Author: John Merrow

What’s YOUR ‘Side Hustle’?

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

“Tell me what human behavior dogs pay the most attention to,” said the man we had hired to train our newly rescued dog.   “Our tone of voice,” I answered, while my wife said she thought it might be body language.  “It’s body language,” he said. “Dogs are acutely aware of how you stand, how you move, and how you look at them. That’s more important than your tone of voice.  It’s true for dogs, and it’s also true for my middle school students,” he said, smiling.

“What, wait.  You’re a teacher?” I blurted.  He smiled.  “Eighteen years and counting. Training dogs–training their owners, actually–that’s my side hustle.”

He’s not alone in having a side hustle.  Somewhere between 33 and 40 percent of adult Americans have second,  part-time paying jobs. As the economic picture darkens and the price of food and other essential goods rises, more of us may be seeking side hustles.  (Another five per cent of the labor force–nearly 9,000,000 Americans–are holding down two full time jobs.) 

The term our dog trainer used, “side hustle,” may sound kind of sneaky, but it’s an honorable term for a second source of income.  Your Uber, Lyft, or DoorDash drivers may be on their side hustle, driving during their free time to make ends meet.  A few months ago at dinner, we discovered that our waitress taught Second Grade during the day; waiting tables was her side hustle.   When I mentioned side hustles to someone on Martha’s Vineyard, (MA), where I live, he became exasperated. “Just about everyone I know on this island has at least one part-time job, maybe two, because otherwise it’s impossible to make ends meet.”  That’s apparently true across most of the United States, as the income gap widens, because the number of people holding down second jobs has reached levels not seen since the ‘Great Recession’ of 2009.

Not surprisingly, well-to-do Americans have their own variation of the side hustle: Investments.  Doctors, lawyers, business executives, and other white-collar workers rarely have to hold down part-time jobs, because their side hustle is Wall Street.  About 60% of households with 6-figure incomes own stocks and bonds, a second source of support which doesn’t require any heavy lifting.

A few side hustles seem to grow naturally from one’s day job. For example, when I was reporting on public education for PBS and NPR, my (modest) presence on air led to invitations to speak, for (modest) amounts of money.  

However, most side hustles are opportunistic, not organic.  People do what they have to do to support themselves and their families.  

Some side hustles are illegal and/or unethical. Here’s one example: Recently my wife and I returned from Miami to LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Because of Elon Musk’s Starship rocket explosion, our flight was delayed and did not land until 4AM. When I asked the cab driver what the fare would be, he said, “If you pay cash, it’s $60.” He then proceeded to drive into Manhattan on the only route that is toll-free. Exhausted though I was, I noticed that the meter was off, so his side hustle was a fare that his Yellow Cab company would never learn about.

Most side hustles are legal.  When we visited Cuba in February, literally everyone we spoke with had some sort of side hustle.  The coffee farmers we met were required to sell 90% of their raw beans to the Cuban government, but the 10% they were allowed to keep sometimes amounted to 13 or 14%, we were told. They roasted those beans and sold them at their home and a roadside stand. They welcomed visitors like us, and we bought their products.  Our guide had his own side hustle, flying to Miami or Mexico City at least once a month with a list of auto parts he knew he could sell–at a profit.  (Half of his side hustle may now be history, because the Trump administration has banned Cubans from traveling to the US.)

We found a striking example of a side hustle at a state-owned cigar factory in Havana, where workers hand-rolled anywhere from 100 to 135 Cuban cigars every day, five days a week.  For this work, they were paid only 10,000 pesos, approximately $30, but they also participated in a state-sponsored side hustle: Each worker got 5 hand-rolled Cuban cigars a day to take home.  On our way into the factory, someone offered me 5 cigars for $30, and the same thing happened on the way out.  Those would-be sellers, our guide told us, were cigar rollers on their break. In short, they work 20 days a month for $30 and 100 cigars, meaning their side hustle can bring in an additional $600.  That’s unusual, because most side hustles provide supplemental income, not the lion’s share.  Apparently the Cuban government is tacitly acknowledging that its system of socialist control does not work, and it’s making adjustments to try to stay in power.

One  job whose very nature would seem to preclude having a side hustle is that of President of the United States, whose responsibility it is to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”  While that ought to be an all-consuming job, the current occupant of the White House turns out to have something in common with those Cuban cigar rollers: his side hustles rake in a lot more money than his day job.  Although we pay him $400,000 a year, he pulled in an estimated $9.2 million last year from bitcoin transfers, from business executives eager to meet with him, from Secret Service payments to his hotels when he’s golfing, diplomatic payments to his properties, and on and on.  The ‘Donald J. Trump for President’ Committee spent more than$5 million at his hotels.  This isn’t new, of course: During his first term, it’s estimated that his side hustles brought in nearly $14 million, and, when his family is included, the estimate jumps to a staggering $160 million.

But unlike Donald Trump, the Cuban cigar rollers are doing the job they were hired to do. By contrast, the current President of the United States seems to spend most of his working hours posting on his Truth Social app, holding court with fawning admirers, or playing golf.  

And unlike Trump, those Cuban cigar rollers are held accountable. They close their jobs if they don’t perform. He, on the other hand, is paying scant attention to our Constitution–by law his main job–but is not being held to account.

What’s wrong with this picture?

“Don’t Blame Me. I Didn’t Vote”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

While pundits and analysts will argue for years about the 2016, 2020, and 2024 election results, left out of the conversation is an astounding fact: Non-voters vastly outnumber those who voted for Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, or Kamala Harris.  Consider 2016, when about 130 million voters went to the polls.   Clinton received 65,844,954 votes to Trump’s 62,979,8790, but more than 100,000,00 Americans of voting age did not cast ballots. In 2024, Trump got 77,301,000 votes, and Harris received 75,017,000 votes, but non-voters won again, because more than 90,000,000 eligible voters didn’t bother to go to the polls or mail in their ballots.

In fact, if “Not Voting” were looked upon as a choice (candidate), it would have won the popular vote in every Presidential election since at least 1916 because Americans have a bad habit of not voting. 

Who are these non-voters? Should we scorn them for their indifference? Don’t they understand how many of their fellow Americans have died protecting their freedom and their right to vote?  Surely we can agree that their not voting is deplorable behavior?

Not so fast.  I have come to believe that most non-voters are behaving rationally. They do not feel that they have a stake in our government, so why should they vote? They were schooled to see themselves as insignificant, and so, as adults, they keep their heads down, stay uninvolved, and do their best to make ends meet.

Yes, I am holding public schools at least partly responsible for our consistently low voter turnout, because public education is an efficient sorting machine that is undemocratic to its core.  Schools sort young children in two basic groups:  A minority is designated as ‘winners’ who are placed on a track leading to elite colleges, prominence and financial success.  While the rest aren’t labeled ‘losers’ per se, they are largely left to struggle on their own. That experience leaves many angry, frustrated and resentful, not to mention largely unprepared for life in a complex, rapidly changing society.   Why would they become active participants in the political process, an effort led by the now grown up ‘winners’ from their school days?  (It took a candidate who understood their resentment to arouse them….which happened in 2016 and again in 2024.)

Although formal tracking has fallen out of favor, schools have subtle ways of designating winners and losers, often based as much on parental education and income, race, and class as innate ability. By third or fourth grade most kids know, deep down, whether the system sees them as ‘winners’ bound for college or ‘losers’ headed somewhere else.  

Ironically, A Nation at Risk, the 1983 report that warned of “a rising tide of mediocrity,” inadvertently made matters worse.  In response, America put its eggs in the basket of student achievement–-as measured by student test scores.  Believing we were raising academic standards by asking more of students, we were in fact narrowing our expectations—those test scores again.  This practice went into high gear with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. What I call “regurgitation education” became the order of the day. This approach rewards parroting back answers, while devaluing intellectual curiosity, cooperative learning, projects, field trips, the arts, physical education, and citizenship. 

This fundamentally anti-intellectual approach has failed to produce results.  Scores on our National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have largely remained flat and have recently gone down.

Reducing kids to test scores has produced generations of graduates whose teachers and curriculum did not help them develop the habit of asking questions, digging deep, or discovering and following their passion. Because of how they were treated in school, many Americans have not grown into curious, socially conscious adults. This is not the fault of their teachers, because decisions about how schools operate are not made in classrooms.  It was school boards, politicians, policy makers, and the general public that created schools that value obedience over just about everything else. 

But the end result is millions of graduates who were rewarded with diplomas but have never participated in the give-and-take of ordinary citizenship—like voting.  Did they graduate from school prepared for life in a democracy, or are they likely to follow blindly the siren song of authoritarians? Can they weigh claims and counterclaims and make decisions based on facts and their family’s best interests, or will they give their support to those who play on their emotions?

During his campaigns, Donald Trump openly welcomed support from those he called ‘the poorly educated,’ but that’s the incorrect term. These men and women are not ‘poorly educated,’ ‘undereducated,’ or ‘uneducated.’ They have been miseducated, an important distinction. Schools have treated them as objects, as empty vessels to pour information into so it can be regurgitated back on tests.

The sorting process used in schools has another result: it produces elitists (in both political parties) who feel superior to the largely invisible ‘losers’ from their school days.  Arguably, those chickens came home to roost when Candidate Clinton called her opponent’s supporters ‘A Bucket of Deplorables,’ a gaffe that may have cost her the election.  But in all likelihood she was speaking her personal truth, because, after all, school had identified her as a ‘winner,‘ one of the elite. It’s perfectly understandable that she would not identify with the people who had been energized by Donald Trump. Most pundits, reporters, pollsters and politicians fell into the same trap.

Sorting is inevitable, because students try out for teams and plays, apply to colleges, and eventually seek employment, but let’s postpone sorting for as long as possible. A new approach to schooling must ask a different question about each young child. Let’s stop asking, “How intelligent are you?”  Let’s ask instead, “How are you intelligent?”  That may strike some as a steep hill to climb, but it’s essentially the question that caring parents, teachers, and other adults ask about individual children. They phrase it differently, asking, “What is Susan interested in?” “What gets George excited?” “What motivates Juan?” or “What does Sharese care about?”  Every child has interests, and those can be tapped and nurtured in schools designed to provide opportunities for children to succeed as they pursue paths of their own choosing. Giving children agency over their education—with appropriate guidance and supervision—will produce graduates better equipped to cope with today’s changing world.  And a larger supply of informed voters!

While the country survived four years of Donald Trump, it is again being severely tested. To survive and prosper, our democracy must have public schools that respect and nurture our children. If we don’t change our public schools, we will elect a succession of Donald Trumps, and that will be the end of the American experiment.

AMERICA, BOUGHT AND SOLD

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that your family’s wealth is roughly average, which means that you’re worth about $1 million, a big jump from 2019.  “Both median and average family net worth surged between 2019 and 2022, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve. Average net worth increased by 23% to $1,063,700, the Fed reported in October 2023, the most recent year it published the data. Median net worth, on the other hand, rose 37% over that same period to $192,900.”

So if you are the average American, you are a millionaire, but before you get too excited, you are worth roughly 1/600,000 of what Elon Musk is worth!

I’m talking about the same Elon Musk who spent $300,000,000 to buy the last presidential election and, as it turns out, to purchase our government.  Three hundred million dollars is a fortune for nearly everyone else, but for Musk it was chump change.

Suppose you ( just barely a millionaire) had spent the same portion of your wealth that Musk did.  $300 million of his estimated worth of $600,000,000,000–SIX HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS– is .0005% 

And .0005% of your fortune is $500!

Maybe you’re richer, worth $3 million.  Well, 5 thousandths of 1 percent of your $3M is $3000.   

Even if you’re really rich–worth $30,000,000–your ‘Musk equivalent cost’ is still chump change, $30,000.

That’s right, we sold our country for a pittance.  And as I see it, those who willingly and wittingly bought into the MAGA line have also sold something–their souls. (Those Trump voters have been misinformed and miseducated by the Fox/right wing media machine for years deserve sympathy, not condemnation.)

Those who sell themselves are, to put it crudely, whores.  And those who sell themselves for .0005% are CHEAP WHORES.

That’s where America is right now, in the hands of greedy megalomaniacs, power-hungry opportunists, and vengeful white Christian nationalists.

How do we escape their grasp and recapture our country?  I suggest at least five courses of action: 1) support the ACLU and other organizations that are filing lawsuits, 2) join forces with anyone who supports local public institutions like schools and libraries, 3) support Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who take public stands against MAGA, 4) support independent journalism wherever you find it, and 5) stand with those the Trump Administration is attacking (which now includes Lutherans and Catholics who are supporting compassionate services for immigrants).

It’s long past time for liberal Democrats to stop focusing on sectional interests like gender, race, and immigrant status and pay attention to the needs of a shrinking middle class suffering from growing income inequality.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders sounded the warning back in 2017, when he urged everyone to “understand that absolutely these are very difficult and frightening times. But also understand that in moments of crisis, what has happened, time and time again, is that people have stood up and fought back. So despair is absolutely not an option.”

If we don’t work together, MAGA will eventually come for you, and for me, and all of us!

NECESSARY, BUT HARDLY SUFFICIENT

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Banning cellphones in public schools seems to finally be happening in lots of states and school districts, but, unfortunately, the numbers are slippery. One source reports that, as of January 17th, 8 states had passed either bans or restrictions on cellphone use in schools, and another 15 states were considering legislation.  The newspaper Education Week, using a slightly different metric, reports that at least 19 states have laws or policies that ban or restrict use OR recommend that local districts enact their own bans.   Meanwhile, the federal government’s National Center on Education Statistics reports that in 2022 at least 77% of schools had “some sort” of ban in place–whatever that may mean!

The US has over 14,000 public school districts, with about 96,000 schools. We have another 20,000 private schools.  How many actually ban cellphones? No one knows, unfortunately. However, the evidence against cellphones in schools is mounting.  The New York Times covered the issue of violence in detail in December.  

Across the United States, technology centered on cellphones — in the form of text messages, videos and social media — has increasingly fueled and sometimes intensified campus brawls, disrupting schools and derailing learning. The school fight videos then often spark new cycles of student cyberbullying, verbal aggression and violence.

A New York Times review of more than 400 fight videos from schools in California, Georgia, Texas and a dozen other states — as well as interviews with three dozen school leaders, teachers, police officers, pupils, parents and researchers — found a pattern of middle and high school students exploiting phones and social media to arrange, provoke, capture and spread footage of brutal beatings among their peers. In several cases, students later died from the injuries.

That cellphones are damaging the mental health of our children is beyond dispute. As the Columbia University School of Psychiatry reported: 

Smartphones have transformed the way we communicate, learn, and entertain ourselves. However, their omnipresence can lead to compulsive use and a sense of dependency. The constant stream of notifications and updates can create a sense of urgency and a fear of missing out, leading to increased anxiety and stress. Furthermore, the excessive use of smartphones can interfere with sleep, which is crucial for mental health.

Social media platforms, while enabling us to connect with others and share experiences, can also contribute to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. The tendency to compare oneself with others and the desire for validation through likes and comments can lead to a distorted self-image and feelings of worthlessness.

Moreover, studies have shown a correlation between heavy social media use and depression, anxiety, loneliness, and suicidal ideation.

What changes when cellphones are banned?  As far as I know, the evidence is anecdotal;  here’s a typical story, this one from The American Prospect:  “One Minnesota school discovered, as do many schools with similar policies, that teachers and principals notice positive developments in student behavior. And even students, when prodded, agree that taking cellphones out of the school-day equation has made them more productive, social, and happier overall.


Reliable data doesn’t exist in part because “ban” means one thing here, another there.  Some schools require students to deposit their phones whenever they enter a classroom but allow usage in the halls and lunchrooms.  Others rely on the honor system, and some have full-fledged bans that do not allow cellephones inside school buildings.

Banning cellphones is, in my view, necessary but hardly sufficient.  In fact, it may turn out to be counterproductive unless we change our approach to teaching.  What’s essential are new approaches to instruction that give students more reasons to engage in learning.  

Let me give you one example of teaching differently, a 5th Grade class that is studying US geography.  In normal times, the teacher might hold the students responsible for knowing all 50 state capitals, and perhaps their major cities, rivers, and industries.  That’s largely rote memorization, the ‘drill and kill’ that turns off so many students.

Rote memorization makes no sense at all, because every kid knows that the information is readily available on their cellphones, with a few keystrokes. (The teachers know it too!)

Instead, let’s imagine the teacher saying, “Well, there are 25 students and 50 states, so each of you is responsible for two states.  Let’s figure out how to assign them.  Anybody have a favorite state, perhaps one your grandparents might have lived in, or one you’ve always wanted to visit?”

Once the states are assigned, the teacher might say, “Now what I want you to do is find out–using your cellphone for research, if you wish–the capitals of your two states, why it was chosen as the capital, whether the state has had more than one capital over the years, and so on.  Whatever seems interesting, write it down, learn as much as you can, and be prepared to share what you’ve learned with the rest of us.”

“One of you is going to discover that one of your states has had EIGHT capitals over the years.  A couple of other states–including one of the smallest–have had at least SIX.  Maybe you will be able to tell us why they changed capitals. Was it money, religion, the environment, or what?  Have fun digging.”

“Maybe you can also try to figure out how the capital cities got their names.  For example, the capital of Ohio is Columbus.  How did that happen? Columbus came never within a thousand miles of what’s now Columbus, so why is the capital city named after him?  And, while you’re digging into that, check to see whether other cities are named after Columbus, and when they were named.”

“What I want you to be, kids, is curious.  You have a world of information on those phones you carry, but let’s never forget that information and knowledge are not necessarily the same thing.”

What’s happening here, in the age of cellphone bans, is actually revolutionary, because the students are in the business of creating knowledge, knowledge that they will own and share with others.  

That beats texting and TikTok any day….

W.B. YEATS, MEET W.H. AUDEN and MATTHEW ARNOLD

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Prior to the November election, I invoked the poetry of W.B. Yeats, asking his question, 

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

We know the answer, because more than 77 million Americans voted for the narcissist grifter Donald Trump, a convicted felon, and that rough beast became President of the United States today.

Since the November election, I’ve been drawn to the poetry of Matthew Arnold and W. H. Auden, specifically “Dover Beach” and “September 1, 1939.”  Both have, I believe, important messages for us on this dark day, January 20, 2025.

In Arnold’s poem, two lovers are standing on Dover Beach, or perhaps on the cliffs overlooking it.  The narrator begins 

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits;

But he (or she) is a pessimist, aware not so much of the apparent serenity of the sea but of an ‘eternal note of sadness’ that it brings with it, a note that many others, including Sophocles on the Aegean, have heard, seen and felt over the centuries.  The narrator concludes with a plea:

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Could there be a more perfect description of our country today: a darkling plain, confusing alarms of struggle and flight, and ignorant armies clashing by night?  

“Dover Beach” is a poem I have loved from the day I first read it; however, by some trick of the brain I always think of it as having been written before one of our World Wars.  Not so, Arnold (1822-1888) was thoroughly Victorian in time and temperament, and he is bemoaning what he perceived as a loss of religious faith.  

My error aside, the message matters: we must be true to one another today and for the next four years.  And we cannot define ‘another’ to mean just our close friends and family, because we need to reach out and find common cause with everyone who believes in the rule of law, and in fair play.

“September 1, 1939” is definitely an anti-war poem, a plea for love and compassion in a darkening world that is strikingly relevant today.  Auden (1907-1973) was a master of language, and I urge you to read his poem aloud. A few lines: 

Exiled Thucydides knew

All that a speech can say

About Democracy,

And what dictators do,

The elderly rubbish they talk

To an apathetic grave;

The ‘elderly rubbish’ that dictators talk, doesn’t that perfectly describe Trump’s Inaugural Address?

And my favorite stanza of Auden’s poem (with emphasis added!):

All I have is a voice

To undo the folded lie,

The romantic lie in the brain

Of the sensual man-in-the-street

And the lie of Authority

Whose buildings grope the sky:

There is no such thing as the State

And no one exists alone;

Hunger allows no choice

To the citizen or the police;

We must love one another or die.

Each of us does have a voice, and we must use those voices to undo the folded lies.  And because no one exists alone, we must love one another or die.  

Thank you for your attention.

Where Have All the Plumbers Gone (long time passing)?

John Merrow Uncategorized

When I called our long-time electrician recently to ask him to replace a defective thermostat, no one answered his office phone. I managed to reach him on his cell phone, and he told me that he had retired and moved to another town. “Who’s taken over your business,” I asked? “No one,” he replied, explaining that he tried but failed to find a younger person with the skill set and the interest. “I just closed the business.”

A few weeks before that we received a letter from our plumbing and heating company informing us that it would no longer be servicing our heating equipment because it hadn’t been able to find young people interested in learning the necessary skills.

Two personal anecdotes don’t prove that the U.S. has a shortage of skilled workers, but we do–and not just electricians but also plumbers, nurses, auto mechanics, and construction workers. While some states are moving to address these shortages, much more needs to be done.

Electricians: The shortage is real and growing, because the move toward a Green economy is increasing the demand. “Every year, nearly 10,000 electricians either retire or change careers, but only 7,000 new ones enter the field. While the shortfall finds homeowners lamenting about how long it takes to find an electrician for wiring projects, entire industries — including construction, manufacturing, renewable energy, technology and utilities — are confronting project delays and increased labor costs.”

Plumbers: The US is expected to be short about 550,000 just two years from now, according to an analysis by John Dunham & Associates, a research company in Longboat Key, Florida. The gap cost our economy $22 billion in 2022, according to the same study. Bloomberg reports that a plumber in San Jose, CA, makes over $100,000 a year.

Construction Workers: The construction industry alone has more than 650,000 open jobs, according to Black & Decker CEO Jim Leoree. “The construction industry will need to attract an estimated 501,000 additional workers on top of the normal pace of hiring in 2024 to meet the demand for labor, according to a proprietary model developed by Associated Builders and Contractors. In 2025, the industry will need to bring in nearly 454,000 new workers on top of normal hiring to meet industry demand, and that’s presuming that construction spending growth slows significantly next year.”

Nurses: Basically, the U.S. will be short about 400,000 registered nurses and licensed practical nurses a year from now. Here are the nursing shortage statistics predicted for 2026:

  • Registered nurses – 10% shortage, equivalent to 350,540 unoccupied positions
  • Licensed practical nurses – 7% shortage, equivalent to 46,920 unoccupied positions

Auto Mechanics: The U.S. is facing a shortage of about 600,000 auto mechanics, according to a recent study. As in the other trades, causes include an aging workforce and major cuts in vocational education programs in high schools. The shortage has ripple effects, influencing costs, wait times, and potentially safety. The general truths of this writer’s observations about auto technicians apply as well to electricians, plumbers, and other skilled laborers.

The auto mechanic shortage does not stop at the shop door; it reverberates across the entire automotive industry, influencing service quality, costs, and even vehicle longevity. A direct consequence of the mechanic shortage is elongated service times, straining customer patience and impacting overall satisfaction with automotive services. This delay not only inconveniences the vehicle owner but can also compromise vehicle performance and safety.

As the basic principles of economics dictate, scarcity leads to increased costs. Labor charges escalate as skilled auto mechanics become rarer, ultimately burdening consumers with higher service bills—a trend that could exacerbate as the shortage continues. Routine maintenance is paramount for the longevity and safety of a vehicle. A shortage of mechanics means that many vehicles might not receive the timely or quality care needed, potentially leading to more frequent breakdowns and accidents.

Artificial barriers to entering these fields–including racism, misogyny, and parochialism–are partially to blame for the current shortage, as are the COVID-19 pandemic and an aging labor force. However, much of the blame lies with our misguided belief that the primary goal of high school is to send its graduates on to college. For years now, we have put intense pressure on high school students to attend college, implying that any other path is a road to failure. Trades have long been stigmatized as ‘dirty work,’ appropriate only for those perceived as ‘less able.’ They were then tracked into less prestigious vocational education…but at least they had access to training. Not any more, because when school budgets tightened, many high school vocational training programs simply disappeared, replaced by an inexpensive slogan, “College for All.” This approach has sent millions of young people down a path they weren’t really interested in, leading to academic failure, crushing debt, and, for some anyway, resentment toward ‘the elites’ whose policies and pressures sent them down this unsatisfying road. We are not talking trivial numbers here: Nearly 37,000,000 Americans are in the SCNC category, “Some College, No Credential.” They may also have crippling debt as well.

How many of these individuals would be happier if they’d had the opportunity to become plumbers, electricians, nurses, construction workers, or auto mechanics? How many instead are waiting on tables, parking cars, flipping burgers, or stocking shelves, stuck in dead end jobs because their college debt burden means they cannot afford vocational training required to enter a trade?

And training is essential because fixing cars, installing electrical systems and plumbing, or putting up high rise buildings is highly skilled work. If you question that, pop the hood on a new model car, electric, internal combustion, or hybrid!

Shedding the pro-college bias is an essential step to solving our labor shortage, because this elitist view has plagued politics–especially among Democrats–for years.

It’s simply the wrong measuring stick. Instead, we should be asking each young person “How are you smart?” because that way we would learn what they are interested in, what excites them, and what they want to know more about. Instead, we ask “How smart are you?”, or–more crassly–”Are you smart enough to go to college?” Asking the right question allows teachers to incorporate each student’s unique strengths and interests, as well as their culture and language, to create meaningful learning opportunities.

Regarding the current shortages, there are no easy solutions, although America has aggressively recruited nurses from the Philippines for years. Becoming a plumber or an electrician can take up to five years, and HVAC apprenticeship programs take three to five years. That’s because “the infrastructure to train somebody in a skilled trade has never really left the 19th century,” according to Josh Hawley, director of the Ohio Education Research Center at Ohio State University. “You need a very long lead time in order to ramp up capacity,” he told Bloomberg.

At least four steps are in order:

1) Immigration has helped alleviate the nursing shortage, and it might be a short-term solution for our shortage of electricians, plumbers, construction workers, and other essential workers.

2) Opening up the trades, most of them historically white and male, to women and people of color is also essential to long term solutions. Apprenticeships may be in order, because vocational education opportunities in high school are uncommon.

3) Restoring vocational, technical, and occupational education in our high and middle schools is another necessary step toward a long term permanent solution. This is happening in many parts of the country. This year legislators in most states have introduced nearly 60 pieces of Career and Technical Education-related legislation, including Alabama’s alternative diploma pathway for students focused on career education and Oklahoma’s aerospace and aviation career programs for K-12 schools. Connecticut’s “Technical Education and Career System” consists of 17 diploma-granting technical high schools, a technical education center, and two airframe mechanics and aircraft maintenance programs; however, Connecticut has 431 public high schools, and it’s not clear whether the other 414 offer vocational and technical opportunities. North Carolina’s community college system has established “Propel NC,” which is designed to make community colleges more responsive to the needs of employers. Texas is tying community college funding to outcomes, including dual enrollment and work force success.

It seems reasonable to expect all middle and high schools in every state to provide information about a wide variety of occupations and professions, while also encouraging project-based learning in school and apprenticeships outside of school.

4) Changing our attitudes about physical labor is essential. We were warned about the folly of ‘College for All’ a long time ago. Back in 1988, “The Forgotten Half” made it clear the policy of pushing everyone toward college was damaging lives and our economy. “We have never defined what we want for, or from, the young among us who do not attend college. We wish them to be ‘educated’–but we cannot define what that means in practical terms. We hope they will become ‘employable’–yet the typical employment made available to non-college graduates in the emerging service economy too often supports a family only at the poverty level. We want them to be ‘good citizens’–but we do not weave them meaningfully into the fabric of our communities.”

And later, these important words: In every practical sense, we have made schooling a synonym for education. And we have defined the primary purpose of schooling as entry into college. Both attitudes are a mistake.

The purpose of schooling is not to get students into college. Its purpose is to help grow American citizens. Parse the last four words. ‘Help’ means schooling is a team sport, with parents and educators on the same side. ‘Grow’ means schooling is a process. A film, and not a snapshot (or a single test score!). ‘American’ is who we are, and we should embrace and understand our complicated history. ‘Citizen’ is a bit more complicated, but to me it means voting, participating in community life in whatever ways one is comfortable with, and looking out for others. As ‘The Forgotten Half’ puts it, “The purpose of education is to create whole human beings….schools and colleges are only one means of educating people for life.”

Face facts: most jobs today do not require four years of college, even though some employers and job descriptions continue to demand a 4-year degree. This so-called “Paper Ceiling” is an unnecessary barrier that should be shredded.

The general public seems to be increasingly aware of what’s happening. A 2021 report from Gallup indicated that nearly half of all parents are OK with their children not attending a 4-year college. “While attending a four-year college remains the gold standard for many families, nearly half of parents of current middle and high school students wish that more postsecondary options existed. And even among parents who hope their children will earn a bachelor’s degree, 40% are interested in skills- and work-focused training opportunities such as internships or apprenticeships.”

The federal government is moving to allow hiring what are (cleverly) called “STARS,” people who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes. Supposedly, we have 70 million STARS in our labor pool today. Three Democratic Senators are pushing a bill that would allow the government to hire individuals who do not have college degrees but have “developed job-related skills through alternative routes, which may include at a community college, in an apprenticeship, through a bootcamp, through military service, through partial college completion, in other training programs, or through on-the-job experience.”

Assuming Linda McMahon is confirmed as U.S. Secretary of Education, we might expect her to support more apprenticeships, workforce training, and career awareness programs, all of which she is on record as favoring. In an op-ed for The Hill, she wrote, “Half a century ago, it was commonly understood that funding a college degree for low-income students was the best way to upskill America’s workforce. Colleges were focused on preparing students for professional roles at the highest levels of government, science, business and the arts.

Today, however, many degree programs have lost sight of their mission. And their one-size-fits-all solution to workforce development has become outdated. Our educational system must offer clear and viable pathways to the American Dream aside from four-year degrees.”

Her solution, one supported by many Republicans in Congress, is to loosen Pell Grant rules to pay for short-term vocational and occupational training. While that seems to make sense on one level, it will also open the door to for-profit programs, quite a few of which have a long history of shady practices. Her predecessor in the first Trump Administration, Betsy DeVos, embraced for-profit higher education with horrendous results. A repeat would be disastrous.

Above all, we need to change our attitudes about work and college. Let’s take to heart the wisdom of the great John Gardner: “An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy.”

Let’s change, but let’s never say, “Well, not everyone should go to college, so we should provide other opportunities.” That condescending language and that way of thinking connote inferiority and superiority.

By the way, I have a new electrician. He’s an immigrant who came here from Brazil a few years ago with his wife and two children. He took night classes and is now a competent electrician.

The title of this piece echoes the familiar folk song, “Where have all the flowers gone,” and so I will end by echoing the question that curious young children ask about babies. “Where do plumbers come from, Mommy?”

They come from opportunity….

An Apology

John Merrow Uncategorized

I want to apologize for not responding personally to those who shared their views on last week’s blog post, my analysis of why the Democrats lost.  I’ve been busy, keeping a close eye on the bizarre and frightening rush of zealots, sycophants, and the power-hungry to join the clown show 490 miles south of where I live. 

I’m also busy dealing with mountains of paperwork-–Who knew applying for Scottish citizenship was so complicated!

With this apology comes a request.  Whenever you circulate what I have written, please send the link instead of the text.  

And while you are at it, please ask all your friends and acquaintances to subscribe.

Why? Because I need subscribers.  My LQ and my MSR have both gone in the tank recently, and, as a consequence, my blog has lost almost all its advertisers.   I could, of course, just sign up for “Subscribers ’R Us,” the company that uses AI to create faux subscribers, but, frankly, it’s expensive and Madison Avenue has caught onto it. 

Oh, and it’s dishonest too.

I understand the decline in my “Likeability Quotient” (LQ) because I have written some nasty things about the greedy folks who support Trump just because he’s going to keep their taxes low, but I truly believed that what I’ve been writing would score well on the “Measure of Social Relevance” (MSR).

Because of the decline in my ratings, the ONLY advertiser still doing business with The Merrow Report falls into what Madison Avenue calls the “End of Life” category:  DTGH, the nation-wide service that transports the remains of travelers who die on the road back to their home. I think of it as “MedJet for the Dead,” although that might not be a great slogan, certainly not as catchy as “Dying to Get Home.” DTGH is a good company, and I am proud that it wants to be associated with my blog.  By the way, their clever slogan, “Dying to Get Home,” is also the origin of the company name. 

Whenever readers click on their ad on my blog, I receive MSR and LQ points and a small payment. If a reader asks for more information, that’s more for me. 

And when a reader actually signs up for the service (which is very reasonable), bingo!  That’s what pays the bills around here.

(Unless, however, it can be shown that a reader died while reading the blog. If that happens, it creates serious liability issues for me personally.  But so far no DTGH reader has died while reading my blog, at least as far as I know.)

When my blog attracts more subscribers, it will move out of the “End of Life” category up to the “Mature Audience” category. Once there, it will attract advertisers seeking to reach a younger audience.   Products like Preparation H, La-Z Boy Recliners, Fixodent, MedAlert, and Depends. Maybe even Viagra!

It’s up to you, friends.  Thanks in advance for your support….

Democrats Didn’t Lose the November Election in November…..

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Some pundits are blaming Kamala Harris for not doing this or that, and others are blaming Joe Biden for not dropping out earlier, but I am convinced that Democrats lost the Presidential election long before November 5, 2024.  Here are three possible dates that help explain Trump’s victory:  August 24, 2022; December 22, 2020; and July 24, 2009. They represent bad policies and missed opportunities, all of which came back to hurt Kamala Harris.

August 24, 2022 is the day Biden announced that his Administration intended to forgive the debts that hundreds of thousands of (mostly) young people owed to the federal government, loans they had taken out to pay for their college education.  Low income debtors could have as much as $20,000 forgiven; others, $10,000.  The Supreme Court intervened and overturned his original plan, but he persisted. And as Election Day neared, he and Vice President Kamala Harris took pains to remind everyone that his Administration had forgiven about $175 Billion in government loans for about 5 million people. 

But I want to go back to that day in August, 2022.  When we heard the news that morning, my wife’s immediate reaction was ‘Bad move.’  Why, I asked?  Because, she said, this is going anger the millions of people who worked hard to pay off their loans, and it’s also going to alienate people who never got the chance to go to college.  

I think she was correct.  I’m guessing the vast majority of those 5 million who benefited from Biden’s move would have voted for a Democrat anyway. He didn’t need to give them preferential treatment, but what about the nearly 40 million adults under the age of 65 who have some college credits but no degree?  And the millions more who borrowed money and paid it back–or who may still be paying those loans off?   Or voters whose gut instinct is to treat everyone fairly?

It’s bad politics to clinch the votes of 5 million people while alienating 50 million or more voters. And it’s also bad public policy to divide an already divided nation.

But Democrats may have lost the 2024 election even earlier, on December 22, 2020 even before Joe Biden was sworn in: That’s the day that President-elect Biden announced his selection of 45-year-old Miguel Cardona to be his Secretary of Education.  On paper, Dr. Cardona sounded perfect, with his inspiring rags-to-riches, “up from bootstraps” story. Dr. Cardona, who was raised in a housing project in Meriden, Connecticut, entered kindergarten speaking only Spanish.  He went through the city’s public schools and earned a college degree before returning to work as a fourth-grade teacher in the district in 1998, rising to principal, then assistant district superintendent and State Superintendent.   Along the way he earned his doctorate, as well as praise for handling the Covid pandemic.  This was, it seemed, The American Dream of social mobility writ large, but it turned out instead to be a missed opportunity to chart a new course for public education to recognize the gifts and interests of all children (and not just their test scores).

The central point of Dr. Cardona’s story is not his remarkable rise but its exceptionality, because, unfortunately, most of our public schools have become rubber stamps for the social, educational, and financial status of the parents.  Schools are much more likely to be barriers, not gateways.  Sure, most schools do a decent job of educating most children, but it’s as rare as snow in July for a child to do what Dr. Cardona did: climb the ladder.  

Social mobility–the idea that anyone who is willing to work can make it–is central to the American story. If social mobility is just a myth,  if children are born into what amounts to a caste system, then the American experiment is doomed.  

Assuming he’s aware of the petrification of the public schools, Dr. Cardona had the opportunity to tell us how embarrassingly and tragically infrequent it is for someone to do what he had done. He could have used the Bully Pulpit of his office to lobby for policies and programs to bring about change.  Unfortunately, he did none of these things.

Which meant that the rigidity and calcification remained, perhaps increased, on his watch.  And the palpable resentment of so many ‘forgotten Americans’ increased, making it more likely that they would vote the incumbents out, first chance they got.

Which they did on November 5th.

Now let’s go back to July 24, 2009.  How can anything that happened more than 15 years before an election determine its outcome, you may be wondering.  Well, that’s when Education Secretary Arne Duncan, armed with $4.35 billion, came to a fork in the road–and quite deliberately took the one that led to more frequent high stakes multiple choice testing, more (largely unregulated) charter schools, the fiasco known as The Common Core, and–eventually–an exodus of teachers, parents, and children from the public schools, as well as a significant backlash against any and all federal involvement in public schools.  

But just as significant–just as tragic–is what the Obama Administration could have done with that unprecedented opportunity.  America was in the throes of ‘The Great Recession,’ the hangover from the Administration of George W. Bush, and Congress had given Secretary Duncan more discretionary money than all previous Education Secretaries combined!  

School districts, desperate for dollars, were willing to do whatever Duncan wanted. He could have “encouraged” (i.e., mandated) 1) all-day kindergarten and pre-school; 2) more art, music and physical education (slashed during Bush’s “No Child Left Behind”); 3) more apprenticeships and vocational-technical education for the roughly 50% of students not interested in attending college; and 4) more opportunities for ambitious high school students to take college classes .  

Instead, he sided with the technocrats and embraced test-based accountability, making it harder for good teachers to do their jobs, and making schools less interesting places for children and adults.

Good public policy ought to bring us together, not just right wrongs or settle grievances.  If Democrats want to win more elections in the future, they must figure out how to welcome disaffected and angry voters into their tent. Unfortunately, too often public policies are treated as a ‘zero sum game’ with winners and losers–like the inmates and guards in a federal prison in Virginia, where I taught English in the late 1960’s. 

What I remember most vividly about teaching in prison are intelligent students, determined to keep their minds active, and angry guards, who were furious that ‘common criminals’ were getting the chance to go to college, while they were being left behind.  A few guards did their best to sabotage the program, with some success.  

At the time it didn’t occur to me that my class could have easily been open to guards and inmates. However, years later, when I learned that the Ford Foundation was funding 30 or 40 prison education programs, I urged the program officer, whom I knew personally, to see that at least a few of these experiments were equal opportunity ‘dual enrollment’ programs for inmates and guards alike.  Why not see if that approach–studying together–could bridge the divide between inmates and correctional officers, since nothing else seemed to be working?

My plea was ignored, but I would bet you just about anything that these programs, however deserving they are for giving some people a second or third chance, also created lots of resentment. Resentment  may be an unintended consequence, but it is  also predictable…and avoidable.  In other words, inmate-only prison education as currently practiced is arguably dubious and perhaps even bad public policy, the equivalent of Biden’s loan forgiveness programs.  Both exacerbate the divide, even as they help a chosen few.  

That approach loses elections.

Many Americans know that something’s not working the way it’s supposed to.  Some citizens are losing faith in public schools (and in other public institutions as well). Today’s Republicans act as though education does not have a public purpose. However, it most certainly does, because some of the kids in middle schools anywhere in the United States now may one day be the physician’s assistant monitoring your IV drip, the EMT trying to resuscitate your spouse, the mechanic maintaining the jet you’re flying on, or the fuel company worker seeking to contain that gas leak in your neighborhood.  In other words, it’s in your interest to see that as many children as possible reach their potential.

The new Trump administration seems to be intent on burning bridges. This will create opportunities for Democrats to build bridges.  It’s not ‘us versus them,’ because quite a few of those ‘them’ folks are a lot like us.  

Enough of the hand-wringing about Harris’s campaign, or Biden’s late withdrawal.  That’s not why she lost.  Think about the policies (and attitudes) that need to change, in order to bring us together.  Perhaps it’s national service, more civic education, more apprenticeship opportunities, or fairer tax policies.  Let’s figure out how to work together.

“Project 1897”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Much has been written about “Project 2025,” supposedly a blueprint for a second Trump Presidency.  I have learned that candidate Trump had nothing to do with “Project 2025.”  However, he has been personally involved in another less complex but more ambitious project, named by Trump himself as “Project 1897,” a reference to William McKinley, Trump’s second favorite former president (after himself, doh).  

“Project 1897” has just three major points:

  1. Tariffs (and no income tax)
  2. 2G, with implications for relations between the sexes, and voting privileges
  3. Natural American Zones of Interest, his trade policies

“Project 1897” is written in the first person, although it is not clear whether Mr. Trump actually wrote it, dictated it, or had aides do the writing.

TARIFFS:   “Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 grants me broad power (including the imposition of tariffs) to adjust imports whenever I find them to be a threat to U.S. national security. As your President the first time, I imposed a 45% tariff on Chinese goods, and this time I will immediately impose a 60% tariff on all goods coming to us from China. This will make all of us richer.  And to those doubters who say tariffs cause inflation, believe me when I tell you that the higher the tariff, the more likely it is that foreign companies will come into the United States, and build their factories here so they don’t have to pay the tariffs.  These countries and foreign companies only understand strength, and we are strong. I will make the tariffs so high, so horrible, so obnoxious–maybe 100% or even 200%–that those companies will come here right away. They will build here and hire American workers. 

What’s more, the prosperity tariffs will bring to our great country will allow me to eliminate the federal income tax!  I will abolish the IRS, and put the 90,000 IRS bureaucrats out on the street, just like that.  That’s a savings of $16 billion, just like that. And no more April 15th confusion for millions of Americans.

2G:  “Telephone companies like Verizon and T-Mobile keep trying to confuse us by talking about ‘5G’ and ‘4G,’ which is about how fast the phones work. Don’t be fooled or confused. There’s only TWO G, by which I mean GENDER. There’s men and there’s women, and that’s it.  There’s no ‘3G, or ‘4G’ or ‘5G’ and however many more the left can come up with. I promise to bring back respect for the two genders God made, with separate bathrooms and just two athletic groups.  No more ‘gender transition craziness.’

As for these people who call themselves ‘trans,’ they will find themselves ‘transported’ to the Siberian desert or maybe the moon!  

The Bible, my favorite book, makes it very clear that God intended husbands to lead, and their wives to follow. We will go back to 1897 and return the responsibility for voting to men, as God intended.  As men, we will safeguard our women and protect them from the indignities of the workplace. I will protect women, whether they want me to or not.” 

3: Natural American Zones of Interest: “For too long other countries have taken advantage of American business, enacting laws that limit our investments. No more!  Capitalism is the wave of the future, and as your President, I will designate certain areas of the world ‘Natural American Zones of Interest” (NAZI) and I will use all the powers granted to me by our beautiful Constitution and our amazing Supreme Court to make sure that American corporations to dominate those regions economically.  

In the next four years (and probably eight), I will expand these ‘Natural American Zones of Interest’ so that, eventually, the entire world is NAZI.”

“Make America HATE Again”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity

W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”

Are ‘the best’ and ‘the worst’ of Yeats’s poem groups of people, or is he referring to the human condition, the internal struggle that each of us wages daily between our better angels and our lesser impulses and temptations, between good and evil? The latter reading fits the current presidential race: Democrat Kamala Harris’s platform stresses joy and positivity, while Republican Donald J. Trump has been stirring up negative passions among his supporters. And while those red hats do not say “Make America Hate Again,” they might as well, because the former president and his enablers have made it perfectly acceptable to wallow in bigotry, hatred, threats of violence, and–far too often–violence.

Don’t dismiss Trump as a clown, riffing and rambling and ranting in his interminably long rallies.  His off-the-cuff references to sharks, windmills, and Arnold Palmer’s genitalia may amuse his passionate followers, but this ‘bread and circuses’ approach should not be allowed to obscure what’s really going on, “laughing into fascism.”

November 5th–the most significant election of our lifetimes and perhaps in our nation’s history–is around the corner, and one candidate represents a clear and present danger to America and the world.

Early in October the New York Times printed a special section, “30 Days Until the Election,” to contrast and compare the views of Harris and Trump on major issues.  “Here’s what you need to know,” the Times’s subhead declared. Because I spent 41 years reporting on public education, I was disappointed to find not one word about education or schools. 

In fact, the two platforms’ positions on education could not be more different.  Project 2025, the real GOP platform, calls for the virtual abolition of public education.  Schooling becomes a private family matter, flipping centuries of tradition out the window.  More precisely, that would mean vouchers and what are known as ‘Education Savings Accounts.’  An ESA means that parents can direct their share of education funding to a private school or whatever entity the family is using to educate their children–including themselves.  Homeschooling your children?  Keep the money and spend it as you see fit to ‘educate’ your children, including trips to Disneyland and athletic equipment!  

The Democratic party still believes in what the former Republican party once believed in: Free public education with a common purpose:  to give all children the opportunity to acquire the knowledge, skills,  and tools they need to thrive as individuals and as citizens of our democracy. In short, Democrats believe in the importance of community.   Project 2025 would abolish the U.S. Department of Education completely, while the Democrats would emphasize the federal responsibility for ensuring that all children–particularly those from low income families, those with handicapping conditions, the homeless, and those whose first language is not English–are treated equitably.  Basically, Democrats believe that all kids should have access to the resources they need, regardless of which state they live in and their family, racial, or religious status.   Project 2025 would end any federal oversight and protection.  

I don’t mean to whitewash the record here, because Democrats in Washington have done as much damage to public schools as Republicans in recent years.  Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top” was just as destructive as George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind.”  But it seems likely that having a former high school teacher as Vice President will bring some common sense to Washington and end the federal overreach that characterized those two Administrations.

W. B. Yeats’s magnificent poem, “The Second Coming,” is painfully relevant today, because our center has not been holding, and that rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem is an unqualified, self-absorbed would-be dictator and convicted felon with clearly diminished capabilities.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

When Yeats composed ‘The Second Coming,’ the world was in turmoil, ravaged by World War I and a flu pandemic that killed 18,000,000 people. Does that sound eerily familiar?  When we cast our ballots, will our ‘better angels’ win out over our selfish and negative impulses? Do the best of us lack all conviction, while the worst of us are full of passionate intensity?  

We will find out on November 5th.