWaste@co.rice.mn.us or call 507-333-3877
• Rice County residents who have questions and concerns related to this storm event may call the Rice County Non-Emergency Storm Line: Monda-Friday from 8am – 4:30pm 507-333-3877 or toll free 833-643-7423.
Volunteer Help:

• Northfield area residents who need volunteer help to assist with the removal of trees and branches are encouraged to call Northfield Shares at 507-403-9755 or email info@northfieldshares.com 8am-7pm 7 days a week. Many helping hands are available! Northfield at its best!
• Many Northfield-area churches also have volunteer crews working to assist neighbors – check your local church listings.
• If you can volunteer time or equipment to help area residents cut down trees and clear trees/branches, or if you are in the position to offer meals to families without power, please call Northfield Shares at 507-403-9755 or email info@northfieldshares.com

 

The day after the storm I did a tour of Northfield, Dundas, and surrounding townships between Faribault and Northfield and took a few photos. I heard about damage to Northfield Township but did not get a chance to see it up close until yesterday.

 

 

 

 

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Wellstone: Politics Should Be About Improving People’s Lives https://davidbly.com/index.php/archive/wellstone-politics-should-be-about-improving-peoples-lives/ Tue, 28 Aug 2018 21:50:07 +0000 http://davidbly.com/index.php/?p=5172 Related posts:
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Erin Murphy

I was inspired by Erin Murphy’s campaign for Governor because she argued we can actually solve the societal problems we face if we just put our political will to work. We hear too often that we might as well just accept the world as it is because these problems are just too big for us to take on.

This attitude began going back a generation when we witnessed a concerted effort by corporate and big business interest to push back against popular efforts to meet the needs of our fellow citizens. FDR experimented with numerous policies to protect people from poverty and promote a decent life like Social Security. In addition, he argued for ‘an economic bill of rights’ promising workers a right to a job and a living wage. LBJ pushed for Medicare and voting rights to create a better society.

Some of these struggles were won, despite establishment conservatives who called it ‘socialism’ and claimed it would destroy America. It seems strange to me that solving the problems of hardship and want should be so resisted by people who have been extremely fortunate in their lives. Despite benefiting themselves from public services, they’re upset when those they deem ‘undeserving’ are helped by government efforts.

When I started running for office in 2002 I heard consistently from voters that healthcare was one of their biggest concerns. I’ve advocated for single payer universal healthcare every year I ran since 2002. Sen. John Marty and I introduced the Minnesota Health Plan, which would bring this important policy to Minnesota. We traveled the state in 2007 talking with citizens about how such a policy would create opportunity and free them from risks that our current health care system can’t. In 2010 we did get a hearing or two for our bill but could not advance it. According to a new poll by Reuters 70 percent of Americans now support a Medicare for all (universal single-payer) system —including 52 percent of Republicans.

FDR and LBJ proved that government could respond and improve the lives of millions of citizens. Our current President has proven government can improve the lives of a much smaller number of extremely wealthy individuals by cutting taxes. I don’t understand why this is acceptable. Rather than solving the problems of increasing health care costs we end up making the extremely wealthy even wealthier.

We decided for the general good to provide an education to everyone. In fact we make school attendance mandatory. We’ve decided for the common good to provide protections against crime and fire by having police and firemen protect us. We assure public communication by having a national postal service. These common goods we believe are best provided by the government and at least until recently haven’t minded providing them.

We do believe in making sure we have health providers (or at least we used to). More recently we are leaving the availability of health providers up to corporate interests. As more communities are losing their hospitals and doctors because their corporate owners believe it is more efficient for the sick and disabled to drive many miles for care than it is for those corporate interests to make sure it easily accessible to everyone. We also see this reasoning driving the costs of pharmaceuticals and health services as giving up price control is deemed more ‘efficient.’

A universal single payer system would give us the ability to look at the needs and rights of citizens and patients. Providing for public needs requires political will – something sadly lacking in our current politics.

Some say universal coverage gives health care to ‘undeserving’ people but we don’t apply the same thinking to schools in fact we’ve laws that protect struggling or disabled students. We know it hurts all of us when we ignore or allow struggling communities to fall deeper into despair. Diseases spread just like fire can spread we need to have a way to deal with it whether it is in a poor neighborhood or a rich one.

People argue, ‘we can’t afford it,’ but the true test of what we can afford is what we set our minds to – if we believe something is important we can accomplish it especially when the return on our investment will make things better for all of us. This is true with education and I would argue it is true with health care, transportation, a clean and safe and environment and in guaranteeing living wage jobs. Instead it seems our leaders are intent on investing in the wealthiest Americans who hide and hoard their wealth in order to avoid taxes and put people out of work by buying out competitors and shipping jobs away.

We can solve the problems we face if we put our minds to it. These problems will not solve themselves. Other countries have shown us the way to reduce overall costs by deciding to pay a little more in taxes and avoiding hidden costs that keep eating up our pocketbooks.

Sen. John Marty will be in Northfield on Thursday, September 13 to speak and lead a discussion on his Minnesota Health Plan, Healing Health Care – The Case for a Commonsense Universal Health System, 7pm at the Weitz Center, Carleton College (event is open to the public). Senator Marty’s book outlining his plan is available in e-book form at no cost at www.mnhealthplan.org or it can be purchased directly from the publisher, Birch Grove Press or your local independent bookseller. Copies will be available at the Northfield event.

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Improving American Education: Looking beyond our borders https://davidbly.com/index.php/archive/improving-american-education-looking-beyond-our-borders/ Fri, 05 Jan 2018 22:10:47 +0000 http://davidbly.com/index.php/?p=5140 Related posts:
  1. Education Funding
  2. Education – What matters (first in a series)
  3. What about education reform?
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AAMAAgDGAAoAAQAAAAAAAAq_AAAAJDc2YTU5OTIwLWM2MjctNDQ0MS1hNjc2LTY0ZmY4MWVkYmQ4OQSince the 1980s when politicians blamed our public schools for our economy falling behind Japan, we‘ve struggled with how to improve them. Many complained about how our schools were stuck in a 19th century mode of educating our young people but instead of consulting with experts and learning from the latest research they decided that a slash and burn approach would be much better: Test performance of our students on high stakes tests and shut down the schools that did not measure up. There are still a good number of politicians with this hard hearted approach.

On the other hand the counter argument is that we just need to spend more money on schools. In part this latter idea comes from the realization that there are underfunded schools because we have allowed some communities to fall behind, a measure of our growing inequality across the country.

This is very clear when you examine the correlation between zip codes and the test scores. Poverty and low test scores appear to go hand in hand. So some might say, fix our economy and we’ll fix our schools. But we’re still not asking what do researchers tell us about how we can do better. If we look outside our borders we might find a clue to how to do this.

Finland is not the only country where we find students consistently scoring among the highest on international test scores but they are an example of a country that confronted the problem of how to improve their schools by going to the research. Research mostly done in the United States with taxpayer funds.

I recently attended a forum about the future of schooling sponsored by Education Evolving, the most interesting part of the event was receiving a copy of Pasi Sahlberg’s new book, FinnishED Leadership: Four Big, Inexpensive ideas to Transform Education

pasi-sahlberg-2If you haven’t heard of Pasi Sahlberg, he is the author of several books about the remarkable education system that out performs most other systems in the world. He has been a teacher and professor and now spends his time sharing his experience and the successes of the Finnish Education system.th-1

Essentially his message is that Finland’s success is based on focusing on a few principles, on proven methods many of which have come from the US, and research done at American Universities.

The Finnish principles that shaped their education reform efforts were equity and trust. They wanted a system that would guarantee equity of learning, success and opportunity; and they wanted a system based on mutual trust between parents and schools, teachers and students and teachers and administrators.

Among the U.S. research Pasi Sahlberg mentions are multiple intelligences, cooperative learning, and the idea of schools as learning environments for students and teachers.

His advice to us in improving our public schools is 1) Make recess a child’s right. He argues that our “addiction to reform” (Merrow) have caused us to lose sight of the basic needs of the learning child. He argues for the importance of play in learning.

2) Use small data for big change, this is humanizing data and rather than looking at information unrelated to what we do in the classroom – look at what we are actually doing tells how to improve. Because it is transactional you learn from student’s ideas and behavior. “If you don’t lead by small data, you will be led by big data.” Finally, because teachers participate in small data collection it is respectful of their role. Big Data is suspicious of the teacher’s role.

3) Enhance equity in education, the idea of a good school in Finland is a neighborhood school for all children regardless of family background, community characteristics, or personal conditions. All schools should have the capacity to address disparities in health, nutrition, and socio-economic status. Equity is about fairness and inclusion not giving everyone the same education. Equity is central to school improvement.

4) Know the difference between fact and myth even with Finnish schooling. Don’t believe just what you hear, be willing to really learn what Finnish schools are like and what U.S. schools could be like. “Keep the focus on student needs not international test rankings.”

There is much in Pasi Sahlberg’s words that ring true for me – his ideas remind me of my own experience as a teacher and the experience of others like Utah educator Lynn Stoddard. thLynn doesn’t begin by thinking about the end of an educational career and how he can give corporate America the workers they want.

41bIuvnEy3L._SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_In his book, Educating for Human Greatness, Lynn describes how to think about the beginning of child’s learning by helping them learn who they are and what they need to know. “How can we design a school so that each child can discover who they were meant to be?” is the question he asks. He advocates a truly student-centered approach that identifies seven powers necessary for developing human greatness: Identity, Inquiry, Interaction, Initiative, Imagination, Intuition and Integrity. The message he gives to his students is “We need you and your talents and your experience. Find your greatness and you will find your reason for living.”

Instead we seem to create an education that attempts to shape students into what we want them to be. In my experience the most important element in my teaching was finding that path to engaging students in the excitement of learning. Without it they cannot succeed.

I’ve written about some of these ideas in my little book, We All Do Better: Economic Priorities for a Land of Opportunity, because if we truly want to build an economy that works for everyone we need to make sure we set our students on the path of success. If we don’t make the investments in the institutions that will create an economy capable of providing what our students need, it is not the students who are failing–it is us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jeffrey Sachs and “Future Now” https://davidbly.com/index.php/archive/jeffrey-sachs-and-future-now/ Thu, 30 Nov 2017 17:25:52 +0000 http://davidbly.com/index.php/?p=5128 Related posts:
  1. What does the future hold?
  2. Building a Better Future
  3. Building a Future Where More People Get Ahead
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sachs2017_bgJeffrey Sachs, Columbia University Professor and director of the Earth Institute has joined entrepreneur Adam Pritzker and former New York State Senator Daniel Squadron to begin the Future Now project to achieve ‘America’s Goals’ by 2030. Much of the proposal is mentioned in his recent book, Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable.

Much of what is in the Future Now project is similar to what I am advocating for in “We All Do Better” I have pledged to work with them and promote their effort. I received today the following email message from Director of Policy, Lauren Ellis:

Dear Representative Bly:
Are you looking for policy solutions that will work for you and help your constituents?

Click here by Dec. 31 to become a Founding Signer of the Pledge to Achieve America’s Goals, and get access to policy solutions and support to help achieve America’s Goals, a set of ambitious, measurable targets that reflect shared American values in seven areas:

Good Jobs; Affordable Quality Healthcare; Investing in Children; Empowering People over Special Interests; Equal Opportunity; Sustainable Infrastructure, Resilience and Innovation; and Clean Air, Water, and Energy.

Candidates and legislators around the country have already taken the Pledge. Will you join as a Founding Signer by signing the Pledge to Achieve America’s Goals today?

Sign the Pledge to Achieve America’s Goals
Future Now, a new, state-by-state effort founded by economist Jeffrey Sachs, entrepreneur Adam Pritzker, and former State Senator Daniel Squadron to achieve America’s Goals, will work with our Founding Signers to bridge the political divide and implement the most effective strategies to achieve America’s Goals in their states by 2030.

We hope you will join us.

Please let us know if you would like any further information on Future Now or the Pledge to Achieve America’s Goals. We look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

Lauren Ellis
Director of Policy and Legal
Future Now

If you’re a policy maker I encourage you to sign on to this effort as well. There could never be a more important time to reinvest in public goods as our current President and the majorities in the House and Senate are undermining important social safety nets.

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TRUMP’S WRONG HEADED TAX CUT PROPOSALS DENY US ABILITY TO SOLVE PROBLEMS WE FACE https://davidbly.com/index.php/archive/trumps-wrong-headed-tax-cut-proposals-deny-us-ability-to-solve-problems-we-face/ Sat, 07 Oct 2017 02:09:41 +0000 http://davidbly.com/index.php/?p=5107 Related posts:
  1. A JOBS FILTER
  2. Wages and Tax Cuts
  3. Economy Talk 4: Do the Right Thing
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taxcutsThe President and his allies in Congress are talking about their big plans for ‘huge’ tax cuts in the midst of massive weather related destruction. Making outrageous claims that this is what will bring about ‘tremendous’ economic growth, increased wages and increased job creation right here in America.

All this from a man who has all of the many products he sells made outside the borders of the United States. The President’s Freedom Caucus financial planner who ran for congress to cut the deficit now says, “We need new deficits,” so let’s spend lots of money on tax cuts.

BruceBartlett To these outrageous claims, Bruce Bartlet, former domestic advisor to Ronald Reagan and one of the authors of Reagan’s tax reform says, “I had a hand in creating the Republican tax myth . . . That’s wishful thinking. So is most of the Republican rhetoric around tax cutting. In reality there’s no evidence that a tax cut now would spur growth.”

Trump’s sell job reminds of the caricatured used car salesman who having temporarily propped up a real clunker with a new paint job and by doing something like pouring sugar in the gas tank tells you it’s a steal but all sales are final. “It’s yours once you pay for it and drive it off the lot.”

What you don’t know is that you just bought a heap of useless rusting metal that will take you a block. But the real problem with all this talk of tax ‘reform’ which is really tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which for the last 40 years has been the real problem is that it takes us away from talking about, debating and solving the real problems we face.

This is true at every level of government. My good friend Cary Coop, the longest serving city council member in Belle Plaine reminds me. “It’s easy to cut taxes you just have to decide you are not going to repair any roads or infrastructure for the next couple of decades and the problem is solved you can cut back on taxes.

This is how Governor Pawlenty avoided raising taxes while he raided every pocket of money in the state to pay for some essentials by neglecting infrastructure.

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It took a bridge collapse for us to refocus on what was important; and it wasn’t until Governor Dayton decided he would first talk about what we need to take care of, so that we got to set priorities like education, health care, transportation, infrastructure, water quality and wages and then figure out how to pay for them that we made progress. Republicans here in Minnesota have offered no evidence that, the $40 million tax cut for the tobacco industry the insisted on will help our economy.

During the Pawlenty years we got rid of the Department of planning and decided to pursue a reckless path of ‘faith in the market’ to get things done for us. This is similar to the problem we face with health care. Rather than pushing for a real solution based on the notion that health care, like education, should be a basic right we pursued a market-based approach that relies on the profitability of insurance companies to provide access to health care.

The result is not health care but lots of money spent on keeping insurance companies profitable.

This is what happens when we get the process wrong. We start with the lies and fantasies of tax reform and tax cuts thinking it will help us get to our goals but leads us to austerity and the need to cut spending. We either never ask or are distracted from discussing what we need as a society or what will truly grow the economy and bring us closer to prosperity.

MinnPost recently published an article on Greater Minnesota’s economy explaining that although employers were ready to hire workers, growth was not happening because of lack of housing, transportation, and child care with some concern about whether or not wages were attractive enough. There is nothing about this that cutting taxes will remedy. But planning to meet these needs through targeted investments and planning that the non-existent Department of Planning can’t help with.

This last September economists at the University of Kansas organized a conference based on what they are calling Modern Monetary Theory, which focuses on two things 1) that the Federal Government should commit to full employment by making the government the employer of last resort; and 2) that there is no connection between the collecting of taxes and government spending. Because spending commitments are made before taxes are collected, and the government pays for them by bonding and printing funds. The idea that one can grow the economy by cutting back on investments is wrong headed as evidenced by what we’ve seen happen in Greece. Greece can’t grow its economy because it must pay down its debt and it can’t print its own money.

But because the US can print money it will never, as Alan Greenspan has said, default on its debt. Dr. Stephanie Kelton StephanieKelton has been a strong proponent of MMT and makes her case in a recent article explaining that ours is not a revenue problem but a resource problem, arguing we could give everyone a pony if we had enough ponies to give away.

There are not two economies but one – activity in the public sector does effect the private sector and vice a versa. When the Federal government spends money creating a deficit on the ledger in the public sector it creates money on the private side and the economy grows. Too much money will cause inflation but that can be remedied by taking money out of the economy through taxation. (See Kelton here)

In my mind what this really speaks to is that the arguments for tax cuts and for austerity primarily are aimed at limiting the power and ability of government to invest in what is needed. The current Congress doesn’t usually argue about what to spend on only how to cut the debt and fantasizes about cutting taxes and spending as a means to stimulating growth. Here’s what economist Mark Blyth says about it speaking to congress: (click here)

MarkBlyth

But cutting spending is always cutting someone else’s income and we can’t grow something by shrinking it. So my idea is not to think about what we cut but rather making sure we make the right investments.

I argue that if we decide, as my County Commissioners recently did, that they needed to step up and have a plan for repairing the roads and then they found a way to pay for it. So let’s set the right priorities, my research tells me that if we want an economy that works for everyone if have to make the investments that will provide a firm foundation for all to have the opportunity to do better. As I explained in my book We All Do Better:Economic Priorities for a Land of Opportunity

1) I believe in committing to creating an education system that meets the needs of all citizens. From early childhood education with efforts to help children and parents get ready to learn to the assurance to young adults that they can pursue higher education without stifling debt.

2) Just as access to education should be a human right so should health care. We have to commit to the notion that all citizens should be able to count on access to affordable health care.

3) We must be able to count on a transportation system that delivers the goods we need and can help us get to the jobs we need to sustain us.

4) In order to sustain our health and our well being we must be able to count on access to clean water and clean air. We must be able to count on our government protecting us from poisons and pollution that threaten our safety and we must be prepared to face a changing climate that threatens all of us.

5) Finally, we should expect that an economy that works for everyone can provide us with living wage jobs so we can sustain our selves and participate in the economy and society.

And if we wanted to add one more we could include access to affordable housing.

When I talk with folks in my district, of all walks of life, these are the fundamental things they all want to be able to count on. They want elected officials to figure out how to provide them. The President is pushing a “cruel joke” claiming his plan is a “middle class miracle” when it is actually a “huge” gift to his peers who now control a stunning 77 % of our countries wealth .

This wouldn’t be so bad if the rest of us also benefited and Trump would actually propose a solution to the uncertainty we face but nothing he is proposing will improve the lives of most Americans and history has already shown us that. Look no further than what happened in Kansas under Governor Brownback.

Let’s push back against this mean spirited proposal and push for the policies and priorities that will truly strengthen our economy.

Republicans’ tax plan gives the top 1 percent of households a $207,000 tax cut; Bottom 20 percent get $50

tpc-taxes-snapshot-v2c

 

 

 

 

I like Mark Blyth as an encore here are couple more of his comments:

Why Do People Continue to Believe Stupid Economic Ideas – Mark Blyth

Mark Blyth on Sweden and how everything works

Explaining Trump:

 

 

 

 

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