What Powerful and Greedy Elites Are Hiding When They Scapegoat the Schools

by Diane Ravitch

Our economy is changing in ways that are alarming. Income inequality and wealth inequality are at their highest point in many decades; some say we are back to the age of the robber barons. Most of the gains in the economy since the great recession of 2008 have benefited the 1 percent, or even the 1 percent of the 1 percent. The middle class is shrinking, and we no longer have the richest middle class in the world. The U.S. has the highest child poverty rate of any of the advanced nations of the world (and, no, I don't count Romania as an advanced nation, having visited that nation, which suffered decades of economic plunder and stagnation under the Communist Ceausescu regime).

Forbes reports that there were 442 billionaires in the U.S. in 2013. Nice for them. Taxes have dropped dramatically for the top 1 percent since the 1970s. But don't call them plutocrats. Call them our "job creators," even though they should be called our "job out-sourcers."