[recomposingUNC] reading on US education and the crisis

[Pavithra Kathanadhi]

Hi all,
check out this short article by Michael Hardt on U.S. education and the crisis. 
Hardt is down the road at Duke, and may be another possibility for someone we 
want to hear from or have share at our group meeting at some point.

Hope to see you at the alternative happy hour tonight at 6! If you have friends 
or colleagues who are interested in recomposing UNC, but are not able to make it 
to the Friday meetings at noon, this may be a time to invite them out...
peace,
Pavithra

*******************
Michael Hardt: US education and the crisis

Governments across the globe are dramatically reducing funding for public 
education and raising university tuition rates. These measures are often cast as 
a response to the current economic crisis but really their implementation began 
well before it. Whereas in Britain, Italy, and other European countries students 
battle police in the streets and experiment with new means to protest such 
government actions, there is a relative calm on U.S. campuses.


Forty and fifty years ago US student movements were among the most active and 
innovative in the world, not only protesting against militarism, racism, and 
other social hierarchies but demanding a democratic reform of the education 
system. Why today do US student movements appear so far behind in response to 
this global crisis of education?

There have, in fact, been significant student protests in the U.S. in recent 
years that have not received widespread attention. The most important of these 
are the student movements to protest raises in tuition in the public university 
system in the state of California. Tuition in the University of California 
system had risen gradually to double over the course of a decade but the sudden 
additional increase of 32% in November 2009 set off the student protests. In the 
largest and most widespread actions on US campuses since the 1970s, students 
occupied university buildings and mounted demonstrations.

The primary focus of the California students has been the social inequality 
created by higher tuition rates and lower funding of the university as a whole. 
The poor are obviously the first and most severely affected by the changes. The 
widening class division, the students insistently point out, corresponds closely 
to racial divisions, since black and Latino students constitute a large portion 
of those most affected by the higher tuition fees.

The modest successes in the project to open university education to a wider 
population in a previous era are being gradually reversed.  For the past 30 
years, explains Christopher Newfield, professor at the University of California 
Santa Barbara, "the public universities, which most US students attend, have 
been systematically underfunded, restricting all educational gains to the top 
quarter of students by income and destroying the country’s previous global 
advantage in educational attainment."
The California student movement has been significant but not nearly as intense, 
widespread, or sustained as its counterparts in Europe. One obvious reason for 
this difference is that changes in the US university have been more gradual and 
smaller. Tuition at public universities has long been higher in the US than in 
most of Europe and recent increases have been relatively modest. The 32% 
increase in California in 2009 is dwarfed by the proposed increase in Britain of 
nearly 300%. A second factor that could contribute to less student protest in 
the United States is that university conditions are not unified at the national 
level. Public university funding and tuition rates vary widely in different 
states and the extensive system of private universities creates even more 
significant variation.

The most significant reason for less student activism in the United States, 
however, may derive from a much deeper national condition. The social value 
placed on education for all, especially higher education, has declined 
dramatically. This is certainly true for other countries as well but the fall 
has been more precipitous in the United States. Student politics can only gain a 
powerful voice when university education is a social priority.

Consider, in contrast, the US government response to the "Sputnik crisis." 
Within the frame of cold war logic, the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite 
was considered a challenge to US security and its position in the global system. 
In response the United States substantially increased university funding, 
especially in science and technology. The mission was not limited to advanced 
scientific training or to military advances but rather spread though all levels 
of the education system, with widespread and varied consequences. Even Donna 
Haraway, the pioneering feminist theorist, often refers to herself as a "child 
of Sputnik."

The increase of knowledge and intelligence across society was a national 
priority. Mass education advances contributed directly to the economic growth of 
the US economy. And furthermore, in the context of this educational project, the 
student protests of the 1960s and 70s found a loud voice in national debates.

Whereas one can say that the launch of Sputnik made the United States smarter, 
the attacks of September 11th, perceived as the primary challenge to the 
national position in this period, only made the country more stupid. The "war on 
terror" has given priority only to the most limited military and technological 
knowledges and the idiocy of security dominates public discourse. In this 
atmosphere arguments for advances in mass public education as well as student 
demands for equal and open access to the university carry little weight.

The importance of mass education for economic development is no less today than 
it was 50 years ago, but the economic significance of the fields of education 
have changed. Along with a wide range of economists, Toni Negri and I argue that 
in recent decades the dominant sector of the economy has shifted from industrial 
production to what we call biopolitical production, la production de l'homme par 
l'homme, involving the creation of ideas, images, code, affects, and other 
immaterial goods. If this is true, then the mass education of engineers and 
scientists is no longer the primary key to economic competitiveness. In the 
biopolitical economy mass intelligence - even and especially linguistic, 
conceptual, and social capacities - are what drive economic innovation.

University policies throughout the world have not kept pace with these changes. 
The private money that universities solicit to compensate for the decline in 
public funding is dedicated overwhelmingly to technical and scientific fields. 
The human sciences, which are increasingly relevant in the biopolitical economy, 
are deprived of funds and wither. In this case the student demands actually 
point in the direction of economic prosperity. The current student protests thus 
reconfirm a general rule of politics, that social struggles proceed and 
prefigure social development.

I am generally skeptical about laments of the decline of American civilization. 
In fact, I foresee the loss of military dominance heralding a much more dynamic 
and creative period of US social development. But the failure to make mass 
education at all levels a social priority is certainly one factor indicative of 
decline. And I interpret the relative calm of US campuses in face of economic 
crisis and cuts as a symptom of that problem.

* The article was published by Libération
See also http://uninomade.org/us-education-and-the-crisis/
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