The Millennial Democracy

From the end of the second World War in 1945 until roughly the late 1970s, the average American worker and family, alongside the national economy as a whole, enjoyed an unprecedented stretch of growth and improvement. Manufacturing remained strong, union membership was at or near historic highs, service sector jobs were booming, home ownership saw a consistent rise, university education became accessible to millions, real wages rose alongside life expectancy and the average American's quality of live consistently improved decade over decade. Due to a variety of factors, however, this growth began to slow and even sputtered during the Oil Shock and stagflation years of the late 70s. This led to large-scale deregulation beginning under President Carter, carrying on into and well past the Reagan administration. Instead of simply updating regulations and retooling the economic levers available to state and federal governments, America ushered in the Neoliberal era of trickle-down econo...

Education reform in the United States has followed similar trends over the last twenty years or so. Back in 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act, advocated for by the George W. Bush administration, was passed through both chambers of the legislature and signed by the President. Based on the claim he'd overseen a "Texas Miracle" as the namesake state's governor, Bush upheld if every student between the 3rd and 8th grades were annually tested, with high-performing schools rewarded and low-performing schools penalized, the nation would see test scores increase, teacher performance rebound and graduation rates soar. Under this new education regime, America would supposedly undergo a massive investment into underprivileged children by giving teachers and school districts the motivation they needed to perform. In 2009, President Barack Obama's "Race to the Top" initiative doubled down on the concepts implemented during the Bush years with a new round of $5 billi...