gat

deeper look; also, the pages on true believer Frederick T. Gates, the man who actually directed the spending of
Rockefeller’s money, bear close attention as well.
For a sharp look at how foundations shape our ideology, I recommend Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: The
Foundations at Home and Abroad, and for a hair-raising finale René Wormser’s Foundations: Their Power and
Influence is essential. Wormser was a general counsel for the House Committee which set out to investigate
tax-exempt organizations during the eighty-third Congress. Its stormy course and hair-raising disclosures are
guaranteed to remove any lingering traces of innocence about the conduct of American education, international
affairs, or what are called "the social sciences." Miss Lagemann’s bibliography will lead you further, if needed.
Valhalla
By the end of 1999, 75.5 million people out of a total population of 275 million were involved
directly in providing and receiving what has come to be called education. And an unknown
number of millions indirectly. About 67 million were enrolled in schools and colleges (38 million
in K-8, 14 million in secondary schools, 15 million in colleges,) 4 million employed as teachers or
college faculty (2 million elementary; 2 million secondary and college combined), and 4.5 million
in some other school capacity. In other words, the primary organizing discipline of about 29
percent of the entire U.S. population consists of obedience to the routines and requests of an
abstract social machine called School. And that’s only so far. According to the U.S. Department
of Education, these figures are expected to grow substantially through the first decade of the new
century. Could Hegel himself have foreseen such an end to history, the planet as a universal
schoolhouse where nothing much is learned?
At the top of this feeding chain are so-called public colleges. As Valhalla was the reward where
Vikings killed in battle got to drink, fight, and fornicate in an endlessly regenerating loop, so
public colleges are a lifetime of comfort and security for those systems people who play ball
skillfully or belong to some political family with a record of playing ball.
If public colleges functioned in meritocractic ways as their supporters allege and as I suspect the
general public believes they do, we would expect the economy of public schooling at this level to
reflect with reasonable sensitivity what was happening in the total public economy. Spending on
public colleges should be a litmus test of how much respect is being accorded the democratic will
at any given time. With that in mind try this garment on for size: Tuition at public colleges over
the last fourteen years has increased three times as fast as household income, and more than three
times faster than the rate of inflation, according to the General Accounting Office. What pressure
could possibly squeeze ordinary people to pay such outlandish costs, incurring debt burdens
which enslave them and their children for many years to come?
How, you might ask, at the very instant the inherent value of these degrees is being challenged, at
the very instant business magazines are predicting permanent radical downsizing of the
middle-management force in private and public employment—the very slots public colleges
license graduates to occupy, and at the very instant in time when the purchasing power of
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