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Robert Reich is speaking out on what he feels is a war on teachers and public education in America. The man who served as Secretary of Labor Under President Clinton and is now an economics Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, was interviewed about the subject by Capital & Main.
He also feels that widening inequality is destroying America. “Education is not the only answer and it’s certainly not the immediate solution. At best, it’s a necessary, but not sufficient response to widening inequality, ” he said.
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Reich blames conservative politicians for failing to invest more in public education: “Undoubtedly. Teachers have been scapegoated by those who don’t want to invest more in education. Who don’t want change. Who are personally happy with the status quo but feel that because the public is so unhappy with education, it’s easiest to scapegoat teachers. The fact of the matter is teachers are underpaid relative to other professions. The law of supply and demand in terms of wages is not repealed at the doors of our school houses. We are paying investment bankers and Wall Street traders, the people who are in charge of our financial capital, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year — many of them millions of dollars a year, a few a billion dollars or more. Yet we are paying teachers who are in charge of our human capital, arguably more important than our financial capital, a very tiny fraction of what Wall Streeters are paid.”
On students conned by for-profit colleges: “We should forgive the debts of students who were hoodwinked by for-profit colleges.”
See the full interview here.
Reich also made a video for MoveOn.org. See it below.
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