CURMUDGUCATION: $100,000 Garbage Workers + ICYMI: A Stack for the End of February

CURMUDGUCATION: $100,000 Garbage Workers:
$100,000 Garbage Workers

Ha-- you thought that was some sort of snarky figurative expression in the title, but no-- courtesy of CNN Money, here's an article about the garbage workers in New York City that make over $100K annually.

While we keep insisting that every child must graduate from high school and immediately hit the college trail, garbage workers, including the two high school dropouts profiled  in New York City make over $100K. And the article reports that garbage worker salaries are growing faster than other salaries in the country.

This looks like a fine example of the invisible hand at work. Cities (particularly huge ones) need garbage workers. Need, as in "can't function at all without them." Not a lot of people have the desire or the skills for garbage work, and so cities offer more and more pay to convince people to do the work. It's elegant and simple.

There are other blue collar jobs like this. Welders, for instance, are in constant demand. I teach many future blue collar workers, and from them I've learned about jobs that I never knew existed, like the former student who traveled for years with a hotel upgrade crew that simply traveled from city to city, remodeling the next hotel in the chain that was due to be upgraded. Roofers, construction workers, heavy machinery operators, linemen-- all sorts of jobs that, as Mike Rowe always said, make civilized life possible for the rest of us.

When we discuss work and compensation, we often fail to distinguish between different kinds of work. I don't mean blue collar vs. white collar. I mean necessary vs. unnecessary. As a culture, we employ a vast number of people doing things that nobody actually needs to do at all.

If all the garbage workers in the country vanished overnight, we would have a major crisis on our hands within a week, and virtually everybody in the country would be alarmed. On the other hand, if every McDonald's in the country vanished overnight, there would be no crisis for anyone except the CURMUDGUCATION: $100,000 Garbage Workers:


ICYMI: A Stack for the End of February

We've collected a whole bunch this week, campers. Let's get cracking.

I Don't Want To Be Liberal

Blue Cereal Education tells a story that seems really familiar. Raised to be conservative, inclined to be conservative, and yet, somehow, forced to be a liberal.

TN(Not)Ready-- What's Really Changed

Tennessee's testing fiasco and the effects of disorganized, change-your-mind accountability

Who's Raking in the Big Bucks in Charterworld

Just how rich are charter school leaders getting on the backs of a small number of students?

Will Competency Based Learning Rescue the Testocracy

Anthony Cody looks at how Competency Based baloney fits into the arc of reformster policy.

Robbing Public Schools to Pay Private Charters

Former lawmaker Paula Dockery takes on a proposed Florida bill intended to steal more public tax dollars to enrich private schools.

How Charters Get the Students They Want

This Stephanie Simon piece is from three years ago, but it's still essential reading. A vivid picture of just how charters can rig the admission process so that they get only the students they want while still looking as if they're open to all.

Seventh Grade Reflections on Stereotypes and Assumptions

Brief but poignant-- what seventh graders know about the assumptions they are painted with by others.

No, You Cannot Test My Child

Daniel Katz runs the table on arguments that his child should be tested, batting each one down. Perfect reading for anyone psyching themselves up to take the opt-out plunge.

A Light Moment in Senate Ed Committee-- and Some UNlight Reading 

Claudia Swisher catches the OK ALEC crowd trying to deal with someone appropriating their terminology. And she adds an outstanding reading list about vouchers programs.

ICYMI: A Stack for the End of February