Posted: May 1st, 2022

Listen, the No Child Left Behind Act is really a jobs act when you think about it.

Teacher Education Quarterly, Spring 2007
No Child Left Behind
as an Anti-Poverty Measure
By Jean Anyon & Kiersten Greene
Listen, the No Child Left Behind Act is really a jobs act when you think about it.
—President George W. Bush, Oct. 13,2004, Third Presidential Debate
This article argues that, although No Child Left Behind is not presented a jobs policy (Bush’s slip during a Presidential Debate being the only place it is gi such a moniker), the Act does function as a substitute for the creation of dece paying jobs for those who need them. Aimed particularly at the minority poor its 1965 predecessor, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, NCLB ac an anti-poverty program because it is based on an
■■■■■■■¡¡M implicit assumption that increased educational
Jean Anyon is a achievement is the route out of poverty for low
professor of educational income families and individuals. NCLB stands in the
and social policy and place of policies like job creation and significant
Kiersten Greene is a raises in the minimum wage which—although con
doctoral student, both siderably more expensive than standardized test
with the Doctoral ing—would significantly decrease poverty in the
Program in Urban United States.
Education of the We demonstrate that there are significant
Graduate Center of the economic realities, and existing public policies,
City University of New that severely curtail the power of education to
York, New York, New function as a route out of poverty for poor people.
York. The weakened role of education in upward mobil
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No Child Left Behind as an Anti-Poverty Measure
ity, of course, vitiates any premise that better scores on achievement tests, and
increased education, will secure for low-income folks the jobs and income they
need. Let us make our case.
Education and the Economy
For more education to lead to better jobs, there have to be jobs available.
However, there are not now, nor have there been for more than two decades, nearly
enough jobs for those who need them. Labor economist Gordon Lafer demonstrated
that over the period 1984 to 1996—at the height of an alleged labor shortage—the
number of people in need of work exceeded the total number of job openings by
an average of five to one. In 1996, for example, the country would have needed 14.4
million jobs in order for all low-income people to work their way out of poverty.
However, there were at most 2.4 million job openings available to meet this need;
of these, only one million were in full-time, non-managerial positions (2002).
Furthermore, the jobs the U.S. economy now produces are primarily poverty
wage jobs—and only a relative few highly paid ones—making it increasingly less
certain that education will assure that work pays well ( Anyon, 2005). Seventy-seven
percent of new and projected jobs in the next decade will be low-paying. Only a
quarter of these are expected to pay over $26,000 a year (in 2002 dollars). A mere
12.6% will require a college degree, while most will require on-the-job training
only. Of the 20 occupations expected to grow the fastest, only six require college
degrees—these are in computer systems and computer information technology
fields, and there are relatively few of these jobs overall (Department of Labor, 2002).
Gender discrimination can work to reverse—or even eliminate—wage gains
that accrue to individuals with more education. Female high school graduates earn
less than male high school dropouts. And women with post-bachelor’s degrees earn
less than men who have just a bachelor’s (Lafer, 2002; Mishel, Bernstein, &
Boushey, 2003 ; Wolff, 2003). If you are female, more education does not necessarily
mean higher wages.
Race as well can cut into the benefits of further education. A study of entry-level
workers in California, for example, discovered that Black and Latino youth had
improved significantly on every measure of skill in absolute terms and relative to
White workers. Yet their wages were falling further behind those of Whites. In this
example, the deleterious effects of racism outweighed the benefits of education,
with minority workers at every level of education losing ground to similarly
prepared Whites (Lafer, 2002).
Various other economic realities—such as lack of unionization, multiple free
trade agreements which outsource jobs, and increasing use of part-time workers—
cut across the college-wage benefit, lowering it significantly for large numbers of
people, most of whom are minorities and women.
Even a college degree no longer guarantees a decent job. One of six college
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By Jean Anyon & Kiersten Greene
graduates is in a job paying less than the average salary of high school graduates
(Anyon, 2005). Between 8.8% and 11% of people with a bachelor’s degree make
around the minimum wage. This means that an increasing number of college
graduates—about one in ten—is employed at poverty wages (ibid.). Even the
education levels of welfare recipients are high. The share of welfare recipients who
have high school degrees has increased from 42% in 1979 to more than two-thirds
(70%) in 1999 (U.S. General Accounting Office, 2001).
These realities suggest that the promise of good jobs and better pay underlying
NCLB is a false one for many people—especially low-income minority students and
women—because for them educational achievement brings no guarantee of eco
nomic success.
Consider, finally, that the vast majority of low-income students who do
attend college do not have the funds or other supports to complete their bachelor’s
degree. The majority of low-income students who attend college are forced to
withdraw, and only 7 percent of very low-income people attain a bachelor’s by
age 26 (Ed. Trust, 2004b).
In addition to these economic realities, there are federal policies that contradict
the implicit premise of NCLB that higher educational achievement leads to good
jobs. Minimum wage policy and job training policy are two examples.
Minimum Wage Policy
The minimum wage in 2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers was $5.15, which produces a yearly income of
$ 10,712. This sum means that full-time, year-round, minimum-wage work will not
raise people out of poverty (Mishel, Bernstein, & Boushey, 2003). An analysis in
2004 found that minimum-wage standards directly affect the wages of 9% of the
workforce (9.9 million workers). When we include those making just one dollar
more an hour than the minimum wage ($6.15 an hour or $12,792 annually), this
legislation affects the wages of as much as 18% of the workforce (17.8 million
workers)(Economic Policy Institute July, 2004).
In fact, an almost universally ignored reality is that nearly half of the workforce
earns what some economists call “poverty-zone wages” (and what Anyon defines
as up to and including 125 percent of the official poverty level) (Anyon, 2005).
Anyon’s analysis demonstrated that in 1999, during a very strong economy, almost
half of all people at work in the U.S. (41.3%) earned poverty-zone wages—$10.24/
hour ($21,299/year) or less, working full-time, year-round (Mishel, Bernstein &
Schmitt, 2001, Table 2.10, p. 130). Two years later, in 2001,38.4% earned poverty
zone wages working full-time, year-round (in 2001,125% of the poverty threshold
was a $ 10.88 hourly wage) (Mishel, Bernstein, & Boushey, 2003). This suggests that
the federal minimum-wage policy is an important determinant of poverty for many
millions of U.S. families.
Thus, it seems to us that realistic anti-poverty policies would include signifi
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No Child Left Behind as an Anti-Poverty Measure
cant raises in the minimum wage. Indeed, during the decades following World War
II, when working-class Americans prospered, the minimum wage was indexed to the
wages of well-paid, unionized, industrial workers: when their wages increased, so
did the wages of the un-unionized (Galbraith, 1998).
We would note that education did not create the problem of wide-spread
poverty wages, and education will not solve the problem. No Child Left Behind will
not raise wages for the millions who work at poverty jobs. Only employers and
governments can raise wages.
Job Training Policy
A second policy that weakens the assumption that increased education is a
route to economic advancement for the poor is federal job training legislation.
In 1982 President Ronald Reagan cut the Comprehensive Employment and
Training Administration (CETA) program, which had created more than two million
full-time jobs for the unemployed. Since the early 1980s, the federal government
has depended on job training instead of job creation as the main method by which
people are to move from poverty and unemployment to solvency. (Although the
federal government does fund job creation for high-tech, high end positions.)
Analyses have consistently demonstrated that job-training programs cannot
succeed for more than a few low-income trainees because there are not enough jobs
to be had. Moreover, the jobs these programs prepare people for are almost always
low-wage employment (such as janitorial work, or truck-driving) (Lafer, 2002;
Pigeon & Wray, 1999).
Realistic anti-poverty policy would have to include job creation across the
board. Job creation for the unemployed was in fact a long-term federal policy begun
in the 1930s during the Great Depression—until it was eliminated by Reagan. If we
expect students who achieve at high levels to obtain better jobs, we need to begin
creating those jobs.
The Social Costs of NCLB
NCLB is often criticized for the ways in which it attempts to privatize a p controlled function by moving to a capitalistic market model in which edu service creates profits for private business.
Schools that fail to raise test scores, for example, give way ultimatel vouchers in the market model, but first to a variety of expensive, pre-p curricula, testing, and tutoring programs. As a result, companies have al accrued billions of dollars of profit (Bracey, 2005). Among the largest bene of these newly expanded markets are long-term business friends of President Bush—e.g., the McGraw family of test-makers CBT-McGraw Hill, powerfu ist Sandy Kress, and the developers and publishers of Reading First, a billio a-year, federally funded primary reading program for which districts must c 160
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By Jean Anyon & Kiersten Greene
(ibid.). The privatization built into NCLB accelerates the 20th century trend toward
shaping public education in the interests of corporate concerns. Our concluding
argument builds on this point.
We have alleged that NCLB is a federal legislative substitute for policies that
would actually lower poverty—legislation that would create jobs with decent
wages for those who do not have them. Our critique has been that an assumption
underlying NCLB, that increased educational achievement will ultimately reduce
poverty, does not prove valid for large segments of the population. We want to make
a further point here.
If businesses were mandated by law to create jobs for those who need them—
and if business had to pay decent wages and benefits—the costs to business owners
would be enormous. As we know, neither small nor large corporations pay such costs
now. Instead, the costs of the poverty produced by insufficient and poorly paid
employment are passed on to the tax-paying public in the form of programs to
compensate: public tax dollars pay for welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid—among
other publicly-funded programs that attempt to ameliorate the individual and social
pain of unemployment and underemployment.
When the federal government and the business communities rely on education
to reduce poverty, the social costs of the failure of such an approach are enormous,
and taxpayers shoulder the burden.
Political economists have pointed out that in the last half century taxpayers
have paid for an increasing number of supports that make private business—
especially large corporate conglomerates—profitable. Economist James O’Connor
noted in 1973 that taxpayers increasingly paid for more infrastructure, research and
development, and education:
Capitalist production has become more interdependent—more dependent on
science and technology, labor functions more specialized, and the division of
labor more extensive. Consequently, the monopoly sector [energy conglomer
ates, concentrated banking and finance, giant information technology firms, and
manufacturing].., requires increasing numbers of technical and administrative
workers. It also requires increasing amounts of infrastructure (physical overhead
capital)—transportation, communication, R&D, education, and other facilities.
In short, the monopoly sector requires more and more social investment in relation
to private capital…. The costs of social investment… are not borne by monopoly
capital but rather are socialized and fall on the state [i.e., upon tax payers].
(O’Connor 1973,24)
That is, public funds subsidize the research and development, technology, and
education that the corporate community says it needs.
We want to extend O’Connor’s argument to include the social costs of the
poverty produced when jobs are lacking and pay is low. When businesses and large
corporations pay poverty-range wages to 41 % of the people at work in America, the
costs of supporting people’s needs are socialized to the tax-paying public, just as
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No Child Left Behind as an Anti-Poverty Measure
the technological and other costs of doing business have been. The private sector
is not liable for the social costs of the poverty its actions produce.
NCLB is part of this process of socializing the costs of poverty. When the Act
assumes—even implicitly—that poverty is a result of low scores on standardized
tests, rather than on the fact that there are not enough decently paying jobs, it lets
the business community off the hook. It saddles the poor with unrealistic expecta
tions and the rest of us with unwitting support of corporate irresponsibility.
References
Anyon, J. (2005). Radical possibilities: Public policy, urban education, and a new soc movement. New York: Routledge.
Bracey, G. (2005). No Child Left Behind: Where does the money go? Policy Brief, Educat Policy Studies Laboratory, Education Policy Research Unit, Arizona State University Department of Labor (2002). Occupation projections to 2010 – Essay Writing Service: Write My Essay by Top-Notch Writer. Washington, DC: Author Education Trust. (2004b). A matter of degrees: Improving graduation rates in four-y colleges and universities. Washington, DC: Author.
Galbraith, J. K. (1998). Created unequal: The crisis in American pay. Twentieth Century F Book. New York: The Free Press, Simon & Schuster.
Lafer, G. (2002). The job training charade. Ithaca, NY :Cornell University Press.
Mishel, L., Bernstein, J., & Boushey, H. (2003). The state of working America: 2002/2003 Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press.
Mishel, L., Bernstein, J., & Schmitt, J. (2001). The state of working America: 2000/2001. Itha NY : Cornell University Press.
O’Connor, J. (1973). Fiscal crisis of the state. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Pigeon, M.-A., & Wray, R. (1999). Down and out in the U.S.: An inside look at the out of t labor force population. Public Policy Brief No. 54. Annandale-on-Hudson, NY: Th Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.

——-

Spring 2007 issue of Teacher Education Quarterly
There will be no child left behind.

as a form of anti-poverty action

Kiersten Greene and Jean Anyon

When you think about it, the No Child Left Behind Act is essentially a jobs act.

—President George W. Bush, Third Presidential Debate, October 13, 2004

Although No Child Left Behind is not marketed as a jobs policy (Bush’s slip during a Presidential Debate being the only time it is given that label), the Act does serve as a substitute for the creation of decent-paying employment for people who need them, according to this article. NCLB is an anti-poverty program since it is based on an assessment of poverty. Its 1965 predecessor, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, was aimed specifically at the minority poor.

■■■■■■■¡¡M increased implicit assumption

U.S. General Accounting Office. (2001, March). Welfare reform: Moving hard-to-emp recipients into the workforce. Report GAO-01-386. Washington, DC: U.S. Gener Accounting Office.
Wolff, E. (2003). Recent trends in living standards in the United States. Annandale-on-Hudso NY : Bard College, Jerome Levy Economics Institute.
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