Dashing out the door for a parent-teacher conference, but I had to link to a great blog post by Nancy Folbre. She says bluntly that the public sector doesn't prioritize children. She looks at the latest findings about public spending:
Two salient patterns emerge. First, public spending on children
amounts to about 2.2 percent of the gross domestic product. By
comparison, we spend about 5.3 percent of G.D.P. on the elderly.Second, public spending per child goes up after children reach age 6, despite considerable research showing that younger children enjoy especially significant benefits from early-childhood education.
Largely as a result of differences in public subsidies, full-time, year-round child care for young children costs more than public university tuition in 44 states.
Evidence also suggests that young children are particularly vulnerable to the ill effects of poverty. Yet 19 percent of children in the United States lived in poverty in 2009.
Parents continue to bear most of the costs
of rearing the next generation, while the elderly reap significant
benefits — whether they have helped raise children or not. Children
grow up to become working-age adults paying the taxes that help finance
Social Security and Medicare.
Yet, the old people in my town continue to write letters to the local paper arguing that they shouldn't have to pay taxes for schools.
UPDATE: Commenters are debating the pros and cons of letting children vote.
Apt. 11d 
I hear you on that last sentence. We have the same thing in our town. They argue that they live on “fixed” incomes, so it’s hard for them. As if the rest of our incomes are not “fixed.” And while there were no COLA increases in SS this year, in most years, SS COLAs are greater than the raises I get as a public university professor. Sometimes old people make me angry.
LikeLike
Well, my personal reform proposal is to abolish the minimum voting age. If children could vote, then families would have more voting clout, and public priorities would change.
This proposal, I admit, has even less chance than my other proposal of forbidding mortgage loans of above 80% loan to value.
LikeLike
It’s going to get worse. Public sector pensions are going to kill PA’s budget. The legislature let them raise the pay-out without increasing contributions because the stock market was doing so well. Assuming 8% returns was leaving plenty of margin for bad times.
In most districts, people are going to be facing big tax increases to pay for the shortfall in the teacher’s pension plans. So school budgets will go up, while the amount spent on kids in the school will drop. (Pittsburgh will be spared the worst of it because public school enrollment is so far down they can save money by closing schools they cannot fill.)
LikeLike
I (for once, I believe) completely agree with y81. It is the furthest thing from shocking that people who do not get to vote are provided for less than people who are.
The “paternalistic” arguments against kids voting (that parents vote their interests) may have more merit when the votes are actually by the “pater,” but I think the facts don’t bear it out, and its the exact same argument made against women’s sufferage 100 years ago.
I think if you are old enough to toddle in by yourself and pull some levers, them you should get to vote. Babies might be pushing it, but there’s absolutely no reason that my 6 year old shouldn’t be able to vote for the school budget that directly affects her.
LikeLike
“I think if you are old enough to toddle in by yourself and pull some levers, them you should get to vote. Babies might be pushing it, but there’s absolutely no reason that my 6 year old shouldn’t be able to vote for the school budget that directly affects her.”
Wait until you see electioneering directed at school-age children. It would make TV toy ads look understated and tasteful.
LikeLike
Well, since I’m not ready to legislate free Cookie Crisp for life for all, I disagree with letting kids vote.
I do wonder, however, about other measures such as letting parents opt out of Social Security payments (to recognize that the effort they put into their kids will go to the communal good in the future), free health care for all parents, or giving parents an additional vote to recognize their children.
LikeLike
Wait until you see electioneering directed at school-age children. It would make TV toy ads look understated and tasteful.
But, it might improve political ads. “Don’t vote for Smith. He’s a boogie-head.”
LikeLike
What about letting kids vote when they get to high school? I guarantee you many 14, 15 year olds know more about the issues that many of their 70 year old counterparts. It’s funny, when I read “old enough to toddle in and pull some levers” my first thought was the 80 year olds who don’t know what day it is but still get to vote against school funding. Believe me, in five years or so of working the polls, I’ve seen it. There were a few times when I wanted to object when a husband or wife “assisted” their spouse in voting. The problem is, assistance is allowed and you’re not allowed to know what’s going on in the booth itself. And as soon as you instigate some kind of “test” to determine if someone is in a proper mental condition to vote, you’ve opened a whole big can of worms.
LikeLike
I’ve argued for years that children should be given the vote, but that it should be exercised by their parents until either they reach the age of 18 (legally able to give consent and make contracts) or pass some test on US history and civics. They’re the one of, if not the largest unrepresented citizen group we have (do we have more incarcerated inmates than children?)
LikeLike
Of course the elections won’t just be for Student Council President. Promises of free Cookie Crisp will likely lose you more “grown up” votes than it will gain you kids’ votes.
I assume that a huge percentage of kids will vote for the same candidate/ issue that their parents do, but then just let them do that — don’t give the extra vote to the parents (although I can see the fun of hashing that out in the divorce settlement . . . you want alimony or the kids’ vote?) Give the kids the right to act like a citizen, and then just must start acting like one.
Meanwhile, I wonder what percent of spouses don’t vote for the same presidential candidates. There’s got to be a study out there somewhere . . .
LikeLike
Hmm, trying to parse the levels of sarcasm here. Are people really suggesting we trust high schoolers with the vote, but not with driving or buying booze? (Not to mention abortion rights.)
LikeLike
” Give the kids the right to act like a citizen, and then just must start acting like one.”
I agree with this, and think there could be all kinds of side benefits. My 6yo said that he doesn’t think he’s ready to vote yet, and my 9 (almost) yo wasn’t sure. But, I’m guessing they’ll both be completely confident of their ability to vote by the time they’re 16, and perhaps even at 12.
I’m opposed to parents exercising a vote for their children — it seems to me the point of voting is that you have to exercise your vote. If a parent can vote for their child, why shouldn’t others be able to vote for yet others? For example, if my sister wants to let me do the reserach and vote for her, why shouldn’t she? (not that she ever would!). If it’s reasonable to expect competence from your group, you should be able to vote. If not (i.e. babies), then, the idea that someone else gets to cast your vote seems like weighting one persons vote over others, and I think this might just as well be like giving property owners, or rich people extra votes (officially, rather than the unofficial ways it happens now).
LikeLike
jen–I think I’d say give kids the right to vote when they turn 16 and get a driver’s license. And I’m a big advocate of giving them the right to drink at 18. I could see an argument for giving them all of these rights at 18, although I think there’s some arguments out there for easing kids into responsibilities.
LikeLike
Are people really suggesting we trust high schoolers with the vote, but not with driving or buying booze? (Not to mention abortion rights.)
Based on the relative immediate injury you can do to oneself and those around you, I see no objection to have different ages for driving, voting, getting drafted, drinking, etc. I’m pretty sure you can’t rent a car in Philadelphia until you’re 25.
It seems to me that — at minimum — if an 18 year old can get drafted, then he should be allowed to have voted in the most recent presidential election for or against the person who will be sending him to war. That would bring the vote down to 14, at least.
LikeLike
That’s funny — my daughter’s first comment, on the suggestion that she be allowed to vote was whether she (and other kids) would also now be allowed to drink beer and stuff. I don’t think I have a budding alcoholic on my hands — I think she was concerned about the problems that might raise.
We reassured her that having the right to vote would not mean that she had to drink any beer, though we did admit that it would mean that she could vote to be allowed to drink it.
I also see no issue with having different ages for different things, though the difference between the draft age and the drinking age has always troubled me.
LikeLike
ragtime- I don’t recall if you have kids or not but I’m curious if you’d apply the same rules to home. If you had three kids (so they could out-vote the parents) would you apply voting to bed-time, breakfast foods, vacations, how much TV to watch, etc.? I expect not, or at least hope not. But if not, why would it be more reasonable to allow voting on larger issues? As for cut-off dates, the cut-offs will always be somewhat arbitrary. There’s no getting around that, and some good reason to think that, in large societies, at least, more “personalized” standards are likely to be less fair than bight-line rules applied in the same way to all, as there’s more ground for bias, graft, etc. And of course one need not think that many other pathologies of our social world (dumb drinking ages, etc.) are reasonable to think it’s also unreasonable to allow kids to vote. (I’m not sure where the cut-off should be, but I’m sure it should be above 10 or probably 12, and that it should be below 20. Somewhere in that range will _usually_ be right. As for more votes for families, excercized by parents, I’m at least somewhat sympathetic but not sure.)
LikeLike
And think of the classroom applications of suffrage for tots.
LikeLike
In the United States, the racial-ethnic differences may weaken commitments to public spending on children. Census projections for 2010 show that non-Hispanic whites represent only about 55 percent of the population under 18, compared to 80 percent of the population 65 and older.
That, to me, is the most telling part of the whole article. Want to know why fewer (white) people are interested in investing in public education? Look no further than racist attitudes and white flight. Seriously. I grew up in the seventies, and you never heard people running down public schools the way people do now (at least in working class neighborhoods—the message was always that school is a good thing, and that education is the key to living a decent life—where you earn enough to still have money left over after paying for necessities).
Now? “Why should I have to pay for public schools? My kids are grown!” or “Why should I have to pay for public schools? My kids attend a private school!” There is a strong (and growing) sentiment that parents alone should shoulder the burden of education. Reading the editorial page (and especially online responses) in my local paper is an exercise in frustration. And depression. That there are that many ignorant people around doesn’t bode well for the future.
There is a profound selfishness that has taken over the body politic. There is no more civic consciousness, period. And yes, racism has a whole hell of a lot to do with that.
Yeah, I’m bitter. My daughter is destined to attend struggling schools because I don’t earn enough money to live in the tonier neighborhoods where the “good” (read: rich) schools are. My daughter attends summer school, and immediately noticed the stark difference in the school she attends during the school year vs. the school she attends for summer school (the one in the wealthy subdivision). Message sent: those kids are going to be somebody when they grow up. They’re smart. They’re deserving. They’re going to be real people. And at home? In the crummy, dilapidated urban school? You get to grow up to be nobody. It is really hard to combat that message.
Right now, my school district is concentrating on how to get a referendum passed to build a brand new modern high school on the west side with a plush sports stadium—they think that’s the only way to stem white flight and thus keep money in the district. I’ve got news for them—unless they open that brand new school up for open admission across the entire district, that referendum is going to go down in flames—from the usual suspects who hate the idea of any public money going to education (“that’s a parental responsibility!!”) and from angry north- and east-siders who are laid-off, or furloughed, or still working but without a raise….yet expected to pony up extra tax dollars to help the rich kids have a cool new school. The problem with open admission is that it defeats the purpose of keeping white flight in check—the referendum would pass, but more white flight means more lost dollars. It’s gonna get ugly…
Stop tying school dollars to property taxes. That would be a good start.
LikeLike
“I grew up in the seventies, and you never heard people running down public schools the way people do now (at least in working class neighborhoods—the message was always that school is a good thing, and that education is the key to living a decent life—where you earn enough to still have money left over after paying for necessities).”
I suspect you’re just lucky. Annette Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life is on my to-blog pile. I’ve already been through it, underlining, and she talks about the differences in family culture between middle-class and working class/poor families. One of the things that jump out at me from that book is the difference between how middle class and non-middle class parents feel about school and various authorities. According to Lareau, middle class parents in general have a sense of entitlement or ownership of public services (hence helicopter moms) while poor or working class parents tend to be a lot more ambivalent or antagonistic and don’t have the skills or clout to negotiate effectively. I think this is very interesting. When I was growing up in a family transitioning from blue collar to upper middle class, there was definitely some of the sort of ambivalence that Lareau describes. And of course, given the facts on the ground, both the blue collar attitude and the middle class attitude are based in reality.
LikeLike
I suspect you’re just lucky.
Interesting you say this. I chalk it up to the immigrant experience—it was always drilled into my head that education is crucial, and usually with some variation of the following: “get an education!! An education is something they can never take away from you!!”
They can never take away from you. Always that. And no one ever had to to tell me who “they” was.
But yeah, every study I read by middle-class people on working-class attitudes to education parrots the idea that education is something we (working class folks) aren’t interested in, or view as “sissified” and sneer at, or something. Southern Italians and Sicilians are especially singled out for this attitude. Yet, I’ve never seen it outside of those books. I’ve never heard it from other people who share my background, either (so, I doubt my family is the exception). The only ambivalence toward education I’ve seen (or heard from others) regards a fear of more educated members leaving culture/traditions behind, or leaving religion behind. Other than that, education was pushed as the alternative to poverty.
I think you’re right about the lack of clout and negotiation. My parents never approached the school on their own; they never contacted the school for anything if not approached first. They never belonged to the PTA or anything (and in fact, my mother was very hostile to the PTA—not surprising to me in retrospect. Remember how mothers were expected to do all kinds of projects and shit? We moved to a new school in sixth grade, and to make friends I joined the pom-pom squad. I had to drop out because my 3rd-shift-working mother didn’t have the time to sew the uniform. Without the uniform, I couldn’t participate—that sort of thing). I’m a single mother, and I will say that kind of thing has changed.
I’ll have to check that book out.
LikeLike
“I’ll have to check that book out.”
You should. It’s a pretty quick read, with lots of “aha!” moments. The book is more famous for its comparison of children’s leisure in poor/working class and middle class families, as well as the differing models of childrearing.
At least as I’m remembering it, when Lareau describes working class/poor ambivalence, it’s toward school-the-institution, rather than toward education, although I realize that those two categories are not isolated in the real world. If a parent acts continually ticked off by school, that’s going to affect a child’s level of respect and cooperation. Of course, I say that as someone who was recently googling “I hate dioramas.” 🙂
LikeLike
Sure, I’d love to cast four votes, not one. It won’t happen, so why debate it?
The Boomers are here to stay, and they will dominate the political scene for decades to come. The conflict between seniors and everyone else will only get worse from here.
LikeLike
Stranger is right, unless we can somehow get them all to move to Florida and thus dilute the impact in the other states. The housing collapse and the bitter winter might help.
LikeLike
ragtime- I don’t recall if you have kids or not but I’m curious if you’d apply the same rules to home. If you had three kids (so they could out-vote the parents) would you apply voting to bed-time, breakfast foods, vacations, how much TV to watch, etc.?
I do have three little Raggirls, and no — they don’t get a vote. And, if the move back in to the house after college when they are 23, they will still not get a vote, and will not get to keep a liquor cabinet in their bedroom, or get to watch all the TV they want. It is therefore not a question of age and maturity, but rather a question of “It’s my freakin’ house and you’ll live by my freakin’ rules!” The same applies to anyone theoretically moving into the hypothetical in-law suite.
Therefore, I object to your analogy. As they own 0% of my house, they get no vote at home. As they are also 100% citizens of these great United States of America, they should get a full vote there. Unless you want to bring back property ownership requirements for voting (which I certainly don’t!), there’s no contradiction.
LikeLike
I am not a fan of the oft-cited Lareau book. I think the qualitative, anecdotal reports have the effect of justifying the positions and beliefs people already have about class and society and education (kind of like when La Labu says that it’s only among educated elites that she hears that Southern Italians don’t care about education).
I know Laura complains about over-quantitatization of political science research, and I don’t know that quantiative methods are *the* solution, but as in Jen’s comment that women do better when evaluation metrics are more quantitative, I think that the likelihood of circumventing biased preconceptions is greater when numbers are used properly.
I think the Lareau book is worth reading, but mostly to see the patterns of behavior in the population you belong to (assuming you are a good exemplar) rather than understanding other populations. So, I don’t think it offers us much in the way of understanding others, but maybe about ourselves, it can point out patterns.
LikeLike
It is therefore not a question of age and maturity, but rather a question of “It’s my freakin’ house and you’ll live by my freakin’ rules!”
Surely you’re exaggerating a bit on this. If your child lived with you past 18 (for good reasons, say) would you still decide what he or she ate for breakfast and when they went to bed? I’d hope not, for much the same reason why I hope you do decide those things when they are young.
LikeLike
“I am not a fan of the oft-cited Lareau book. I think the qualitative, anecdotal reports have the effect of justifying the positions and beliefs people already have about class and society and education…”
I’m not an expert on the urban poor, but I basically trust Lareau because there’s nothing in her book that makes me say, “No, that’s totally wrong,” and throw it across the room. Somebody’s got to go out there and just describe what stuff looks like from close up, rather than describing it from 35,000 feet. I do disagree with her description of blue collar and middle class family culture as being either/or. I think there are transitional families and in fact I think I grew up in one. Interestingly, while my siblings and I grew up with very few extracurriculars and our upper middle class small-city cousins did every activity under the sun (viola, trumpet, track, basketball, soccer, Kumon, church groups, mission trips, etc.), both sets of siblings have come out with basically the same measure of worldly success, as well as eerily similar professions (one military officer in each set of siblings, one pilot or would-be pilot, one successful hospitality industry type).
LikeLike
My hypothetical “failure to launch” 23 year old will get fewer choices regarding breakfast than her current 8-year-old self, to the extent she is not buying the cereal with her own money. If she’s not going to eat my favorite cereals, she can get a job, and buy her own Frosted Flakes.
LikeLike