Who Are the 'Deserving Rich'? - Bridging Differences - Education Week

Who Are the 'Deserving Rich'? - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

Who Are the 'Deserving Rich'?

By Deborah Meier on October 15, 2013 9:06 AM

Dear Mike,

I have just come from the Progressive Education Network conference. In such settings, with like-minded folks, I find it fun to look for disagreements.  That's a problem we don't have.  You and I have no trouble finding things we disagree on. More than I expected. Finding a place where we agree is proving more difficult for both of us. 

I have been pondering what to pick out of your last piece to focus on. I've been listening to Dickens on my car CD player lately, and it made me realize that you and I live in different "worlds" when it comes to our responses to poverty, social class, and what we mean by equity and equality. Maybe democracy, too?

A few respondents reminded me that America actually wasn't founded as a democracy, but as a republic (no inherited monarchies). Having grown up in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, I took it for granted that we were rooted in a "secular" allegiance to democracy—the true defenders of the democratic faith. Do we agree or disagree? 

Some of our disagreements are about matters of fact, others matters of interpretation, and finally value judgments that rest on belief/faith/unable to be deterred by facts!

We agree that upward social mobility is a promising idea. That's worth noting.  But how to make it a reality is what we disagree about—and perhaps even what we mean by mobility. At present most