No Degree, and No Way Back to the Middle

[SPARKY]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/24/na...AR-FINAL.html?

Class Matters
No Degree, and No Way Back to the Middle

By TIMOTHY EGAN
The New York Times
Published: May 24, 2005

SPOKANE, Wash. - Over the course of his adult life, Jeff Martinelli has married three women and buried one of them, a cancer victim. He had a son and has watched him raise a child of his own. Through it all, one thing was constant: a factory job that was his ticket to the middle class.

It was not until that job disappeared, and he tried to find something - anything - to keep him close to the security of his former life that Mr. Martinelli came to an abrupt realization about the fate of a working man with no college degree in 21st-century America.

He has skills developed operating heavy machinery, laboring over a stew of molten bauxite at Kaiser Aluminum, once one of the best jobs in this city of 200,000. His health is fine. He has no shortage of ambition. But the world has changed for people like Mr. Martinelli.

"For a guy like me, with no college, it's become pretty bleak out there," said Mr. Martinelli, who is 50 and deals with life's curves with a resigned shrug.

His son, Caleb, already knows what it is like out there. Since high school, Caleb has had six jobs, none very promising. Now 28, he may never reach the middle class, he said. But for his father and others of a generation that could count on a comfortable life without a degree, the fall out of the middle class has come as a shock. They had been frozen in another age, a time when Kaiser factory workers could buy new cars, take decent vacations and enjoy full health care benefits.

They have seen factory gates close and not reopen. They have taken retraining classes for jobs that pay half their old wages. And as they hustle around for work, they have been constantly reminded of the one thing that stands out on their résumés: the education that ended with a high school diploma.

It is not just that the American economy has shed six million manufacturing jobs over the last three decades; it is that the market value of those put out of work, people like Jeff Martinelli, has declined considerably over their lifetimes, opening a gap that has left millions of blue-collar workers at the margins of the middle class.

And the changes go beyond the factory floor. Mark McClellan worked his way up from the Kaiser furnaces to management. He did it by taking extra shifts and learning everything he could about the aluminum business.

Still, in 2001, when Kaiser closed, Mr. McClellan discovered that the job market did not value his factory skills nearly as much as it did four years of college. He had the experience, built over a lifetime, but no degree. And for that, he said, he was marked.

He still lives in a grand house in one of the nicest parts of town, and he drives a big white Jeep. But they are a facade.

"I may look middle class," said Mr. McClellan, who is 45, with a square, honest face and a barrel chest. "But I'm not. My boat is sinking fast."

By the time these two Kaiser men were forced out of work, a man in his 50's with a college degree could expect to earn 81 percent more than a man of the same age with just a high school diploma. When they had started work, the gap was only 52 percent. Other studies show different numbers, but the same trend - a big disparity that opened over their lifetimes.

Mr. Martinelli refuses to feel sorry for himself. He has a job in pest control now, killing ants and spiders at people's homes, making barely half the money he made at the Kaiser smelter, where a worker with his experience would make about $60,000 a year in wages and benefits.

"At least I have a job," he said. "Some of the guys I worked with have still not found anything. A couple of guys lost their houses."

Mr. Martinelli and other former factory workers say that, over time, they have come to fear that the fall out of the middle class could be permanent. Their new lives - the frustrating job interviews, the bills that arrive with red warning letters on the outside - are consequences of a decision made at age 18.

The management veteran, Mr. McClellan, was a doctor's son, just out of high school, when he decided he did not need to go much farther than the big factory at the edge of town. He thought about going to college. But when he got on at Kaiser, he felt he had arrived.

His father, a general prac ioner now dead, gave him his blessing, even encouraged him in the choice, Mr. McClellan said.

At the time, the decision to skip college was not that unusual, even for a child of the middle class. Despite Mr. McClellan's lack of skills or education beyond the 12th grade, there was good reason to believe that the aluminum factory could get him into middle-class security quicker than a bachelor's degree could, he said.

By 22, he was a group foreman. By 28, a supervisor. By 32, he was in management. Before his 40th birthday, Mr. McClellan hit his earnings peak, making $100,000 with bonuses.

Friends of his, people with college degrees, were not earning close to that, Mr. McClellan said.

"I had a house with a swimming pool, new cars," he said. "My wife never had to work. I was right in the middle of middle-class America and I knew it and I loved it."

If anything, the union man, Mr. Martinelli, appreciated the middle-class life even more, because of the distance he had traveled to get there. He remembers his stomach growling at night as a child, the humiliation of welfare, hauling groceries home through the snow on a little cart because the family had no car.

"I was ashamed," he said.

He was a C student without much of a future, just out of high school, when he got his break: the job on the Kaiser factory floor. Inside, it was long shifts around hot furnaces. Outside, he was a prince of Spokane.

College students worked inside the factory in the summer, and some never went back to school.

"You knew people leaving here for college would sometimes get better jobs, but you had a good job, so it was fine," said Mike Lacy, a close friend of Mr. Martinelli and a co-worker at Kaiser.

The job lasted just short of 30 years. Kaiser, debt-ridden after a series of failed management initiatives and a long strike, closed the plant in 2001 and sold the factory carcass for salvage.

Mr. McClellan has yet to find work, living off his dwindling savings and investments from his years at Kaiser, though he continues with plans to open his own car wash. He pays $900 a month for a basic health insurance policy - vital to keep his wife, Vicky, who has a rare brain disease, alive. He pays an additional $500 a month for her medications. He is both husband and nurse.

"Am I scared just a little bit?" he said. "Yeah, I am."

He has vowed that his son David will never do the kind of second-guessing that he is. Even at 16, David knows what he wants to do: go to college and study medicine. He said his father, whom he has seen struggle to balance the tasks of home nurse with trying to pay the bills, had grown heroic in his eyes.

He said he would not make the same choice his father did 27 years earlier. "There's nothing like the Kaiser plant around here anymore," he said.

Mr. McClellan agrees. He is firm in one conclusion, having risen from the factory floor only to be knocked down: "There is no working up anymore."

[SPARKY]

Left wing nut poster response: This is the Neocon's and Dubya's fault. They sold the American worker's soul to multinational corporations, the Jews, and the Saudis.

Right wing nut poster response: Boys needa pull themselves up by their bootstraps and stop whining. What they want, a handout? , people lose their jobs all the time. Shouldn't be hard for them to get one of them investment banking jobs. Maybe they can find something on the internets. If it wasn't for those damn athiestic liberals with all their enviromental regulations those boys would still have jobs.

[JoeChalupa]

It sucks that work experience doesn't count. But Wayland University gives college credits for work experience.

Toyota will make some non-degree people middle-class when they are making 50-60K with no degree.

Many of my HS friends went to work at General Motors and make damn good money.

[MannyIsGod]

San Antonians think Toyta is the reincarnation of Jesus.

The sad fact is that even a college degree isn't a ticket to the middle class anymore. How many people do you know with an undergrad or even a masters trying to find decent work? It's not as bad as it was a few years ago, but it's pretty much a out there.

[scott]

That is the cost of the ever cheapening American education. K-12 doesn't teach you ? Go to college? College doesn't teach you because they had to spend 2 years teaching you the you should have learned in high school? Go to grad school? Grad school only teaches you the you should have learned in undergrad? Get a PhD? You are a PhD who now knows ? Tought , I guess.

[JoeChalupa]

I only have HS diploma and I'm doing fine. Blaming the school system gets old.

[MannyIsGod]

I only have HS diploma and I'm doing fine. Blaming the school system gets old.

The majority of people with only a diploma aren't doing fine. Ignoring real trends based on the observations of an individual is getting old.

[desflood]

I only have HS diploma and I'm doing fine. Blaming the school system gets old.

And I have only a HS diploma and am struggling. So, what's your point?

[Clandestino]

The majority of people with only a diploma aren't doing fine. Ignoring real trends based on the observations of an individual is getting old.

yeah, because manny knows a majority of them.

[SWC Bonfire]

Like I said in another thread, education is only one factor in how sucessful you are. Your desire to suceed, hard work, people skills, ability to form working relationships, and financial discipline have a lot more to do with it. Sounds like the manager in this article had some of that. But did he have financial discipline? Did he save up a month, three month's, or six month's worth of available money for emergencies/hard times? (Yes, I know, easier said than done. I'm working on getting my cushion back to that level, but I've also had the extra cash to save my ass in the past.)

How many highly sucessful salespeople have advanced degrees? Not many, but they have the right combo of skills and social ability to thrive in their workplace.

[SWC Bonfire]

Kaiser, debt-ridden after a series of failed management initiatives and a long strike, closed the plant in 2001 and sold the factory carcass for salvage.

I missed this the first time. Sounds like they were not completely innocent in their own undoing.

[JoeChalupa]

Like I said in another thread, education is only one factor in how sucessful you are. Your desire to suceed, hard work, people skills, ability to form working relationships, and financial discipline have a lot more to do with it. Sounds like the manager in this article had some of that. But did he have financial discipline? Did he save up a month, three month's, or six month's worth of available money for emergencies/hard times? (Yes, I know, easier said than done. I'm working on getting my cushion back to that level, but I've also had the extra cash to save my ass in the past.)

How many highly sucessful salespeople have advanced degrees? Not many, but they have the right combo of skills and social ability to thrive in their workplace.

That was the point I was trying to make. Good post.

I don't blame anyone or anything for my success or failures but myself.

[JoeChalupa]

And I have only a HS diploma and am struggling. So, what's your point?

That not everyone with only a HS diploma is struggling.
Would I be doing better with a college degree? I would hope so!

And I do know some friends with degrees who are unemployed so what is the point of that?

Success is measured by different ways by different people. I don't judge success by income level or level of education.

[JoeChalupa]

The majority of people with only a diploma aren't doing fine. Ignoring real trends based on the observations of an individual is getting old.

Who said I'm ignoring "real trends"? Assumptions get old too.

[MannyIsGod]

Who said I'm ignoring "real trends"? Assumptions get old too.

What am I assuming? Your statement said that blaming the school system is getting old because you weren't struggling with a diploma. I can pull out individuals who dropped out from high school and are succeeding, but I doubt that is going to convince you to tell your children to drop out.

It's an obvious fact to the vast majority of people who take a look at the schools in this country - and especialy in this state - that they are struggling to produce well educated people. The only way you can not want to put blame for that on the schoolo system is by ignoring the trends.

Yes, anyone can make something out of themselves, Joe. But does that mean you aren't going to have your children get the best education they can?

[MannyIsGod]

yeah, because manny knows a majority of them.

[MannyIsGod]

Like I said in another thread, education is only one factor in how sucessful you are. Your desire to suceed, hard work, people skills, ability to form working relationships, and financial discipline have a lot more to do with it. Sounds like the manager in this article had some of that. But did he have financial discipline? Did he save up a month, three month's, or six month's worth of available money for emergencies/hard times? (Yes, I know, easier said than done. I'm working on getting my cushion back to that level, but I've also had the extra cash to save my ass in the past.)

How many highly sucessful salespeople have advanced degrees? Not many, but they have the right combo of skills and social ability to thrive in their workplace.

I'm not disputing that there are people with enough drive and determination out there to succeed regardless of what obstacles and difficulties are placed in their way. And I doubt anyone else here who is critical of education will either.

But even with that in mind, it is indisputeable that you can set more people up for success if you have a better system in place. The same people will succeed, but people that would not have otherwise met success will do so as well.

If there is a reason we should not operate on peak efficency, I don't know what it is.

[Clandestino]

manny doesn't believe people are actually accountable for their own actions. he prefers to make excuses for everyone's failures whether it be their educational ability, their inclination to rape, murder, etc...

[desflood]

Now Clan, knock it off and stay on topic please... :p

[MannyIsGod]

manny doesn't believe people are actually accountable for their own actions. he prefers to make excuses for everyone's failures whether it be their educational ability, their inclination to rape, murder, etc...

[JoeChalupa]

What am I assuming? Your statement said that blaming the school system is getting old because you weren't struggling with a diploma. I can pull out individuals who dropped out from high school and are succeeding, but I doubt that is going to convince you to tell your children to drop out.

It's an obvious fact to the vast majority of people who take a look at the schools in this country - and especialy in this state - that they are struggling to produce well educated people. The only way you can not want to put blame for that on the schoolo system is by ignoring the trends.

Yes, anyone can make something out of themselves, Joe. But does that mean you aren't going to have your children get the best education they can?

Yes it does and I'm involved with my children's education by going over their home work with them. Going to teacher conferences and requesting a teacher conference if I feel my child is struggling, by taking them to museums and watching the news with them.
By telling how much education is the key and pushing college everyday and telling them that the world is theirs but nobody is going to give it to them.

Yes, I know the public school system needs work but too many parents and complain but don't vote, don't go to the school council meetings, don't pay attentkion to their child's progress reports..yada, yada, yada.

That was the point I was trying to make.

[MannyIsGod]

Yes it does and I'm involved with my children's education by going over their home work with them. Going to teacher conferences and requesting a teacher conference if I feel my child is struggling, by taking them to museums and watching the news with them.
By telling how much education is the key and pushing college everyday and telling them that the world is theirs but nobody is going to give it to them.

Yes, I know the public school system needs work but too many parents and complain but don't vote, don't go to the school council meetings, don't pay attentkion to their child's progress reports..yada, yada, yada.

That was the point I was trying to make.

Fair enough Joe. And I agree with you on many of those points. I think parental involvement needs to improve in many situations. But there is much room for improvement to the system.

[SWC Bonfire]

I heard a snippet on the radio this morning about a local school bond election for $399 million, and voter turnout was somewhere around 4,000. (Correct me if I'm wrong on these figures...I can't find a story on it for the "man stabbed/dragged by out of control pedophile cop" stories filling up the headlines, and I don't live in any SA ISD.)

That's almost $100,000.00 per parent who voted. Probably few parents even voted - it was voted down, so a lot of seniors and single people may have voted instead. Pay attention to what goes on in your kid's school and community.

Most people would like for their money to be spent wisely and contribute politively to the upbringing of young students. But the fact is that they don't care enough to do anything about it themselves. I guess the point of this is: spending more money into the system is not the answer; we need people and students who actually care.

Maybe then the 54% of 4000 voters who bothered to show up would have voted the other way.

[JoeChalupa]

Fair enough Joe. And I agree with you on many of those points. I think parental involvement needs to improve in many situations. But there is much room for improvement to the system.

I agree. No child should be left behind....if they are willing to work for it.

[scott]

The key to fixing our education system is not pumping more money into it or making excuses about it. It's the people who think those are the solutions that are the problem.

Understanding the problem and trying to fix it never gets old, in my book.