Running head: UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 1

Unchecked Capitalism: Deficits vs. Debts in Education

Sonya Curry

University of Southern California

UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 2

Abstract

If acculturation of children instills values and establishes normative behavior and

cognition, then it follows that since children spend a majority of their time in school, their

identity development cycle begins at home and culminates at school. So culture yields an identity

developed from home, school and community. Education/knowledge is prime capital, and those

with capital control the flow of knowledge and thereby influence thought and culture in social

groups. Comparatively, education is a form of social capital that can be used to shape the identity

of a group, subvert that identity with a false identity, and in time, the oppressed will begin to hate

themselves at which point the possessor of social capital does not need to continue subversion.

Like any other social grouping, the jargon of academia shifts over time and progresses as new

thoughts, ideas, and beliefs become normalized. The current jargon of academia to describe the

phenomena of achievement inequity is: “Achievement Gap,” (Barton, 2003; Bensimon, 2005;

Boykin & Noguera, 2011; Harris, 2011; Hoang, 2011; Welch-Ross et al., 2010),” or

“Educational Deficit” (Gonzalez, 2008; Hirsch, 2006; Walker, 2011). In fact, these 2 terms

combined yield over 2 million results in Google and 75,000 results in peer-reviewed journal

articles. Using terms like the “Achievement Gap” or “Educational Deficit,” lends itself to

discourse that shifts the focus on educational inequities from an issue of inadequate educational

institutions to inadequate students, teachers, and schools, where the former holds the educational

system accountable and the latter holds the disenfranchised accountable.

Keywords: Social capital, capitalism, educational debt, oppression, identity development,

educational reform, institutional change, moral debt, social debt, ethical debt, achievement gap,

gap analysis
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 3

Unchecked Capitalism: Deficits vs. Debts in Education

If higher education institutions have a culture, academia, then like any other culture,

academia has a set of widely accepted norms, and behavior patterns, and; academia has its own

form of jargon. Like any other culture, the jargon of academia shifts over time and progresses as

new thoughts, ideas, and beliefs become normalized. The current jargon of academia to describe

the phenomena of achievement inequity is: “Achievement Gap,” (Barton, 2003; Bensimon, 2005;

Boykin & Noguera, 2011; Harris, 2011; Hoang, 2011; Welch-Ross et al., 2010),” or

“Educational Deficit” (Gonzalez, 2008; Hirsch, 2006; Walker, 2011). In fact, these 2 terms

combined yield over 2 million results in Google and 75,000 results in peer-reviewed journal

articles. Using terms like the “Achievement Gap” or “Educational Deficit,” lends itself to

discourse that shifts the focus on educational inequities from an issue of inadequate educational

institutions to inadequate student s, teachers, and schools, where the former holds the educational

system accountable and the latter holds the disenfranchised accountable.

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) stated that most of the conceptual systems we use in our

everyday discourse are based on metaphors that structure how we perceive, how we think and

what we do. “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in

terms of another” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Metaphors help us frame concepts and create

meaning and over time metaphors shape discourse on a given subject. Discourse can drive

policies and practices in education, which changes over time as the discourse evolves.

Educational reform follows a discourse driven by educational researcher and politics.

For instance, the Coleman Report published in 1967 led to a shift in discourse about access to

higher education for lower income students as it uncovered data that showed disparities in

student achievement (Coleman et al., 1966). Prior to the Coleman report being released,
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 4

President Lyndon Johnson used the metaphor of bondage to describe the need for government to

be accountable for the history of racial stratification in American society. He stated that, "you

cannot take a man who has been in chains for 300 years, remove the chains, take him to the

starting line and tell him to run the race, and think that you are being fair" (Johnson, 1965).

Johnson implied that those with power still have an obligation to those with scarce capital

because over generations, the educational debt incurred has not been properly settled.

The disparities uncovered by the Coleman are still evident in the today. According to

Higher Education Research Institute (2010) within the fields of science, technology, engineering

and mathematics (STEM) the degree completion rates within 5 years for African-American,

Latino, and Native American students respectively is less than 20%. A first-generation inner city

college bound student accepted into a large public university has about a 1 in 4 chance of

persisting to graduation. If that first generation college student aspires to be in a field like

medicine, engineering, or business, the odds of degree completion are lower (Engstrom & Tinto,

2008). Higher education leaders have made many attempts to analyze and resolve this issue for

their institutions, yet the gap in educational opportunity still exists.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 represented another significant discourse

shift towards analyzing educational inequities from the deficit discourse that began with the

Coleman Report. According to (Groen, 2012), the policy shifts that followed the discourse of the

NCLB Act changed instruction, evaluation, and curriculum. Governance and institutional

funding that began with the reforms based around the Coleman report, “set the stage for the more

dramatic and potentially lasting changes” that have changed curricula and instruction at all levels

of education (Groen, 2012). The discourse of the 1960s surrounding educational inequities that

focused on eliminating poverty led to policies that sought redress for previous discrimination, but
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 5

these policies were curtailed by NCLB (Groen, 2012). By shifting the discourse on measuring

student achievement to a test based approach, NCLB (2002) changed pedagogy and curriculum,

but mostly, the act shifted accountability for student success or failure to individual schools,

teachers, and students.

We need to move beyond the alluring gap gazing commonly associated with assessing

the progress of reform initiatives, especially in considering the academic growth of

traditionally underrepresented students in science and mathematics (Rodriguez, 2001).

Instead of articulating the issues of academic inequities in terms of deficits which places

the blame on individual students/groups, especially underrepresented students in higher

education, policy-makers should focus on the educational debt (Ladson-Billings, 2006). Efforts

to remove the achievement gap in higher Education have failed due to deficit theories and failed

applications of this theory. In order to truly address and remove achievement inequities, higher

education leadership should adopt a philosophy that disparities still exist due to educational debt.

Achievement Inequity: History of the Deficit & Debt Discourse

Over 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson initiated the institution of public education in

America with the goal of creating better citizens (Heath, 1998). Jefferson began with the premise

that if the citizens of the newly formed America remained uneducated, then they would not be

capable of making important decisions with regards to their new government. Conversely,

Jefferson and others excluded many groups from their notion of an educated citizenry such as

women, slaves, Native Americans, and immigrants from less popular European origins creating a

hierarchical system of “social capital” (Stanton-Salazar, 2011) where the resources were not

distributed evenly, but rather only at the top of this new food chain.
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 6

In order to frame educational inequities within a financial model, (Bourdieu, 1986)

outlines the different aspects of a capitalistic society. In his model, capital is both materialistic

and influential- at the same time, and it is also used to allocate implicit and explicit materials. To

Bourdieu (1986), accumulated capital grants groups/entities/individuals social energy. The

individual with sufficient funds (capital) has more flexibility to seek out better resources for

themselves and their family than the individual with little or no access to capital. For those with

low capital, the world is a very narrowly defined space where they have access to limited

opportunities in education and society.

The effects of unequally distributed capital has led to many of the current issues within

education, such as the aforementioned graduation rates among low income students and those of

color within STEM disciplines. Moreover, the disproportionate funding granted by the

government to states for education where the funding is not equally distributed to local schools

leads to lack of capital (social and economic) for impoverished inner city children. Ladson-

Billings (2006) further highlights that while there is no proof that school funding is related to

student ethnicity, there is evidence to support that the amount of funding allocated to schools

increases where white students are the majority. There is no conceivable way differential funding

is fair or equitable.

Deficit is “the amount by which a government's, company's, or individual's spending

exceeds income over a particular period of time” (Ladson-Billings, 2006). In the realm of

education, unequal opportunities to acquire knowledge, which is largely race or class based in

America, has led to an educational deficit. Using Ladson-Billings’ definition of deficit, each year

a school district or university does not meet the needs of its students the educational deficit

grows. In the case of students with low social, economic, and political capital, the deficit grows
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 7

exponentially each school year (Ladson-Billings, 2006). Yet, framing educational opportunity

inequities in terms of a deficit addresses the long term capital losses without addressing the cause

of the losses. Ladson-Billings is not the only higher education researcher arguing for a change in

discourse from a deficit model that "blames the victim for school failure instead of examining

how schools are structured to prevent poor students and students of color from learning”

(Valencia, 2010). In fact, Tyson (Barton, 2006) describes the outcome of the deficit discourse as

racialized discourse that has become institutionalized by educational researchers, and capitalized

on by the large funding available to those whose research stays within the boundaries of the

racialized deficit discourse.

Debt is “the sum of all previously incurred annual deficits” (Ladson-Billings, 2006). In

the capital framework established by Bourdieu (1986), a debt would be the outcome when capital

is not distributed equally amount individuals. Educational debt would be the lack of opportunity

granted to certain students over an extended period of time. Analyzing the debt “historically

acknowledges the role education plays in a democracy and the historical legacy of slavery and

other forms of discrimination that continues to hinder certain racial and ethnic groups from

receiving a quality education”(Bass & Gerstl-Pepin, 2011).

Achievement Inequity: Economy of the Deficit & Debt Discourse

Addressing educational disparities/debt through an economic lens highlights the

financial, geographical, and resource inequities that lead to a vastly unequal school system for

economically disadvantaged students (Ladson-Billings, 2006). According to income segregation

analysis by (Reardon & Bischoff, 2011), household income has served as a tool of segregation in

the U.S. over the past 40 years, where the correlation of income to race has left inner city

neighborhoods severely impoverished and spawned the grown of affluent suburban areas. For
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 8

example, the Chicago public school district spends approximately $9000 per pupil each year, and

in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago, each pupil is allocated approximately $17,000 each year

(Ladson-Billings, 2006). Unequal resource allocation leads to subpar schools that produce

students who progress into lower income jobs, thus perpetuating the cycle of poverty (Bass &

Gerstl-Pepin, 2011).

While the current trend in income disparity has led to racial and economic segregation,

the trend has occurred over a much longer period of time. According to Altonji & Doraszelski

(2005), factors such as inheritance of assets over generations have served to further widen

income disparity. Over time, white families have accumulated assets that can be passed on to

their children, but the history of discriminatory practices has repressed asset accrual for black

families (Altonji & Doraszelski, 2005).

The consequences of this lack of income accrual are still apparent in America. “Some

neighborhoods or communities confer advantages… Spatial patterns confer labor market

advantages on some people and disadvantages on others” (Coulton, 2003). Opportunity to find

employment should naturally be differentiate by area of the country, but when the disparity is

reoccurring in every major city with a high minority population, the pattern of capitalized

opportunity shifts in favor of the affluent and “low-income families remain geographically

concentrated in distressed central city neighborhoods” (Coulton, 2003). According to income

trend data, “median household income by race/ethnic origin for Asians is $45,249, for Whites is

$38,972, for Hispanics is $26,628, and for Blacks is $25,050,” thus further highlighting the

wealth accrual disparities (Income Trends, 1998). The wealth disparity affects political and

social power i.e capital and continues to affect housing quality, neighborhood safety, and school

quality, so wealth disparity has become a major force behind the rising educational debt.
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 9

Achievement Inequity: Sociopolitics of the Deficit & Debt Discourse

Since the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, American culture and civil

processes have had racism at the core. Racism began shaping American social structures when

Black men were counted as 3/5 of a man and women were not counted at all. The system of

American slavery attached capital to the life of Americans and place higher social value on

whiteness over blackness (Ladson-Billings, 1998). Critical race theory represents a mode of

outlining how American society has capitalized race. Racism is not overtly part of the discourse

surrounding educational inequity, but it is prevalent in the deficit theory discourse (Yosso, 2006).

Deficit thinking takes the position that minority students and families are at fault for poor

academic performance because: (a) students enter school without the normative cultural

knowledge and skills; and (b) parents neither value nor support their child’s education (Yosso,

2006).

Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) describe how social capital is exchanged over time from

one generation to another, and the accumulated capital gives power to the governing class, while

leaving generations of those with low social capital behind. The exchange of social capital from

one generation to another occurs “behind the backs” (p. ix) of those with no power to make

changes and “against their will” (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). Knowledge of the systems of

control over curriculum gives those with “pedagogic authority” (p. 77) and social capital the

opportunity to affect academic outcomes (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). Woodson (1977)

deduced that education is the tool of choice for any group in power who seeks to continue to

garner capital and resources, and subsequently, education becomes a weapon of oppression for

those in power to use against the masses. Comparatively, education is a form of social capital

that can be used to remove the identity of a group, replace that identity with a false identity, and
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 10

in time, the oppressed will begin to hate themselves at which point the oppressor does not need

to continue subversion.

So we would see the reappearance of the direct correlation between academic

performance and social-class background which, in higher education, is fully observed

only in those areas least directly controlled by the school system, whereas in secondary

education, it already manifests itself in the most scholastic results (Bourdieu & Passeron,

1990).

Analyzing Ladson-Billings’ educational debt from a “sociopolitically perspective acknowledges

how Black, Hispanic, and Native Americans were excluded from legislative and political

processes, often leaving them powerless and unrepresented politically” (Bass & Gerstl-Pepin,

2011). Without proper representation in government, those with low income and scarce political

capital are unable to have their needs addressed by elected officials. Ladson-Billings and Tate

(1995) suggest that inequitable access to education is the result of an American society where

racism is embedded within the controlling institutions and implicitly shared with a selected

group, those with power, the social capitalists.

Achievement Inequity: Morality of the Deficit & Debt Discourse

Exploring educational debt through a moral lens advocates that the social capitalist must

accept responsibility for the inequities that permeate the poorest schools and the families who

rely on education as a tool for social mobility. “Embedded in the moral debt is the ethical

responsibility to acknowledge the debt owed to children” (Bass & Gerstl-Pepin, 2011). The

product of years of deficit based educational discourse among education researchers, and in turn,

political leaders has shifted the blame for educational disparities on the victim and oppression is

blamed on the people who suffer most from it, while those who are privileged with high social,
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 11

economic, and political capital reap benefits and remain unaccountable for their contribution to a

broken system of capital distribution (Johnson, 2006). The moral aspect of the educational debt

discourse centers around the disparity between “policy-makers’ words and their actions”

(Ladson-Billings, 2006).

Throughout two centuries of slavery, a century of court sanctioned discrimination based

on race, and a half century of differential access to education by race, class, language

background, and geographical location, we have become accustomed in the United States

to educational inequality (Darling-Hammond, 2007).

With the guise of benevolent intentions like No Child Left Behind and deficit model

reforms, the privileged group continues to control capital even at a point in history when the

oppression of the previous century has been fully acknowledged. Once a system of oppression

becomes engrained by scarce resources that yield no social capital, a cycle of economic and

educational poverty begins which makes it easy for a system of oppression to continue for

generations. A system of capital, power and privileged left unchecked, reinforces a “caste-like

relationship with the dominant group,” where those with ample social capital continue to

withhold resources from those with lower social capital, and thus create a systemically implicit

caste hierarchy (Ogbu & Simons, 1998). In addition, Ogbu and Simons (1998) add that the

inconsistencies created by unequal access to capital have led to mistrust of the educational

system and the government that supports it. Bass and Gerstl-Pepin (2011) advocate that the

moral debt has led to children who have begun to “disengage from school.” In order to address

the debt, social capitalists must acknowledge the needs of disenfranchised students at every level

of education. When James Baldwin wrote his famous letter to his nephew, he stated that even

100 years post slavery, the African American still had problems within the mainstream social
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 12

capital system: “Your countrymen don't know that she [a Black female and their employee]

exists, either, though she has been working for them all their lives” (Baldwin, 2004). The racial

hierarchy woven into the acquisition of capital has contributed to the growing educational debt.

Debt Management/Eradication: Recommendations

Ladson-Billings (2006) argues that educational inequities have created a large moral,

social, economic, and educational debt. Shifting accountability for the debt to those with the

power to eliminate it would yield a large return on the investment. Ladson-Billings (2006) goes

on to outline that changing the discourse from deficit thinking to educational debt would address

“(a) the impact the debt has on present education progress, (b) the value of understanding the

debt in relation to past education research findings, and (c) the potential for forging a better

educational future.”

Nineteenth century poet, Emma Lazarus (2003) said that "until we are all free, none of us

is free.” Unless American discourse on educational inequities moves beyond the constraints of

race and social class, the educational debt will continue to accrue. Embedded within the deficit

discourse is the notion that teachers and students are failing to do their parts in improving

education in this country, placing the accountability for a flawed educational system on the

present teachers and students (Bass & Gerstl-Pepin, 2011). Applying the educational debt

discourse to student academic outcomes recognizes that students enter academia with a number

of characteristics, experiences, and commitments, and that the institution itself is obligated to

deliver the necessary capital for students gain social mobility.

According to Guerra and Nelson (2010) professional educators need to be re-conditioned

to step away from deficit theories and this re-structuring of discourse needs to be consistent.

Each time educators are allowed to use deficit language, such as the “subpopulation at our school
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 13

is composed of…” (p. 56), the listener is “condoning the language, if the listener is not refuting

it” (Guerra & Nelson, 2010). On-going professional development that focuses educators on the

variety and depth of inequities within the framework of educating for inclusion of all

perspectives have shown positive results in terms of eliminating culturally irrelevant material and

biases from curriculum (Guerra & Nelson, 2010). So we, educators, need to stop focusing on

those who have no capital-labeling them as deficient and begin addressing the system that is

flawed.

Progress in equalizing resources to students will require attention to inequalities at all

levels—between states, among districts, among schools within districts, and among

students differentially placed in classrooms, courses, and tracks that offer substantially

disparate opportunities to learn (Darling-Hammond, 2007).

In Genres of Research in Multicultural Education, Bennett (2001) offers educators a

framework for curriculum that is inclusive of varying experiences. In order to address the

educational debt, Bennett (2001) suggests that curriculum be revised to reflect “cultural

pluralism and social equity,” and her framework addresses the different ways in which the

current educational system does not offer equal opportunity. In addition, Bennett (2001) also

advocates changing teacher education programs and professional development in higher

education to reflect a multicultural perspective and increase the multicultural competence of both

teachers and faculty. Gorski (2010) has an organization, EdChange, which is dedicated to re-

teaching teachers with Bennett’s genres of multicultural education as part of the core mission.

The following five shifts in educational discourse would yield educational reforms that could

address the debt:

1. Advocating equity instead of equality

UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 14

2. Eradicating disenfranchising practices instead of finding fault in disenfranchised

families

3. Self-examination instead of color-blindness

4. Fighting for the rights of disenfranchised families instead of learning about “other”

cultures

5. Committing to sustaining an equitable learning environment instead of celebrating

diversity (Gorski, 2010)

Ladson-Billings (2006) adds that the best way to address the educational debt may be

bankruptcy or government assisted bail-out for the poorest schools. She goes one to propose that

if the best teachers were place in the most needy schools and districts, following excellent

education with entrance into higher education, then within on generation those students would

exit impoverished cities across the country (Ladson-Billings, 2006). A program of this nature

existed in the form of Affirmative Action, but the discourse surrounding Affirmative Action has

weakened the original purpose of the program. Given the depth of educational inequities, the

most logical frame of discourse is the one that encompasses the historical, social, economic, and

political marginalization engrained in American culture, and places responsibility and

accountability for this debt on the shoulder of those with the necessary capital to resolve the

debt. Students come to learn, why not give them what they need to garner the capital they

currently lack?
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM 15

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