My grandfather was illiterate. My father did not have a high school diploma. I grew up in poverty. I earned a Ph.D. and could be making 2-3 times my salary in private industry (I know because I had 2 private industry careers prior to becoming a professor, in Market Research in Chicago, and at a Silicon Valley think tank). I chose higher education in the public sector because public education was what lifted me to these possibilities—I wanted to give back, and I wanted to enable others to rise as well.
I thus find it deeply insulting for our current Governor, who went to a private university (and didn’t finish), to spin our public compensation as somehow being better than the private sector (that is simply a lie), while refusing to consider raising taxes on the wealthy (that is simply unfair). What is worse is that this strategy is further undermining the public higher ed. engine that drove 20th century economic and human progress in the United States. That is simply stupid.
All of this is of course coupled with no negotiation, no time for democratic debate, a virtual illegalization of public workers’ means of recourse, and a threat of the National Guard if we don’t like it.
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Herbert L. Colston, Ph.D.
Professor
Psychology Department
University of Wisconsin-Parkside
Kenosha, WI, USA 53141-2000
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