Teachers in the Hood

Peter Moskos, who writes the blog "Cop In the Hood", is a former Baltimore police office who teaches in the department of law, political science and criminal justice at CUNY, has an excellent piece in which he argues that we should be more worried about the crime rate.  He goes into some political details, points out why some on the left and right might be trying to spin it.  But what really impressed me was how he brought his own experiences to bear on the subject.

Among academics, it's quite uncool to blame criminals for crime or give police credit for crime prevention. But then how many statisticians who use the UCR Homicide Supplement can point to a specific row and say, "Yeah, I handled that one.".... How many Harvard PhD students have the intimate experience of sorted through a victims' clothes? Clothes that are literally dripping with blood and yet still reeking of body odor. You're trying to go through everything, looking for pockets, for any sign of identification of the life that used to be. And then there are the death notifications.

The piece is dripping with the kind of heartfelt, front-line experience that is crucial to our understanding of the intersection between poverty/race/violence/etc. and our public debate.  I was a teacher for years at poor schools, and this was exactly how I felt when I heard the education "conversation".  It was always missing the kind of nuanced picture of what life is actually like for the families and teachers who actually worked together day in and day out.

I ended up leaving, and am now a behavioral analyst working with many of the same populations (yet with a vastly more effective set of interventions, but that's another story).  I left teaching disillusioned and frustrated.  In the liberal studies courses I had taken I had been led to believe that a good, loving, non-prejudiced teacher with high expectations was all that was needed to turn these kid's lives around - Stand and Deliver was so inspiring!  The only real problem was racism and teachers who didn't care!  Yet the reality is so much more complex.  The disadvantage in the lives of vast numbers of kids leave them with severe cognitive and emotional - not to mention academic -  deficits that grade-level placement in standard coursework becomes increasingly absurd.  And in a classroom of 30 kids, the majority of whom have little regard for a grade, refuse to do homework, and calls home are received by parents who have zero control over their children, the situation is a recipe for failure for all but the most miraculous of teachers.  These students have already been removed from the upper-level courses (those, by the way, that Escalante taught), and generally get warehoused in the lower-levels.

When a kid curses at the teacher, hits or pushes another student, throws things at them, or consistently disrupts class, there must be consequences, and repeated consequences must increase in severity.  These students, by definition, are the most disadvantaged students: this behavior is a result of their environments.  And they are far more likely to be poor and minority.  Yet what you hear in the public conversation is that either the teachers are biased and picking on  minorities (the left), or that minorities have gotten themselves into this bad situation and need to get themselves out without intervention (the right).

There is an element of truth to both of these perspectives.  In all honestly, towards the end I did find myself almost expecting minority students to be more likely to cause trouble - I did my best to check this regularly, many teachers would not.  But both perspectives miss the larger social picture, which isn't about blame, but about what are the actual causes of the problems, and at least point us to what interventions might be appropriate.

I won't pretend that simply being there on the front lines: that working and talking to the families and kids on a daily basis is somehow enough for one to understand the problem.  It probably is as likely to lead you draw incorrect conclusions.  But it is however, essential to the discourse.  When we talk about schools, teachers and kids, we need to have an intimate understanding of what these relationships look like.  They will both disabuse us of faulty assumptions, as well as grant us special insights into the particular difficulties these complex social relationships present.

So my point is not that the problem is hopeless.  I have plenty of ideas about what we can do.  But rather, that the "conversation" we have is abstracted, removed from the front lines, and burdened by theoretical and ideological baggage that is insulated from reality.

This post illustrates this phenomenon beautifully.  Not in education, but in policing, where a larger "conversation" is also occurring, yet which too often feels like it is only coming from a ridiculous pro-police versus anti-police perspective, where there are only good guys versus bad-guys.  The reality is that there are only people doing what they know how to do.  There are innocent minorities being unfairly treated, as well as those who are acting poorly and need to be dealt with in an aggressive manner.  There are police who are being prudent, there are police who are being hot-headed and callous.  There is also a larger system in which babies are born into extreme disadvantage, and will grow up to act terribly.  We as  a society need to find a way to deal with them respectfully but firmly, all the while searching for ways to improve our system so that more babies aren't disadvantaged, and so fewer police will be required to navigate such dysfunctional communities.

Ultimately, what saddens me most is also what comes across in Moskos' piece: when we fail to properly identify the problem, we are failing the actual victims.  In his case, the victims of crime, or in my case, the students themselves.  But the victims are also all of those affected by dysfunctional behavior - from those whose lives they burden, to the perpetrators themselves who could have been more.

Just Feelings

Will Wilkinson makes a fine case against the death penalty.

Now, I don't know how to convince you that even especially heinous murderers don't deserve to suffer the same fate they meted out. I suppose I would start by distinguishing justice from vengeance. I would observe that there is no pervasive ethereal moral substance that must be kept in some sort of cosmic balance lest society devolve into chaos. We may feel deeply, in our marrow, in our prickling indignant skin, that the yin of crime calls out for the yang of punishment. But I would warn against putting much trust our retributive instincts. I would suggest that civilization demands setting these feelings aside, that it requires that we ask ourselves in a cool hour the point of criminal justice.

I'm still convinced that justice is still largely about what people feel, not what they think. It isn't necessarily an illegitimate stance, but certainly cause for concern. That is, if you can't make a rational argument for something, without merely resorting to "how it feels", then you're in dangerous territory.

I've highlighted in bold what I think is a crucial point.  Revenge is a very common argument for punishment from the general public. Yet eye-for-eye style justice is absurd, leading to all sorts of logical barbarism, much of which those same people would likely find distasteful (until they got used to it, no doubt! Fox would make a killing on P.P.V.).

So this sort of justice-by-feeling seems rather squishy, even when we are merely talking about that nebulous concept of social retribution. In other words, what determines what wrong has been done to society, if our "feelings" are so unreliable?

I'm still unclear as to what service it provides us that utilitarianism does not. Certainly a citizen 1000 years ago would experience feelings of unwhetted blood-lust, were a convicted murderer not to be executed in public, after humiliation and torture. Yet we require modern man to bite his lip and be satisfied with less. Is the modern man worse off, not having had his dark taste? Maybe in order to truly fulfill what is rightfully ours, by this supposedly sacred instinct, we should indeed give the thirsty public what it wants.

To Deny the Rights of Man

Most of us are well aware of, if not accepting of the basic Marxist critique of capitalism: that an unequal distribution of economic capital results in an unequal distribution of social leverage, inevitably leading to exploitation as inequitable power structures become entrenched, and human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are violated.  Yet a common rebuttal to this critique is that as long as the structural imbalances can be overcome, that there are systems in place to allow for those who desire to overcome them, then neither exploitation nor violation of rights is occurring.

This would be true, as far as it goes.  However, in reality, structural imbalances prove quite difficult to overcome.   The reason for this is goes to a fundamental error in understanding the extent to which structural imbalances exist.  In the classic economic model of structural inequality, a property owner is at an advantage over a renter because of his ability to leverage his relative wealth.  To overcome this inequality, the rebuttal goes, all the renter has to do is find some way of creating his own wealth, and leveraging it himself.  As long as there are no structural impediments to his doing so, such as discrimination or lack of opportunity, he cannot be said to be exploited or denied his rights.

Yet this naively assumes a simplicity to structural imbalance, viewing it only in institutional or economic terms.  What is left out are the other, more powerful forms of capital.  Capital, it ought to be said, is anything that contributes to an individual's agency.  Economic capital (EC) is the financial wealth one owns and is able to do things like invest, trade, or purchase; it is his financial freedom.  Social capital (SC) is the environmental resources available to one, beginning literally at birth, that help him and support his growth and development in life.  It is anything from the type of parents or neighbors he has, to the proximity of  local businesses, to the structure of government under which he lives.  Human capital (HC) refers to the resources within himself that allow him to process external stimuli in the environment and make relevant choices.  This would be everything from the genes he was born with, to the amount of vocabulary he learned before beginning school, to his ability to socialize with others, to his ability to form thoughts and critically analyze information, to his knowledge of computer software or simply control his anger.

Each of these forms of capital are dynamic.  The degree to which they exist at any given time determines the amount of leverage, or agency,  at one's disposal.  So, for instance, an individual poor in EC and SC, yet rich in HC, has a much higher chance of leveraging his HC to establish more SC, and ultimately more EC.  He might be an excellent communicator - a "people person" - which allows him to foster relationships and network, in turn leading to better paying jobs and social support.  Like wise, an individual rich in EC, yet poor in SC or HC, has a higher chance of losing his EC because of poor decisions.  He may make rash business decisions, and without an ability to relate well to others, find himself without support in difficult times.  At root, these forms of capital  make us who we are and allow us the freedom to be successful citizens.

In general, Marxist critique claims that relative inequality in EC is what drives the larger social systems, culture and institutions of man.  He writes:

My inquiry led me to the conclusion that neither legal relations nor political forms could be comprehended whether by themselves or on the basis of a so-called general development of the human mind....

In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure, and to which correspond definite forms of consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political, and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.

I have chosen to emphasize this last line because it makes a fascinating statement about cause and effect.  Marx is here claiming that the individual's EC and SC determines their HC, not the other way around.  Yet to the modern mind, this seems false.  Could not an individual, rich in human capital, thus be in a position to alter their lack of economic and social capital?

Marx wrote those words in 1859, a very different time.  He likely could not have conceived of the modern mixed-economy state, with its social safety nets, public schooling for all, libraries, mass transit, workers' rights, middle classes, public universities, and the like.  It seems that to the degree that we have these things - all of which were fought for almost precisely because of the critiques he outlined in his work - his argument diminishes.  Likewise, to the degree to which we do not have these things, his argument gains strength.  What we have essentially done with the modern state is a soft version of what he would have had us do with communism, that is to drive up HC by providing a baseline FC and SC to all.

Yet, assuming now that some degree of opportunity exists for those with a high enough level of HC, what to do about those who would have that same access yet lack sufficient HC to take advantage of it?  When I work with young (largely delinquent) low-HC teenagers, I face this exact dilemma.  My task is to increase their HC as much as possible, in the hope that this will allow them more leverage to attain EC and SC in later life.  As an employee of the state, offering public education services, I represent a level of SC they would otherwise not have, and thus am in a position to raise their HC.

Student Success, c. Flippen group

Study after study has shown that individuals in poor communities - by definition with less EC and SC - have less HC.  Not only do are those with less HC more prone to lose what EC and SC they do have, but they have likely been born into a world in which those responsible for their development have lower levels of such capital as well, resulting in their.  Because of the realities of real estate property values, individuals with low EC and SC are in effect shunted into geographic locations in which they are surrounded with peers who are similarly disadvantaged, which has the effect of lowering an already diminished level of SC even further.  This means that in the schools, jobs and peer groups of these neighborhoods,are of substantially diminished value.  This is, of course, reflected in the property values to begin with.  It is a self-reinforcing process.

To ignore or to discount the fundamental role of human and social capital in social justice and liberty is to deny nothing less than the rights of man.  To the extent that one benefits from his higher level of HC and SC relative to another, the relationship is exploitative.  We perceive this on a gut level when we purchase the services of someone from a lower class than ourselves.  We know instinctively that a maid, busboy, gardener, or convenience store clerk is fulfilling a role that has been determined by their relative lack of HC and SC.  For were they to have higher levels of either, they would no doubt not have to suffer menial labor.  To the degree that we find ourselves in a higher class position, it is no doubt due to higher levels of HC and SC.  Our relative incomes, or FC, traditionally used as a shorthand for class, are actually quite secondary to the leverage that HC and SC afford an individual.

The area where this chasm between capital classes is most striking, is between the criminal and the conformist classes.  Our deepest systems of morality and justice are written around - or in spite of - the disparities between capital classes.  When a man steals a car, abuses drugs, or beats his wife, we perform what amounts to philosophical hand-waving, as we assume that he has performed an act that we would not have, were we in his position.  Yet his "position" is assumed to merely a place in space and time, and not the psyche of an actual human being with a lifetime of experiences that has lead him to that exact instance in which he took the action he did.  For if we were indeed in his "position", we would have to accept his relative level of human capital - his knowledge, his critical thinking ability, his ability to understand and control his emotions, etc.  If we were indeed in his position, there is little doubt we would have chose differently at all.

So when the criminal stands accused before the court, his deeds those we have decided as a society to label as crimes, we are leveraging our relative richness in HC against his relative lack.  To the degree that our conviction is retributive, and not for utilitarian purposes, we are purposefully ignoring his diminished HC so as to absolve ourselves of any part in the crime.  For if we were to include the role his HC played in his crime - admittedly, an almost impossible task - we would be forced to consider the inequity in distribution of HC in our (society's) relationship with him that allowed him to commit the original offense.  Our damnation of him would in turn need to be directed back at ourselves.  This would be like taking a failing bridge to court for crumbling into the river below.  To the extent that we acknowledge the bridge's disrepair as relative to our own structural integrity, it would be illogical for us to hold the bridge accountable for failings attributable to integrity that we take for granted in ourselves.

In our desire for a veneer of social harmony, we ignore the complex relationship between human development and human action.  Those with lower levels of HC and SC are functionally incapacitated, and therefore easily exploited and victimized by those with higher levels of capital who wish for cheaper services or the satisfaction of retributive justice.  By denying that these forms of capital are intrinsic to human liberty, we deny not only our responsibility to create a just society, but ultimately the very rights of man.

Free Will and Responsibility

I recently came across a critique of determinism (or opposition to contra-causal free will, philosophical libertarianism) that followed an old line of thought on why we should believe in free will:

What are the implications of truly believing that one's behaviors are due to uncontrollable genetic impulses? Caught philandering or stealing? Instead of saying "the devil made me do it" I guess you can now argue that "it runs in the family." But what happens when people are no longer held accountable for their actions? Is society even possible if its rules cannot be observed? This issue underlies not only philosophical debates over free will and determinism but also the current trend toward our becoming a no-fault no-risk culture.

Now, setting aside the fact that this was written on a religious website that had an obvious theosophical interest in defending free will, it does provide an excellent example of a common line of thought.  One of the first issues people raise when their belief in free will is challenged is that the result of such thinking would not allow people to be held accountable for their actions.  If people are determined by biology and environment, then how can we blame them when they do bad things?

The first flaw in this argument is that it is illogical.  The question of whether or not free will exists is separate from any consequences that may result from its existence.  This is simply the way that reality works.  No matter how much we might dislike reality, we can't choose what to believe or not to believe based on our discomfort.

The second flaw is that determinism does not necessarily mean that we can't hold people accountable.  Even if we know that someone is not ultimately responsible for their actions, we can still organize our society in such a way that certain behaviors are encouraged, while others discouraged.  For instance, even if a murderer is believed to have been created by a bad home life, a genetic disorder, etc., it is still in society's interest to keep them locked up.  This is not to say that there are not profound implications for a deterministic outlook.  Reward, retribution and punishment, fairness, equality and justice, all take on new meanings. 

One of the most profound meanings provides an interesting corollary to the argument of personal responsibility.  If free will holds individuals accountable, it fails to hold society accountable.  In turn, if determinism fails to hold individuals accountable, it does hold society accountable.  So if one believes in such a thing as "social justice", it would behoove them to decide whether they believe either in contra-causal free will, or determinism.