FRONTLINE

TWO AMERICAN FAMILIES

The State of America’s Middle Class in Eight Chart

JULY 9, 2013

by JASON M. BRESLOW Digital Editor •

EVAN WEXLER

In 1992, both Tony and Claude had recently lost their manufacturing jobs. For the next 20 years, our cameras followed them and their families as they struggled to avoid poverty. When they could find work, it was often for longer hours, less pay and no benefits. Bills piled up, tensions rose and relationships became strained.

Of course, their story is far from unique. Over the last several decades, the middle class has struggled to keep pace with smaller paychecks, mounting debt and shrinking opportunities for steady work. The following eight charts offer a brief snapshot:

#1: Wages are down

Middle class incomes have shrunk 8.5 percent since 2000, after enjoying mostly steady growth during the previous decade. In 2011, the average income for the middle 60 percent of households stood at $53,042, down from $58,009 at the start of the millennium.

#2: Less income for the middle class

Partly as a result of lower pay, the middle class’s share of the nation’s total income has been falling. In 1980, the middle 60 percent of households accounted for 51.7 of the country’s income. By 2011, they were less than half. Meanwhile, the top fifth of households saw their slice of the national income grow 16 percent, to 51.1 percent from 44.1 percent.

#3: Union positions are shrinking

One factor behind the decline in income has been a drop-off in the number of workers earning union salaries. In 2012, the median salary for a unionized worker stood at roughly $49,000. The median pay for their non-union counterparts was just shy of $39,000. Since 1983, however, the share of the population belonging to a labor union has gone from one-in-five workers to just over one-in-ten.

#4: More workers stuck in part-time jobs

A second factor weighing down pay is the rise in the number of Americans stuck in part-time jobs. In 2012, more than 2.5 million Americans worked part-time jobs because they could not find a full-time position, the most since 1993.

#5: Fewer jobs from U.S.-based multinationals

Part of the challenge for job seekers is that U.S. multinational corporations having been hiring less at home. These large, brand-name firms employ roughly a fifth of American workers, but from 1999 to 2008 they shed 2.1 million jobs in the U.S. while adding more than 2.2 million positions abroad.

#6: Rising debt

Predictably, the economic pressures facing the middle class have left families deeper in debt. . In 1992, the median level of debt for the middle third of families stood at $32,200. By 2010, that figure had swelled to $84,000, an increase of 161 percent.

#7: Families are saving less

The rise in debt has meant fewer families have the ability to put away money for things like retirement or a child’s tuition bills. In 2001, more than two-thirds of middle class families said they were able to save money in the preceding year. By 2010, that figure was below 55 percent.

#8: Net worth has plunged

The impact on family net worth — the amount by which assets exceed liabilities — has been painful. In 2007, median net worth peaked at $120, 600. Then came the financial crisis, which pushed millions of Americans into joblessness and home foreclosure. By 2010, net worth had plummeted 36 percent, to $77,300.

• WORLD

Trump Gives Generals More Freedom on ISIS Fight

Pentagon brass take lead on decisions that were made by White House under Obama; ‘I authorize my military,’ Trump says

By

Dion Nissenbaum in Washington and

Maria Abi-Habib in Beirut

Updated April 14, 2017 10:29 p.m. ET

U.S. military commanders are stepping up their fight against Islamist extremism as President Donald Trump’s administration urges them to make more battlefield decisions on their own.

As the White House works on a broad strategy, America’s top military commanders are implementing the vision articulated by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis: Decimate Islamic State’s Middle East strongholds and ensure that the militants don’t establish new beachheads in places such as Afghanistan.

“There’s nothing formal, but it is beginning to take shape,” a senior U.S. defense official said Friday. “There is a sense among these commanders that they are able to do a bit more—and so they are.”

While military commanders complained about White House micromanagement under former President Barack Obama, they are now being told they have more freedom to make decisions without consulting Mr. Trump. Military commanders around the world are being encouraged to stretch the limits of their existing authorities when needed, but to think seriously about the consequences of their decisions.

The more muscular military approach is expanding as the Trump administration debates a comprehensive new strategy to defeat Islamic State. Mr. Mattis has sketched out such a global plan, but the administration has yet to agree on it. While the political debate continues, the military is being encouraged to take more aggressive steps against Islamic extremists around the world.

The firmer military stance has fueled growing concerns among State Department officials working on Middle East policy that the Trump administration is giving short shrift to the diplomatic tools the Obama administration favored. Removing the carrot from the traditional carrot-and-stick approach, some State Department officials warn, could hamper the pursuit of long-term strategies needed to prevent volatile conflicts from reigniting once the shooting stops.

The new approach was on display this week in Afghanistan, where Gen. John Nicholson, head of the U.S.-led coalition there, decided to use one of the military’s biggest nonnuclear bombs—a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB—to hit a remote Islamic State underground network of tunnels and caves.

Gen. Nicholson said Friday it was too early to say how many militants had been killed in the previous day’s bombing. The Afghan Defense Ministry retracted an earlier statement that the strike had killed 36 militants, saying it was unable to provide precise figures yet.

A military official for the coalition who viewed footage of the bombing said it was difficult to make out details of its effects beyond a “mushroom cloud” of smoke rising into the sky. He added that a second MOAB was available for use in the country, but no decision had been made on whether it should be deployed.

Islamic State’s Amaq news agency posted a statement on Friday saying none of its fighters were killed or wounded in the strike, which took place in Nangarhar province, along the country’s mountainous border with Pakistan.

Gen. Nicholson indicated that he—not the White House—decided to drop the bomb. “The ammunition we used last night is designed to destroy caves and tunnels. This was the right weapon against the right target,” he told reporters Friday. “I am fortunate that my chain of command allows me the latitude to make assessments on the ground.”

A senior administration official said Mr. Trump didn’t know about the weapon’s use until it had been dropped.

Mr. Mattis “is telling them, ‘It’s not the same as it was, you don’t have to ask us before you drop a MOAB,’” the senior defense official said. “Technically there’s no piece of paper that says you have to ask the president to drop a MOAB. But last year this time, the way [things were] meant, ‘I’m going to drop a MOAB, better let the White House know.’”

Indeed, on Thursday Mr. Trump himself emphasized the free rein he gives the Pentagon. “I authorize my military,” Mr. Trump said. “We have given them total authorization.”

On Friday, the U.S. military said it has sent dozens of soldiers to Somalia, where Mr. Trump recently gave the head of the U.S. Africa Command more leeway to carry out counterterrorism operations against al-Shabaab, the al Qaeda affiliate in the area.

The more aggressive military approach comes as the long slog against Islamic State is bearing fruit. The group is on the back foot in its Iraqi stronghold, Mosul, and is facing a hard battle to defend its de facto Syrian capital, Raqqa.

The U.S. has sent more forces into Iraq and Syria, stepped up support for Saudi Arabia’s fight against Houthi militants in Yemen, and dispatched an aircraft carrier to the Korean Peninsula amid growing evidence that North Korea is preparing for a new nuclear test.

Loren DeJonge Schulman, who served as senior adviser to Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, said a more assertive military campaign is destined to fail unless it is part of a broader strategy against Islamic State, also known by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL.

“It’s crazy that the Trump administration thinks that ‘taking the gloves off’ is either a winning strategy against ISIL or a useful narrative for the White House or the military,” said Ms. Schulman, now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

Derek Chollet, a former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs in the Obama administration, said giving the Pentagon more freedom is one of the most significant things Mr. Trump has done.

“It’s not clear to me that he’s making any tough decisions,” said Mr. Chollet, now executive vice president at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “All that he’s essentially done is ceded decision authority down to protect himself from making tough calls.”

The flip side of the Trump administration’s emphasis on a more-free-wheeling military approach to Islamic State is an apparent reduction of the use of soft-power tools—economic development, diplomacy and democracy-building—favored by the Obama White House.

Some State Department officials describe being cut out from the White House’s counterterrorism strategy in the Mideast, with efforts to nurture democratic governments and push for more secular education systems carrying less weight in the White House’s evolving approach.

“State is being systematically sidelined,” said a State Department official who has worked on counterterrorism issues in Washington and abroad.

The official said the White House strategy of prioritizing military might over diplomacy makes it hard to persuade Mideast allies to relax their grip on power. Many of Washington’s closest Arab allies are autocratic regimes guilty of human-rights abuses that critics say fuel terrorism.

“The problem there is that in many of the places where you need carrots, those carrots are often seen as threats to local governments,” the official said, referring to democracy and society-building programs the State Department funds across the Mideast.

Egypt offers a prime example of the Trump administration’s leanings. When Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, a military strongman, visited the White House earlier this month, Mr. Trump gave him a warm welcome. Mr. Obama had refused to meet him because of his regime’s alleged human-rights abuses.

U.S. officials in the Mideast say a counterterror approach that focuses solely on military might without programs to fight the causes that feed extremism could backfire, leading groups like Islamic State to go underground and wait for future opportunities to re-emerge. They are particularly concerned about Raqqa, where a U.S.-led military coalition is closing in around the city but post-liberation stabilization plans aren’t finalized as State Department officials wait for White House guidance.

—Jessica Donati and Habib Khan Totakhil in Kabul and Carol E. Lee in Washington contributed to this article.

Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com and Maria Abi-Habib at maria.habib@wsj.com

Appeared in the April 15, 2017, print edition as ‘Military Takes Lead on ISIS.’

• Erika Rawes,
•  The Cheat Sheet
• In its discussion of historical middle class societies, The Economist reports, “Their members are neither rich nor poor but somewhere in-between…’Middle-class’ describes an income category but also a set of attitudes…An essential characteristic is the possession of a reasonable amount of discretionary income. Middle-class people do not live from hand to mouth, job to job, season to season, as the poor do.”

Some argue that the most sensible income amount to attach to the middle class would be the median household income, of around $54,000.

Perhaps, anyone who earns between the 25th percentile and 75th percentile is a member of the middle class.

Diana Farrell, once Deputy Director of America’s National Economic Council, told The Economist she thinks a middle class income begins at the point where a person (or family) has one-third of their income left over for discretionary purposes after they’ve provided themselves with food and shelter. In other words, someone who earns $3,000 per month would have $1,000 left after they’ve paid their mortgage or rent, utilities, and grocery bills.

Though there is some debate over the exact income a middle class household brings in, we do have an idea of who the middle class are — most working class people. Today’s bourgeoisie is composed of laborers and skilled workers, white collar and blue collar workers, many of whom face financial challenges. Bill Maher reminded us a few months back that 50 years ago, the largest employer was General Motors, where workers earned an equivalent of $50 per hour (in today’s money). Today, the largest employer — Walmart — pays around $8 per hour.

The middle class has certainly changed. We’ve ranked a list of things the middle class can no longer really afford. We’re not talking about lavish luxuries, like private jets and yachts. The items on this list are a bit more basic, and some of them are even necessities. The ranking of this list is based on affordability and necessity. Therefore, items that are necessity ranked higher, as did items that a larger percentage of people have trouble paying for.

Vacations

A vacation is an extra expense that many middle-earners cannot afford without sacrificing something else. A Statista survey found that this year 54% of people gave up purchasing big ticket items like TVs or electronics so they can go on a vacation. Others made sacrifices like reducing or eliminating their trips to the movies (47%), reducing or eliminating trips out to restaurants (43%), or avoiding purchasing small ticket items like new clothing (43%).

New vehicles

Very few people who earn the median income can afford to buy a new car or truck. Interest.com recently analyzed the prices of new cars and trucks, as well as the median incomes across more than two dozen major cities, and found that new cars and trucks were simply not affordable to most middle-earners.

“Median-income families in only one major city [Washington DC] can afford the average price Americans are paying for new cars and trucks nowadays.” As of 2013, new cars are priced at $32,086, according to the study. Mike Sante, Interest.com’s managing editor reminds us, “just because you can manage the monthly payment doesn’t mean you should let a $30,000 or $40,000 ride gobble up all such a huge share of your paycheck.”

To pay off debt

These debt statistics come from Debt.org:

• “More than 160 million Americans have credit cards.”
• “The average credit card holder has at least three cards.”
• “On average, each household with a credit card carries more than $15,000 in credit card debt.”

Not only do we have large amounts of credit card debt, we also have student loans, mortgages, cars, and medical debts. Our debt is growing faster than our income, and many middle class workers have trouble staying afloat. >Money-Zine evaluated debt growth and income growth over the past few decades and found that “back in 1980, the consumer credit per person was $1,540, which was 7.3% of the average household income of $21,100. In 2013, consumer debt was $9,800 per person, which was 13.4% of the average household income of $72,600. This means debt increased 70% faster than income from 1980 through 2013.”

Emergency savings

To provide ourselves with a degree of financial security, we are supposed to have emergency savings to protect ourselves in the event of job loss, illness, or some other catastrophe. Most members of the middle class don’t have at least six months of emergency savings, however, and some working people have no such savings.

A Bankrate survey found that only around one out of four households have six months of emergency money saved, and many of them are in the higher income groups. Another one-fourth have no emergency savings at all, and the remaining household have a small to moderate amount of savings, but not enough to cover six months of expenses.

Retirement savings

If you reach the retirement age with little or no money saved, Social Security is probably not going to be enough to cover your basic needs. Even if you want to work for your entire life, you have no way of knowing whether or not you will be physically capable of doing so.

Although having a lack of a retirement savings is a risky move, so many people bet on double zero, just hoping that things will work out in their favor. While some members of the middle class neglect this aspect of financial planning because they are procrastinating, there are also some workers who cannot afford to set this money aside. Nearly half of those who don’t save for retirement say it’s because they simply don’t have the money.

As of late, around 20% of people near 65 have not saved anything for retirement at all, and the majority of people — 59% — worry that they don’t have enough money saved for retirement, according to a Gallup Poll.

Medical care

Medical care is a basic necessity and something we’d think would be affordable for someone earning a middle income. A Forbes article published data indicating that workers in large companies — many of whom are members of the middle class — “face nearly $5,000 in premiums, co-payments, deductibles and other forms of co-insurance.”

During the past few years, these costs have had a large impact on working Americans. A report by Feeding America found that a shocking 66% of households say they’ve had to choose between paying for food and paying for medical care — 31% say they have to make that choice each and every month.

Dental work

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “the U.S. spends about $64 billion each year on oral health care — just 4 percent is paid by Government programs.” About 108 million people in the U.S. have no dental coverage and even those who are covered may have trouble getting the care they need, the department reports.

Oftentimes, people will purchase medical coverage and forgo dental because it’s so expensive. Plus, dental insurance may cover only 50% of the more expensive procedures, like crowns and bridges. This leaves those who have insurance with large co-payments.

In many cases, middle-earners will delay or even forego some of these procedures in efforts to save on costs. According to the CDC, nearly one in four adults between the ages of 20 and 64 have untreated dental caries (like cavities or infections).

 

A new report suggests much of the country has yet to actually witness a full economic recovery.

By Andrew Soergel, Economy Reporter |July 13, 2017, at 1:06 p.m.

Study: 3 in 10 Americans Haven’t Recovered From Great Recession

A new report suggests 30 percent of Americans have yet to recover from the financial crisis.

The U.S. is now nearly 10 years removed from the onset of the worst financial crisis the economy has weathered since the Great Depression back in the 1930s. But a new study suggests 3 in 10 Americans still feel as though their personal finances haven’t fully recovered or never will.

And nearly half believe the U.S. economy has yet to fully recover from the crisis and the Great Recession.

A survey published Thursday by Country Financial polled 1,000 adults across the country. It found that 26 percent of respondents are still in recovery mode while another 4 percent believe they will never recover. And 42 percent said they think the broader economy has not “fully recovered financially since the 2007/2008 financial crisis.”

These feelings have led many to adjust or delay their planned retirement years, as only 39 percent of respondents said they’ll be able to retire as anticipated in the aftermath of the crisis. More than 1 in 5 said they’ll have to delay retirement at least five years if they’ll be able to retire at all.

Government data, however, shows various branches of the economy have indeed returned to their pre-recessionary levels of health. The unemployment rate ticked up slightly in June to 4.4 percent but is still comparable to where it was at the end of 2006. Home prices have hit new highs, as have major stock indexes on Wall Street. And consumer and business confidence metrics have risen to their highest levels in years.

But the Country Financial survey suggests not all Americans have enjoyed those gains and still aren’t completely confident in the trajectory of the U.S. economy. Doyle Williams, an executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Country Financial, says this is, in part, a story of geography.

“Ten years ago, during the housing crisis, people were locked into geographies, they couldn’t follow jobs or job opportunities because of where they were located,” Williams says. “People are now more mobile, but you still see people that may not have the skill sets and may not be in the right location. … Some of the rural areas being left behind.”

The Country Financial poll is hardly the first to highlight a growing disparity between economic success in the nation’s major metropolitan areas and the erosion of opportunity in smaller rural communities across the country. A study published earlier this year by the National Association of Counties found that slightly more than a quarter of America’s counties had fully recovered from the recession in terms of unemployment, job availability, economic output and median home price.

A separate wage report from the Pew Charitable Trusts found a deeply uneven landscape in terms of personal income growth since the recovery. Resource-rich states like North Dakota, Texas and Alaska saw average annual income growth of 4.7 percent, 3 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively, between the end of 2007 and the middle of last year.

Nevada, Illinois and Alabama, meanwhile, saw gains of just 0.5 percent, 0.8 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively.

Still, Williams points out that Americans do seem to feel fairly comfortable with their own financial situations, even if many believe they haven’t fully recovered from the recession. Three in 5 respondents said they feel their overall level of financial security is “excellent” or “good,” while 85 percent expect their current conditions to get better or stay the same over the course of the next six months.

And 84 percent of those surveyed said they’re “very” or “somewhat” confident they’ll be able to pay off their existing debts.

“The positive piece is this sense of personal responsibility. People feel like they’re in control, for the most part. And I think we should all feel good about that,” Williams says.

But the more concerning piece of the puzzle is the percentage of respondents who said they wouldn’t be able to make ends meet if they found themselves unemployed. More than 30 percent of those surveyed said they would be able to go one month at most without any income and still be able to pay bills on time. Only 28 percent said they’d be able to go more than five months and still be in the clear.

“This really is a national issue, that people aren’t prepared,” Williams said. “The vast majority of people have saved nothing. And this point on people not being able to go by a month [without income] speaks to that. It is a real concern.”

 

By Geoffrey James   contributing editor Inc., com.

By the laws of mathematics, most bosses are more or less average when it comes to management talent. However, bosses who are really awful tend to share these 10 easily-identifiable characteristics. — Geoffrey James

1. They’re indecisive.

Horrible bosses analyze problems to death and make tentative decisions, which they frequently revisit. By contrast, great bosses make decisions quickly and hold firm to them because they know that failure to decide is failure by default.

2. They’re impatient.

Horrible bosses have a short fuse and are quick to vent frustration on employees. By contrast, great bosses keep their tempers in check lest browbeaten employees make more and worse mistakes.

3. They’re overly dramatic.

Horrible bosses inflate every setback into a disaster, every competitor into a nemesis, and every workday into a series of conflicts. By contrast, great bosses turn setbacks into stepping stones, competitors into allies, and each workday into a good day.

4. They’re controlling.

Horrible bosses believe there are only two ways to do something: “My way or the highway.” By contrast, great bosses use their employees’ individual traits to align personal goals with business goals.

5. They’re not self-aware.

Horrible bosses ride the roller coaster of their own emotions, dragging employees along with them. By contrast, great bosses cultivate the emotional awareness to understand their own processes and harness them to everyone’s… more

6. They play favorites.

Horrible bosses hand out plum assignments, perks, and raises to employees whom they like the best. By contrast, great bosses give each employee the opportunity to excel in his or her own way.

7. They’re overly vain.

Horrible bosses hog the limelight and take the credit for the successes of their team. By contrast, great bosses always realize that without actual workers doing actual jobs, there would be no such things as a “job creator.”

8. They’re inflexible.

Horrible bosses are forever trying to replicate past successes, even if they’re ancient history. By contrast, great bosses treat past successes warily because “what got you to where you are now won’t get you to where you want to go.”

9. They blame others.

Horrible bosses finger-point and scapegoat when things go wrong. By contrast, great bosses know that the failure of a team is always a failure of its leadership and rarely of the team itself.

10. They’re never grateful.

Horrible bosses characterize themselves as “self-made” because they’ve worked so hard. Great bosses are always conscious that they’re successful because they’re standing on the shoulders of giants. Loosely adapted from the… more

Internet 2017  —– I want to add micro-managing, but then again, that probably falls under Controlling! CW

 

I was recently in a small taco shop getting a quick dinner. I went in to sit down wanting a few minutes to read the latest on my Kindle reader. As I sat there, my attention was attracted to a group of gabbling young mothers, all eating and talking a mile a minute. Next to them at a different table sat three little girls all about three, four and five years old. The girls were supposed to be eating but each one of them sat glued to a small Gameboy/cell phone that was playing games. The little girls were not talking to each other, to the adults or even eating much. I was shocked.

I mean, yes, I have my Kindle but, then again, I’m not five with a group of other kids. Where is the playing, talking and interaction these kids need to grow up? One little girl had not even touched her food and the mother was so busy talking, she didn’t even notice. Yea Gods! What is our society coming to? I am afraid to think.

THE BLOG 

11/10/2015 11:06 am ET Updated Nov 10, 2016

Education vs. Edutainment

By Bobby George

Somewhere along the way, our culture adopted the idea that learning wasn’t fun – that to inspire children, we needed to entertain them. We needed to stimulate their interests and reward them for their efforts. It didn’t matter if they accomplished the task, or were even inspired by the activity, just so long as they were happily entertained.

What this path misunderstands, which is a key observation that the Italian educator Maria Montessori offered, is that children are born naturally inquisitive. You don’t have to force them to learn – and, most importantly, you don’t have to sugar coat their successes, any more than their failures. Children inherently, one could say biologically, see the world as an opportunity to discover their interests.

Theories abound about how this shift toward what is loosely called “edutainment” happened, and how it has been fully incorporated into our cultural consciousness.

First, with the advent of television, and other forms of mass media, some claim we witnessed an unprecedented rise in consumerism. Children, once but a Wall Street oversight, were quickly understood to be the fastest way into the family pockets.

Marshal McCluhan, for his part, highlighted the fact that it wasn’t even so much the content, or even the consumption, that mattered with mass media. Instead, it was how children were transfixed by the medium itself. With movement and light, new medias projected upon childhood an array of perceptions by which to view the kaleidoscope of life. Shiny and bright, something was a foot.

Second, others conjectured, perhaps more alarmingly, which is not to say more seriously, that the excessive infant mortality rates at the turn of the twentieth-century directly contributed to us, as adults, lavishing our children with unabated gifts and praise. . ..

In J.G. Ballard’s autobiography, Miracles of Life, he tellingly writes:

“My parents had been born in the first decade of the 20th century, long before antibiotics and public health concerns for vitamin-enriched foods, clean air and water. Childhood, for families of any income, was a gamble with disease and early death. …”

What this insight reveals, as a snapshot in a time that remains all-too-present for some, is that there was a sense in which the greatest accomplishment of childhood was simply – or not so simply – making it out of childhood.

Now, there’s an alternative path, a third way, which may be directly related to the industrialization of education and provide an adequate solution to our inquiry. Which is to say, it may very well hold the secret to why “edutainment”, or the idea that children need to be entertained to learn, became the prevailing mode of engagement with children – not only from parents, but also from our institutions.

What are our expectations of childhood?

Here, we take a lesson from the French philosopher Roland Barthes. In Mythologies, a collection of articles written to express our tendency as a society to create modern myths based on our social values, Barthes laments, “All the toys one commonly sees are essentially a microcosm of the adult world”.

His point is rather profound.

When toys are created by adults, they often betray the novelties of childhood. When toys are manufactured, with overly specific outcomes in mind, they actually limit that sense of discovery that exploration affords.

What we lost was the ability to pursue your own interests, and what we gained was the idea that we needed to entertain children to make them want to learn.

What makes Maria Montessori so relevant to this conversation, both historically and as a contemporary. . . It placed an emphasis, not on adulthood, but on the experiences of childhood. On following the interests of children, instead of trying to fabricate them through overstimulation.

If we are to take children seriously, and not just apply the model of edutainment to education, it will be with a realignment of the ways in which we think about learning itself.  Maybe we can start by listening to our children.

Follow Bobby George on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobbyjgeorge

Bobby George

CEO at Montessorium

____________________________________________________________________________________

Good article by Bobby George on the ‘need’ to entertain children. The idea of edutainment has clearly spilled over into the school system where more and more teachers and administrators are killing themselves finding new ways to keep their students entertained.

A couple of major points missed in this article and obvious to our society is the advent, across the nation and the world, of more effective birth control. In my life time, the number of children in an average family has dropped from eight, to four, to two and then to singles. Many families today have one or two children only and four is considered ‘large’. Obviously, with much, much smaller families, the emphasis on the remaining children becomes more intense. Each child now is more important than ever before because there are fewer of them per family. Think of China with the One Child only rule that was in place for years and years.

Clearly, the remaining children are treated like the little Prince or Princess their family feels them to be. Therefore, the happiness of each child becomes more critical to his or her parent and a domino effect is created all the way down the line.

Additionally, due to the rising cost of living, more and more families have two parents working as opposed to one parent working as was common before the 70’s. The working mother syndrome involves a lot of guilt for not being there at home with the kids. This results in guilt buying of more stuff to compensate. So it goes, round and round.

There is no clear evidence that kids get anything more out of life by being showered with stuff. There is a lot of evidence to suggest otherwise. Since it certainly doesn’t look like the cost of living is going to go down anytime soon, with two working parents; it is time parents and school personnel re-evaluate the entire concept of edutainment with our children and students.

 

I walk into my local Big-Name Hardware store.

Since I am somewhat new to the area/store, I stop and stare around. The building is about the size of a small football field. I am looking for clues about how to find my bathroom widget.

First, there is no store directory. Call me very old school, but growing up, there were always big directories posted right at the front door that you, the customer, could consult. No.

Then I begin to wander. I go up and down and up and down and where I think the logical place for bathroom thingies. No.

From the corner of my eye I think I see a store employee whisking away. I turn and run after him. In a loud and commanding voice, I say “Excuse me, excuse me!” There is a significant pause. The clerk, unable to escape, turns to me and I ask my question. He says, “Ah, don’t know Ma’am. Try aisle eight.”

I turn and then, confused if eight is to my right or left. I turn back. The employee has disappeared as quickly as the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole. I then trudge on, determine the sequence of the aisles. After quickly grabbing another unlucky clerk, manage to find my thingy. Then it is time to go get in line with all the other gits.

Can’t begin to count the number of times this same process was repeated, when, imagine my surprise!!!!!! I found I could go to this thing called Amazon.com, find my thingy, order it and have UPS deliver it. Right to my door. Wow! Sure, it cost a tiny bit more for delivery, but, geese, isn’t my time worth something?

Online shopping was a brand new and exciting proposition. Gee! No more huge warehouse, no chasing surly clerks, no idiot treatment. Just pay your money and get your thing. Hum.

The big names in marketing today, Amazon, Google, Nike and yes, Walmart are industry giants because they have tapped into something – Responsiveness. They are (quickly) responsive to customer needs and don’t make people beg them for help.

The big losers today are Macys, Sears, Penny’s among many others. Long gone are the days when I could go into a woman’s department store and have someone help me find a pair of black pants. The usual response is something like “There over there,” arm wave, “I think.”

HR specialists, who specialize in HR, are doing the hiring at big retail firms. For construction, they are hiring people who have never done a day of construction in their lives. In education, HR people, who hire,  have never taught a class and have no idea of what is involved. In clothing and make up lines, the people who are hired have never been buyers and have little retail experience.

In their infinite wisdom, the people getting hired are the youngest, least experienced and are those who will work for the least amount of money. This, of course, is saving the company money. Right. Retail managers are discovering that if they threaten their employees’ jobs daily, they can maybe get them to smile, put their cell phones away and be of service.

These young people have no job loyalty, little work ethic, no commitment to anything except their friends and when they get paid.

So, commercial retail is dying, duh.

Amazon is actually bringing back the little guy retailer. Amazon is simply a conduit house for hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands, of little retailers who are selling one, two, maybe three things. Since this is their little business, since this is their bread and butter, the little guy is very committed to getting you you’re thingy, like right now.

I continue to shop online and still go to the Big Hardware store when there are things I simply can’t get elsewhere (boxes, fertilizer, plants.) If it were possible, I would do absolutely everything online. I get tired of employees telling me one more time “Sorry, Ma’am, I just don’t know if we carry that or not.” And then, tramping all over the back forty looking for ‘it.’ Retailers really, really, need to wake up and catch a clue. Courtney Webb

Minimum wage in California in 2017 is $10.50 an hour. If an employee works full-time (unlikely) their salary per month is $1848 gross. I recently moved out of the poverty belt of apartments and into a place where most of my neighbors don’t do crack. A one bed room is $1100 per month and a two bed room is $1200. For this I can rest fairly easy that my car is not getting jacked and I can actually sleep through the night. How can anyone live on that kind of money? Answer, you can’t. A person is either still living at home with parents or with several roommates. Additionally, since the public transportation system is so poor, people are forced to maintain autos that they really can’t afford. Once again, for young people who have these jobs, mom and dad are really footing the bill and underwriting what the employers don’t pay.

BUSINESS  – Huffington Post

09/04/2015 02:46 pm ET

The 10 Companies That Pay Americans The Least

Most of them are in the restaurant, retail and hospitality industries.

Thomas C. Frohlich, Michael B. Sauter and Sam Stebbins 24/7 Wall St.

Amid soaring corporate profits and stagnating worker wages in the past decade, growing numbers of low-wage workers are demanding higher pay. In the wake of intensifying debates over income inequality, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved a rule in August that will require publicly traded companies to document the ratio of their highest-paid employee salary to that of their typical worker.

The nation’s lowest paying companies frequently operate within one of three industries: restaurant chains, department stores, or hotels. These industries fall into two sectors, leisure and hospitality and retail trade, which, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), account for more than 70% of U.S. workers paid at or below the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

Click here to see the lowest-paying companies in America.

In an interview with 24/7 Wall St., David Cooper, senior economic analyst with the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) said, “Typically, jobs in these industries are lower skilled jobs and require low levels of education.” Partially as a result, there are usually large pools of available workers who are relatively easy to train.

“The business model in these industries is often to treat staff as sort of interchangeable cogs,” Cooper said. As a consequence, wages are often very low.

Many jobs at the nation’s lowest paying companies are tipped positions. While tipping is often regarded as mitigating low wages, the practice also sends the message that a company has only a small obligation to pay its employees, Cooper explained. “Tipping essentially passes the wage requirement from the employer directly to the consumer.”

Many of these jobs are also part-time positions, which together with inconsistent tips, mean wages are not just low, but also erratic. Unpredictable schedules and payments “prevent [workers] from taking advantage of a lot of other economic and financial resources,” Cooper said. Car payments, tuition payments, and any spending structured over a period of time becomes very difficult in these circumstances.

Typical wages at these companies often are in stark contrast with the pay of its CEO. Seven of the 13 companies listed reported total annual compensations of their CEOs at well over $10 million. And the compensations of all but two CEOs increased — even as their employee wages did not, and in some instances as their companies reported losses and shrank operations. The CEO of Aramark, Eric Foss, was paid $32.4 million last year, up 44.2% from his compensation in the previous year. The SEC’s new rule requiring documentation of the pay ratio within public companies does not take effect until 2017. However, the EPI has tracked the ratio since 1965. That year, CEOs made roughly 20 times the pay of their median worker. Last year, CEOs at the largest 350 companies made an average of 300 times the wage of their typical employee.

Most agree that wages at many companies are too low. What remains controversial, however, is the best way to address the problem. Cooper and other researchers argue that the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is inadequate for the vast majority of low-wage workers to afford the basic necessities of a moderate standard of living. Workers in low wage jobs tend to be older and more educated today than in previous decades.

Michael Strain, an economist with the American Enterprise Institute, said that while the intention is good, raising the minimum wage would not effectively achieve its stated goal. Instead, Strain favors expanding public assistance programs such as the federal income tax credit because such an approach would better focus on low wage earners and people who really need the help.

Daniel J. Mitchell, senior fellow at conservative think tank Cato Institute went further, claiming in an email exchange, “The inequality issue is a blind alley,” and raising wages could actually cause harm. Raising the minimum wage could actually cause unemployment. Instead, policy makers should focus on economic growth.

These are the lowest-paying companies in the country, according to 24/7 Wall St.

• Macy’s, Inc.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

> Global workforce: 166,900
> CEO compensation: $16.5 million
> Revenue: $28.1 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 823
> Industry: Department StoresLike many department stores, Macy’s is one of the nation’s lowest-paying companies. More generally, the retail trade sectoremploys 13.3% of all U.S. workers paid at or below the minimum wage. At Macy’s, the average hourly wage for a sales associate is $9.33, about half the average for sales associates nationwide. Macy’s closed hundreds of stores last year, cutting around 2,500 jobs. The company reported revenue of $28.1 billion in the company’s latest fiscal year. CEO Terry Lundgren made $16.5 million, the eighth highest total CEO compensation among the over 100 companies reviewed. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• Starbucks Corp.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

> Global workforce: 191,000
> CEO compensation: $21.5 million
> Revenue: $16.4 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 7,303
> Industry: RestaurantsCoffee giant Starbucks employs roughly 141,000 people in the United States at more than 7,300 locations. Because the coffee chain offers some benefits not commonly offered in low-paying jobs, it has long been considered the ideal job for young students supporting themselves or even single parents. However, an increasing number of reports suggest the famous Seattle company makes life difficult for its employees. Of particular note is the company’s increasing use of complicated and inconsistent scheduling, a practice also used by many other major retailers. This practice means that baristas’ hours may be posted with little notice, preventing them from making other plans, and therefore nearly denying them the ability to earn extra incomefrom other sources.Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• Sears Holdings Corporation

ASSOCIATED PRESS

> Global workforce: 196,000
> CEO compensation: $5.7 million
> Revenue: $31.2 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 1,733
> Industry: Department StoresSears Holdings is the company behind Sears and Kmart department stores. Sales associates at Sears are paid an average of $8.72 an hour. Cashiers at the retail giant make even less, at an average of $8.37 an hour. In sharp contrast, CEO Edward Lampert’s compensation last year totalled $5.7 million. According to Glassdoor.com, only 21% of surveyed company employees approved of Lampert. Low employee pay and a lack of confidence in the company’s leadership may be just the tip of the iceberg for Sears. The company’s revenuedropped by 16% in its most recent fiscal year, after already dropping 10% the year before. Sears Holdings was one of only two low-paying companies that posted a net income loss in the most recent fiscal year.Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• TJX Companies

Toby Talbot/AP

> Global workforce: 198,000
> CEO compensation: $28.7 million
> Revenue: $29.1 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 2,581
> Industry: Apparel RetailTJX Companies, the parent company of TJ Maxx department stores and discount retailer Marshalls, employs nearly 200,000 workers in the United States. According to employee reviews posted on Glassdoor.com, the average TJ Maxx cashier earns $8.45 per hour. In contrast, total compensation of CEO Carol Meyrowitz last year was $28.7 million. On an hourly basis, that amounts to over 1,600 times what the average Marshalls cashier makes. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• Aramark

ASSOCIATED PRESS

> Global workforce: 269,500
> CEO compensation: $32.4 million
> Revenue: $14.8 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 449
> Industry: Food ServicesFood service company Aramark had net profits just shy of $150 million in its fiscal 2014. It is also one of the nation’s lowest paying companies. Based on wage submissions on Glassdoor.com, a typical cashier makes just over $9 per hour. CEO Eric Foss, on the other hand, made more than $32.4 million last year, the highest total CEO compensation of the more than 100 companies reviewed. Based on a 40-hour work week, Foss’s per hour wage is about 1,700 times that of some of his employees.Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• Target

Bloomberg via Getty Images

> Global workforce: 347,000
> CEO compensation: $28.2 million
> Revenue: $72.6 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 1,790
> Industry: General Merchandise StoresSales floor team members and cashiers are paid an average wage of less than $10 per hour at Target. By contrast, CEO Brian Cornell earned $28.2 million in total compensation last year, higher than the compensation of all but three other chief executives at the over 100 companies reviewed. While many companies on this list are extremely large by revenue and are also very profitable, Target posted a net income loss in its latest fiscal year. The weak financial performance was partially due to a failed attempt to enter the Canadian market. It was also the result of a costly data breach at the end of 2013, which according to the company resulted in net cumulative expenses of tens of millions of dollars. The total retreat from Canada cost billions.Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

 

• Kroger Co.

David J. Phillip/AP

> Global workforce: 400,000
> CEO compensation: $13.0 million
> Revenue: $108.5 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 3,770
> Industry: Food RetailOf the over 100 companies reviewed, Kroger had the third highest revenue in its most recent fiscal year. The company reported nearly $108.5 billion in revenue in its fiscal 2015, a 9.3% increase from the previous year. Despite growing revenue, two of the most common positions in the company, cashiers and grocery clerks, each are paid an average wage of less than $10 an hour. The lowest paying job at Kroger is that of a courtesy clerk, earning an average hourly wage of $8.04. While the lowest paying jobs at Kroger are hovering just above the national minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, CEO Rodney McMullen’s compensation has climbed in each of the last three years, from $5 million in fiscal 2013 to $8.9 million in fiscal 2014, to its current level of nearly $13 million. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• McDonald’s Corp.

Eugene Hoshiko/AP

> Global workforce: 420,000
> CEO compensation: $1.7 million
> Revenue: $27.4 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 14,350
> Industry: RestaurantsMcDonald’s, the largest fast food chain in the world, pays its crew members an average hourly wage of $8.24. In New York City, most McDonald’s workers are paid the lowest amount allowed by law, $8 an hour. Wages at the burger restaurant are not just low, but erratic, as employees often work part-time, unpredictable hours. This often means such workers do not qualify for benefits, and together with the low wages increases the likelihood employees will require public assistance programs such as SNAP. And inconsistent schedules make planning particularly challenging. McDonald’s reported revenues in excess of $27 billion in its most recent fiscal year, the largest of any restaurant chain. Earlier this year, McDonald’s hired a new CEO, Stephen Easterbrook. In his first year on the job, Easterbrook is expected to be compensated a reported $1.7 million.Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• Yum! Brands, Inc.

Reed Saxon/AP

> Global workforce: 537,000
> CEO compensation: $5.0 million
> Revenue: $13.3 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 18,225
> Industry: RestaurantsThe vast majority of employees at Yum! Brands, which operates restaurant chains KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, are part-time, hourly-paid workers. While many Pizza Hut employees are paid tips in addition to their ordinary wages, employers are not responsible for this portion of a worker’s wage. Still, even including tips, the average total compensation of a Pizza Hut delivery driver, for example, was just over $20,000 annually. Taco Bell and KFC workers frequently earn even lower wages. Yum! Brands is one of the nation’s largest employers. With so many employees making wages at or below the poverty level, workers, like many others in the fast-food industry, have gone on strikes and staged walkouts over the past several years.Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• Walmart Stores Inc.

John Locher/AP

Global workforce: 2.2 million (1.4 million US)
> CEO compensation: $19.4 million
> Revenue: $485.7 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 5,321
> Industry: Hypermarkets and SupercentersWalmart is the largest company by revenue, with a reported $485.7 billion in revenue last year. Walmart is also by far the nation’s and the world’s largest employer, employing more than 2.2 million people. About 1.3 million of those work in the United States. While out of the retailer behemoth’s 11,453 total locations 6,290 are outside the United States, Walmart’s U.S. presence is nearly ubiquitous. There are at least five Walmart stores in every state, and most states have more than 100 Walmart locations. Walmart is the largest low paying company, paying an average of less than $10 per hour to its sales associates. In contrast, CEO Douglas McMillon’s total compensation in 2014 was $19.4 million. Unlike most CEO wages, however, McMillon’s compensation declined by nearly 32% from the previous fiscal year.

While in Korea, I was impressed by the public transportation system. Buses arrived at the bus stops every 15 minutes, not every 30 minutes as I see in California. There were many, many taxis everywhere and the prices were reasonable. The majority of people however, rode the underground subway system. Families generally had one car and everyone else used public transportation. The buses and trains were favored by the very young and the very old. However; there were lots of in-betweens too. It is good to give people more options and then the need for higher per hour pay is not as great.

Walmart Failed in Korea Because of a Lack of Walking Around—–Sebastian Marshall blog – 2011

Y’know, you can read all the case studies you want. It’s hard to fully understand international business without going to different countries and walking around.

So, let’s talk business and walking around. I was in Seoul, South Korea for a month last summer.

I came to like Korean culture a lot. Koreans are some of the strongest, proudest people I’ve come across. They manage to combine a strong warrior culture with the utmost civility, order, cleanliness, and quality of life.

It’s incredible. Many societies with a strong militant, warrior feeling about them descend into kind of a barbaric police state sort of vibe, constant terror in the air.

Korea? Nope. The men are proud, masculine, patriot, somewhat militant, but in a good way. There’s a mix of strong, expansive, traditional values, along with a large minority undercurrent of modernity. It’s really good – it’s the best of all possible worlds. There’s problems – the blatant racism and xenophobia kind of sucks, but I don’t mind it so much. Nowhere’s perfect.

Let’s talk Walmart. We’ll get back to Korea in a moment.

Walmart has really, really low prices. There’s a few reasons for this – the company is one of the best in the world at logistics, so they manage to have fast turnover of inventory without keeping too much on hand at any given store. I’d love to see how their logistics division runs sometime – I remember reading that they’ve got some of the most sophistication about predicting and automatically changing stock at stores based on factors like the weather changing that are hard to pin down.

This means they can charge less. And because they’re so big, they’ve got a lot of bargaining power with their suppliers. There’s over 4,000 Walmart-owned stores in the USA doing over $258 billion in sales.

Let’s talk 1998. Population of South Korea in 1998 is around 46 million. American economy 1998 is in extremely good shape. Population of South Korea is just a bit under 50 million people. The fundamentals of the South Korean economy were excellent, but the Asian Financial Crisis had just destroyed the exchange value of the Korean won.

That was, y’know, almost correct. This was a, “Hey! This is a fantastically good opportunity to buy!” type buy on Walmart’s part.

And they got it all right. Everything. Except one little thing – Koreans weren’t interested in going to Walmart.

Yup, the stars were all aligned, the U.S. dollar was artificially high, the South Korean won was artificially low, Walmart had been experiencing great domestic growth, and the South Korean economy looked like it would be in pretty good shape after the financial crisis shook itself out.

But Koreans weren’t interested in the Walmart model.

To explain why, I’ll say – you gotta go walk around South Korea. I can explain it and it’ll make sense, but it’s the kind of thing that wouldn’t really resonate unless you go to Korea.

Korea’s got the longest work hours in the developed world, and it’s not even really close.

According to the OECD’s 2004 report, Korean average work hours per year comes in at 2390. Japan, internationally renowned workaholic land? Only 1828. USA? 1777.

So, Koreans work a lot. A whole lot. A lot, a lot, a lot.

When they’re not working, they’re not interested in lower quality experiences for less money.

Damn near everything in Seoul is really, really nice. All the restaurants, the food, the transit and trains, the buildings, everything. It’s clean and prestigious and high quality and upscale. The whole country. It’s like Japan in that regard.

So, Walmart rumbles in, gets a good price on the currency, and opens 16 spartan Walmart stores with low prices.

Things don’t sell.

Emart and Walmart are night and day different. Emart is closer to a spa than a warehouse. As you walk through the aisles, there’s samples of fresh juice, fresh coffee, fresh grilled meat, fresh hot and iced teas… I’d just gone in to buy some tuna and fruit, and I walked out (1) having eaten effectively a whole lunch worth of little samples, and (2) with about five times more groceries than I intended to buy. There must’ve been 40 plus samples in there, all managed by different friendly, smiling staff.

But they didn’t walk around enough. Koreans work, work, work, work, work. When Koreans aren’t working, they want the best. Not the best price. The best. Combine that with a bit of a nationalist sentiment that favors local companies, and you’ve got an $800 million loss on your hands. . . .  Koreans don’t buy into discounting.

Numbers are good, but you can’t just trust the numbers. Gotta walk around too.______________________________________________________________________________

Good article by Sebastian Marshall, however, there is even more to the Walmart-Korean story than that. Having lived in Korea, let me report that Koreans have a real Korea First policy. They support their own.

In streets all around town, in restaurants and shopping centers, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of tiny Mom and Pop businesses. I typically shopped at the corner market which was literally about 150ft from my apartment. It was owned by an older man and run by himself, his wife and his son. They eventually sold out to a younger couple. I feel confident they were able to make enough money in the sale to support their retirement.

Not so in America. The Waltons, owners of Walmart stores, are listed in the top twenty richest people in America. Walmart typically comes into a neighbor, lowers the prices on everything, drives out the little guy. They then hire all young people with lower salaries and lower (if any) benefits.

The Walmarts in my area (yes, I shop there,) have in the last few years, forced out almost all of their older staffers. In the two stores I frequent, it would be a safe bet to say there are no employees there over the age of forty. Wow!

So, people are living longer, medical costs are rising. The chances of being successful in any small business is marginalized by huge mega businesses and the chance to make enough money to either live on or retire on are melting like snow in June. The American Dream is slowly being crushed under the heel of big business.

Good for you Korea. And, yes, keep all those little old ladies working!

Stacey Patton

Assistant Professor of Multimedia Journalism at Morgan State University

Student Evaluations: Feared, Loathed, and Not Going Anywhere

 

May 19, 2015

Janet Wilson has a number burned into her mind: 4.7. That’s the average student-evaluation score, on a five-point scale, that she has to reach to feel safe. Her score helps to determine her fate as a full-time, non-tenure-track professor at her West Coast research university.

“Everybody in my department is obsessed,” says Ms. Wilson, a teacher in the humanities for more than a decade. (This is not her real name: Fearing career repercussions, she asked that a pseudonym be used.) “We talk about how we get into that 4.7-and-above range. We talk about that more than about how to teach.”

Often, rather than discuss challenges in the classroom, Ms. Wilson and her colleagues pass around advice on what it takes to reach the magic number. One popular strategy is to bake cookies or brownies for students. (Chocolate-chip cookies are seen as the golden ticket. And if you’re making brownies, leave the nuts out: A student’s allergy could tank your score or, worse, lead to a phone call from Human Resources.)

She and her colleagues have shared other tips, too:

—Hand out evaluation forms when the most irascible student in class is absent.

—Be sure that the only assignment you give right before the evaluation is a low-stakes one. “Have them write an easy paper where they can talk about themselves and their journey in the class,” Ms. Wilson advises. And never give back a graded assignment on evaluation day.

—Don’t leave the classroom while the evaluations are being filled out — even if you’ve been told that you’re supposed to do so. That way one or two unhappy students won’t talk out loud and poison the rest of the class’s opinions.

—Don’t give students too much time at the end of class to fill out the forms. “If they’re in a hurry, they’ll give you all fives unless they’re mad at you,” Ms. Wilson says.

—Oh, and let students hand in papers late, retake exams like it’s the DMV, and complete extra credit, which is almost as valuable as a chocolate-chip cookie. “You can’t make a student too mad at you,” she says. “We all know we can’t afford to uphold grading standards because of the pressure put on us.”

This is a grim vision, but it’s one many professors might recognize. Student ratings of professors can have the feel of a high-stakes game. Faculty members speak of evaluations’ driving decisions on hiring, promotion, and tenure; adjuncts say they feel paralyzed when a low score can mean a pink slip.

“They line up everybody’s evaluation scores and pick from the top,” Ms. Wilson says of her department. “If we don’t get good evaluations, the chair will call us in and ask: How do we get these numbers up?”

Of course, not every institution or department is a firm believer in the importance of evaluations. But faculty concerns remain strong — even among professors, like Ms. Wilson, who say they actually like getting feedback from their students. “Don’t get me wrong, I think student evals are useful,” she says. “I used to push my students, even the ones I didn’t like, to fill them out. I don’t want to do away with them. But it’s just frightening that administrators turn the entire discussion of what your teaching is like over to a bunch of 19-year-old kids.”

Is the Customer Always Right?

Like Yelp in the restaurant industry or TripAdvisor in tourism, the student evaluation can be a powerful tool of communication for the frustrated student-customer. That’s precisely what worries many professors: They view evaluations as part of the growing pressure, especially at public institutions, to treat students like clients and professors like service employees.

Earlier this year, a Republican state senator in Iowa, Mark Chelgren, proposed a bill — which never came close to passing — that would have fired professors, even tenured ones, who scored low on their student evaluations. Mr. Chelgren cited high student-loan debt to argue that students should be able to hold their professors accountable through metrics. “Professors need to understand that their customers are those students,” he told The Chronicle.

Many faculty members say it’s folly to place anywhere near that much emphasis on evaluations whose utility is questionable at best.

Michael P. Chaney, an associate professor of counseling at Oakland University, in Michigan, says that over the past few years, more of his colleagues have expressed concern over the role of evaluations. “We’ve been debating how relevant and beneficial they are,” he says. “There seems to be a disconnect between how faculty view their usefulness and how the university’s promotions and tenure committees view them.”

Among the reasons to be cautious: Response rates tend to be low, a problem that has worsened as more colleges turn to online evaluations. Completed evaluations all too frequently include racist and sexist invective. And students often use the forms simply as a space to vent their frustrations.

“I don’t view student evals as very valuable,” Mr. Chaney says. “Students either really, really like you, or they don’t. There’s no in between.”

Adam McKible, an associate professor of English at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, echoes Mr. Chaney. Faculty members at his institution, which is part of the City University of New York, are scored on a five-point scale, he says, and “you either get ones or fives — there’s no subtlety in the middle.”

“There’s space on the back for comments,” he says. “Occasionally students write something thoughtful. But they mostly say things like ‘He’s an awesome dude’ or ‘Loved your mustache.’”

Those comments aren’t particularly useful for his teaching, nor will they carry much weight in promotion decisions. Still, Mr. McKible, who has been teaching since 1993, keeps a big, fat file full of evaluations. At times he has adjusted his teaching based on the feedback: “I’m more conscious of my behavior in the classroom if students say I’m being too tart or assigning too much work,” he says.

Other comments, though, are just downright hurtful. Mr. Chaney, a gay white man who teaches courses about diversity, was particularly bothered by one student’s note: “I’ll pray for you.” Other students have accused him of having “an agenda.”

“Because of those types of comments, I don’t read all of my evaluations,” he says. “I collect them, but they’re sitting in a file cabinet.” Thinking about the harsh feedback, he says, “makes me hypersensitive and hyperaware to the point where it is difficult for me to be fully present in the classroom.”

Valuable Data?

Such concerns aside, do student evaluations work as a tool for measuring professors’ classroom work? Philip B. Stark, chair of the statistics department at the University of California at Berkeley, has studied the question. His findings: Evaluations are little more than popularity contests, it’s easy to game the system, good professors often get bad ratings, and bad professors often get good ones.

Mr. Stark has argued that “fear of bad ratings stifles pedagogical innovation and encourages faculty to water down course content.” His study concluded that “relying on averages of student teaching-evaluation scores as the primary measure of teaching effectiveness for promotion and tenure decisions should be abandoned.”

But many administrators aren’t ready to abandon evaluations just yet. For them, faculty concerns are overstated. Evaluations, the administrators say, are just one tool to help them make decisions about tenure, promotion, and hiring.

How important a role they play varies by institution. Christine W. Thorpe, an assistant professor of human services and chair of the department at the New York City College of Technology, another CUNY campus, says her faculty colleagues are rated on a five-point scale. When she sees a score under a four, that’s a red flag.

New adjuncts with low scores are generally not asked to return, Ms. Thorpe says. If professors who have been teaching for a number of years find their scores trending downward, Ms. Thorpe pulls them in for a talk: It could be a sign that their strategies are stale.

“We tell that instructor, We know you’ve been committed to the department, but your scores are low. What’s happening? Can you improve this?,” Ms. Thorpe says. “My intention is not to fire them but to help them improve their teaching experience.”

But if two or three semesters go by with no change, she says, “I try to phase them out by reducing the number of classes they are given to teach, and then I bring them in and counsel them out of teaching.” (She sometimes proposes that terminally low-rated instructors take a break before possibly returning to the classroom.)

Ms. Thorpe says that the evaluation scores of full-time faculty members are monitored just as closely — especially professors fresh out of graduate programs, which are notorious for not teaching Ph.D.’s about pedagogy. And she points out that evaluations aren’t the only tool for tracking that development: Peer observation plays a large role as well.

Ms. Thorpe and other administrators say they are aware that student evaluations are sometimes rife with bias and accusations. “We take all of this under consideration,” she says. “We don’t just run with an accusation and penalize a professor.”

If evaluations aren’t going away, administrators can at least make sure to put them in context.

There’s much to be gained from building a student-evaluation data set, says John A. Holland, director of the writing program at the University of Southern California, which employs many faculty members off the tenure track. “It’s very important that we look at the data carefully to understand a professor’s interactions with students over time,” he says. “I have a whole history of evaluations to look how they perform in a cumulative fashion.”

But “there can be aberrations,” he says. So once he has his results, Mr. Holland sends the data to instructors. Those with low scores are invited to come in and discuss them. “We have a mentoring relationship with newer faculty,” he says. “Mentors can talk through how to improve.”

“Student opinions are only one measure — not the exclusive measure,” he says, but a symbolically important one. “We want students to know that their opinions do matter. Evaluations are not just a blow-off at the end of the semester.”

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