Perhaps this relates to the trend that a recent Pew survey found on partisan attitudes toward colleges:
http://www.people-press.org/2017/07/10/sharp-partisan-divisions-in-views-of-national-institutions/
If conservatives, with increasing tendency to view colleges negatively, choose to opt-out of going to college because of those views, will that further increase the demographic isolation (“bubbles”) between conservatives and liberals in the future, leading to even more divisive politics?
@TatinG, zoning claims may not be supported in this article, but it’s a real issue in many areas.
A friend just got back from a city council discussion regarding affordable housing for (predominantly) single moms. A rapidly gentrifying neighborhood was pushing out its low income housing tenants to a distant development. Supposedly it was for the tenants’ own good (more space! newer units! lower taxes!) even though actually this was a blatant attempt to get rid of housing and a population that was bringing down property values in this now-beginning-to-be-desirable neighborhood. So not only did these families have to leave their homes, they had to move a fair distance away – farther from schools, shops, medical facilities and of course jobs – in an area with minimal public transportation or support services (hence the lower taxes…)
My friend, an urbanist by training, says this sort of thing happens all the time – pushing out marginalized populations away from areas where they actually may have a shot at making it, thanks to services, transportation and good local schools.
I agree with Brooks that there’s too high a correlation between the home you can afford to rent or buy and the education your kids get in most of the country. I think @JHS agrees?
I did find it odd though that New York was one of the areas Brooks singled out. The unfortunate reality is that housing here seems more segregated than it was when I moved here 40+ years ago.
Still, I think a poor smart kid has a better chance of getting a good education in NYC than most places in the US. Yes, the “sci highs” and other strong high schools have too few black and Hispanic students, but they also have a lot of kids whose parents are not upper middle class. And, it’s also possible to live at home, work part time and get a college degree from a CUNY. Some CUNY programs are highly ranked, e.g., Baruch for business. The “College Now” program at the CCs introduces high school kids to college life while they are still in high school. If all the US offered the same opportunities to working class kids, the country would be better off.
But some of Brooks’ remarks are just plain dumb. I know someone who works in an inner city hospital and used to work in a hospital in a different inner city. Most of the poor moms of new borns want nothing whatsoever to do with breast feeding…and it has nada to do with the length of maternity leaves or how hard it is to do it while you’re working. Welfare moms who aren’t working at all almost never breast feed, despite the hospitals doing a LOT to encourage them to do so. Meanwhile,employed, educated moms who have to go back to work 6-8 weeks after giving birth knock themselves out pumping at work, carting the milk back and forth in insulated bags, and usually freezing at least some. I know women who work 60 hour weeks who are pumping at work. Meanwhile, the file clerks and receptionists employed in the same places working 35 hours a week aren’t. It’s not being ABLE to breast feed; it’s BELIEVING that it will benefit your child and making the effort. It’s putting up with some nasty cracks form the uneducated when you breast feed in public. It’s having friends who don’t get bent out of shape it you breast feed when you’re visiting them.
My married kid lives in a city in which every child under the age of 10 is entitled to a new book once a month. They are mailed to the home. It costs nothing; all you have to do is sign up. New moms are told this when they give birth in a city hospital. Pediatricians and medical clinics tell you and will help you sign up. Yet, again, it’s a struggle to get less educated parents to sign up. Meanwhile, college educated parents do sign up.
I’m having trouble articulating my point, but, to me, it’s not just about the upper middle class erecting barriers to joining it. It’s also about the fact that many poor people don’t value reading, formal education or breast feeding–or good nuitrition, breast feeding being the first step to that. An article about Trump’s supporters kind of said this. The poor saw nothing wrong with being rich–and thus approved of Trump. If they won the lottery, they wouldn’t give the money away. BUT, they resented more educated people who told them what to do–especially at work. They weren’t anti-rich; they were anti intellectual.
That’s in part, at least, why poor immigrants from cultures which value education seems to move up into the middle class than poor US born kids who come from families that don’'t.
The article is ridiculous. BTW, at no point in my college studies did I ever learn about the stuff that goes in to gourmet sandwiches. What a stupid “point.”
There will always be people in our country that have more opportunity - it comes with the territory when you don’t have a system of government like North Korea has (but don’t fool yourself - in no society is every single person afforded the exact same opportunities). I don’t see an issue with some having more than others. What I do have a problem with is not affording some basic level of opportunities to all children (because we do not do that).
Well NYC and San Francisco are definitely ruining America, or at least NY and CA. You could make a serious case the CA transplants ruined other states like Colorado. But Portland? Seriously dude.
NYC’s greater accessibility by public transportation does make school choice more feasable for many students from lower income families than in other places where school choice is often limited by transportation logistics even if there are no administrative barriers.
Remember that the immigration system does select for higher education levels for immigrants from most countries, including most of those from Africa, Europe, and Asia. The cultural valuation of education among such immigrants may be more related to the subset of people from those countries who are allowed to immigrate than the cultural values generally in the source countries. Note that the opposite effect exists for immigration from Mexico, where immigrants to the US are less likely to have bachelor’s degree than the overall population of Mexico.
Reminds me of a day a quarter century ago, shortly after I’ve set foot on the American soil for the first time. I saw a place called “Deli”, thought it was an Indian restaurant (confusing with “Delhi”) and was extremely surprised when I walked in and saw gefilte fish jars on display 
The word “quesadilla” sounded extremely elitist to me then!
I think what you’re getting at is that the expectations and opportunities of an UMC lifestyle are very much cultural. which they are. I come from a white trash background, but I fortunately fell into a very good job 30 years ago and have been able to achieve a very good salary, along with friends and the influence of people from much different backgrounds than mine. I was an extended breastfeeder and La Leche League leader for many years. I completely support all women breastfeeding. That said, I’d like to point out that in many professional areas (Big Law, where I am), the women with the important jobs usually get much more maternity leave (there was a kerfluffle in the Parents Café, when I pointed out that in law firms different classes of women get different amounts of leave), and they also usually have actual offices in which to close the door and use the breast pump. I work in one of the most family friendly firms (according to AmLaw), and the difference between what is available for the non-professional women in terms of support is quite stark. They have to use a communal room or the bathroom for pumping, have to share a fridge, which may be floors away, and often don’t have very much control over their daily schedules. It can be done. I did it sitting on the toilet for over a year with each of my kids, and it’s worth it, but it’s hard. I know for a fact that lower status women in many professional firms still have the same challenges.
I was just in the store and thinking about how grocery items have changed since I was a kid or maybe since I was from a small town. We had only Swiss, American and cheddar cheeses. Now there are so many. I’d never heard of hummus, yogurt, quinoa, kale, and on and on.
I think educated people value education. That explains a lot of what Brooks describes. At parent nights at school, it was the educated parents who attended, much more so than those without college.
Well, this article is well-intentioned but trite, and the sandwich anecdote absurd.
I have to say, though, that David Brooks’ book Bobos in Paradise is a hoot and so on target. He always includes himself in the group being satirized and the sandwich shop anecdote does that, at least.
I don’t live in these kinds of environments though even our home town is getting more polarized, with wealthy outsiders moving in to retire and the kids of locals being forced out by prices.
@jonri The BF thing made me think about my childhood when my mom and her church were boycotting Nestle because they were discouraging poor women in Africa from breastfeeding (sending in sales reps dressed as nurses and similar shady practices) so they could sell more powdered formula, which often mixed with not-clean water and made the babies sick. I sat through a documentary on it at our church and it made an impression on me. (and here’s an article about it http://archive.babymilkaction.org/pdfs/babykiller.pdf )
IN the US there was a pretty persistent attitude that breastfeeding was for poor people and “good” mom could afford formula. And for sure if you have a lower paid job, as @zoosermom pointed out with the bit about the office with a door and the schedules, BFing is really not easy to do at all.
And baby formula is free to poor moms on WIC. There’s some major marketing by formula companies in hospitals too, moreso in low income and black areas than in wealthy areas.
https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2016/07/vtc-breastfeeding.html
–that study agrees women who don’t BF or quit early don’t do so for work reasons but rather because they lack role models in their families. It says Hispanic women at all income levels have a higher rate of BF than white or black women. I think the cultural history with black women goes back to wet nurses and some other complex stuff that is being overcome but not as quickly.
On the OP, I agree that was one sloppy little op-ed Brooks dashed off there.
There’s a lot of evidence that there ARE ways wealthy families hold their spots, if you will, in elite colleges and they are mainly through legacy, development and sports.
“You could make a serious case the CA transplants ruined other states like Colorado.”
As a Californian who moved to Colorado 30 years ago, I beg to differ! When I moved to Denver, Colorado was reeling from the worst economic slump in its history (and that’s saying something, considering this boom-and-bust economy.)
Downtown Denver was a wasteland everyone avoided. Denverites fled public schools in favor of privates or they moved to the burbs. Libraries state-wide were underfunded, public transportation was pitiful, there were no city-run recycling programs, no after-school programs in the public schools, the symphony was on the verge of dying and local state universities were so underfunded, departments ran out of Xerox money and had to use a mimeograph machine. In the 1980’s !!! Starting academic (university level, PhD, tenure track) salaries were less than you could make being a lowly secretary in California, and the medical benefits were so bad faculty members prayed they could rely on their spouses’ benefits.
I can assure you, Denver - and Colorado - is a very different place today, thanks in part to the masses of educated, community-oriented, politically involved Californians (and Michanders, Texans, New Yorkers etc.) A light rail system links the burbs with the city and the airport, among the nation’s biggest and most modern. People can actually live in the city without a car (and many do!) It’s one of the top cities to attract college grads. Its economy is diversified, it’s an environmental leader (well, in some areas, cowboys and frackers still exert their power) the city is full of restaurants, start-ups, galleries, breweries and pot shops (lol.) Denver Public Schools is a nationwide example of what an urban school system can be. Yes, there is after-school care, as well as specialized schools and dynamic high schools that draw suburbanites to the city.
So yea, you could make a serious case the CA transplants ruined states like Colorado – just like you could make a serious case that little green men live on the moon or that vaccines cause autism.
^The median single family home price in Denver is $400k. Housing is becoming less affordable over time, and to tie back into the original article, public schools would be segregated based on income.
^^ Denver has schools of choice, and arguably the best high schools (Washington, East) are HIGHLY diverse, racially and economically. My son (white, middle class) attended high school that was 30% Latino (and largely working/lower class), 30% African American (ditto.)
^East skews wealthier than Denver as a whole. Denver has 68% on free or reduced lunch. East has a little more than half that.
Yes. This diverse public school also attracts many children from well-to-do families. Isn’t that great?
They are mainly through intense commitment to educational achievement, and a helping of inherited intelligence.
Damn. I have a graduate degree and live just outside of San Francisco. I know pomodoro has something to do with tomatoes, and I know what a baguette is, but otherwise I have no idea what Padrino, soppressata, capicollo or striata are.
I’m not buying Brooks’ suggestion that a college degree makes one selfish. I think the basis of the problem is that we don’t support schools like we used to, especially public schools and universities. That denies opportunities to people who can’t afford to go to private schools and universities, or to people who don’t have the money to move into wealthy neighborhoods that do have good public schools.
I couldn’t tell if this was a tongue-in-cheek statement or a genuine opinion. Anyway, if it’s he latter, I’d like to point out that in a recent book called, “The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies”, it was mentioned that sometime into the 2000s (when the study being referred to ended,) half of all US economic growth was coming from five counties/boroughs - Manhattan; San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara counties in the SF Bay Area; and King County, which is Seattle. So if anything, America is heavily dependent on the growth being generated out of NYC and San Francisco.
I disagree about inherited intelligence. I’m old enough to remember that Asians were supposedly proven to have low IQs back in the 60s. Now they’ve supposedly been proven to have the highest IQs. Human genetics doesn’t work that fast, so people are mistakenly assuming that economic success correlates with inherited intelligence. I do agree that different groups of people placing different values on education plays a role in economic inequality.