See You in the Center
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| The Center |
You might be right that our differences are too big to bridge; perhaps the generational divide is part of the problem. I'm a child of the 1980s and the Reagan Revolution. The idea that unions are essential to democracy, for instance, never made much sense to me; by my time, they seemed like one more interest group. Nor does the "soak the rich" class-warrior rhetoric ring my bells. Maybe because I don't live in Gotham? Maybe because I worry that any effort to confiscate wealth will backfire (in terms of lower economic growth) and will only end up hurting the poor?
I don't think it's just us, though. What's been instructive about our discussion is that it shows how deep the divides are when it comes to social policy in America. (Of course, anyone following the news out of Washington could have told us that.) I totally understand the frustration of educators who complain that policymakers put all the problems of the world on their shoulders and want to see "broader and bolder" efforts to fight poverty, too. But there's a simple reason that education has been in the spotlight for so long: It's one of the few things upon which the politicians--and the Americans they represent--can agree.
The left, after all, views poverty as the result of structural changes in the economy, systematic inequities (including inequities in school funding), and the lingering effects of racism. It wants a
