Not The Fault Of Schools Or Teachers

From today's NY Times:

WASHINGTON — Despite the addition of more than two million jobs last year, soaring corporate profits and continuing economic growth, income for the typical American household did not rise in 2012 and poverty failed to fall, new data from the Census Bureau show. 

“The poverty and income numbers are a metaphor for the entire economy,” said Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution. “Everything’s on hold, but at a bad level.” 

Over a longer perspective, the figures reveal that the income of the median American household today, adjusted for inflation, is no higher than it was for the equivalent household in the late 1980s. 

For all but the most highly educated and affluent Americans, incomes have stagnated, or worse, for more than a decade. The census report found that median household income, adjusted for inflation, was $51,017 in 2012, down about 9 percent from an inflation-adjusted peak of $56,080 in 1999, mostly as a result of the longest and most damaging recession since the Depression. 

Most people have had no gains since the economy hit bottom in 2009. 

The government’s authoritative annual report on incomes, poverty and health insurance, released Tuesday, underscores that the economic recovery has largely failed to reach the poor and the middle class, even as the unemployment rate continues to sink and growth has returned.

In the past 12 years, there have been two recessions, one of which was the worst economic downturn since the Depression, two bubble bursts (tech and housing), two major wars that have eaten up a lot of tax money, an endless War on Terror that continues to eat up tax money, and most of the middle class jobs that disappeared in the last two recessions have been replaced with crappy service jobs.

This is an economic problem caused by capitalism, not an education problem caused by schools and teachers.