Cndi 2017 – Title I finance Affirmative

We’ll isolate two internal links:

First is the state expenditure factor – it disproportionately rewards rich states and furthers inequality.

Pasachoff 8 [Eloise Pasachoff (Professor of Law at Georgetown University, serves on the executive committee of the Education Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools, recipient of the Education Law Association's Steven S. Goldberg Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Education Law, M.P.A. from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School), “How the Federal Government Can Improve School Financing Systems”, The Brookings Institute, Center on Children & Families, January 2008, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/01_education_pasachoff.pdf]

While most attention to equity issues in education funding has been at the state level, it has become increasingly clear that interstate inequities loom much larger than intra-state inequities. Recent work by Goodwin Liu demonstrates that the formula under which Title I is allocated contributes to this interstate inequity even as it works to reduce inequity within states. Therefore, the Title I formula should be revised to eliminate reliance on how much each state spends on education, focusing instead on each state’s share of poor children, with an adjustment that takes into account geographic differences in the cost of education. 1. The Problem As Liu explains, the formula for allocating Title I money is based largely on two factors: the number and concentration of poor children in each state and the average per-pupil expenditure in each state.196 Because low-spending states tend to have disproportionate numbers of poor children, the first of these factors benefits them.197 But the second factor, based on state expenditure, means that the higher-spending states get a larger share of Title I money, even though they already spend more than the lower-spending states.198 This allocation thereby replicates and increases already existing interstate inequity. Even though the state expenditure factor is limited to a range between 80 percent and 120 percent of the national per-pupil expenditure – meaning that distribution of Title I funds does not penalize states for spending less than 80 percent or reward them for spending more than 120 percent of the national average – the underlying use of state expenditure produces great inequities in the distribution of Title I money.199 A few examples help to clarify this distributional inequity. In 2001, Texas had 11.9 percent of the nation’s poor children but, because of its relatively lower per-pupil expenditure, received only 8.5 percent of that year’s Title I allocation nationwide.200 In contrast, New York had 7.6 percent of the nation’s poor children but, because of its much higher per-pupil expenditure, received 10.1 percent of the Title I budget.201 Another way of looking at this contrast is by Title I allocation per child. Again, using 2001 figures, New York received $1,548 in Title I funds per poor child, while Texas received only $838.202 Nor is this the starkest difference – Title I allocations per poor child in 2001 ranged from a high of $2,495 in Wyoming to a low of $734 in Utah.203 Applying a geographic cost adjustment somewhat minimizes these differences, but the interstate disparities remain considerable.204 But are these differences justifiable? Can the state expenditure factor be seen as a useful reward for higher spending? Liu convincingly argues to the contrary. First, he explains, Title I aid is not big enough to create an incentive for states and localities to spend more.205 If, for example, Mississippi had raised its per-pupil spending by $100 in the 2000-2001 school year, it would have had to spend $50 million of its own money on this effort yet would have received only approximately $3 million more – a mere 6 percent – in Title I aid.206 Such a small federal contribution towards greater state spending is unlikely to have much of an effect. Second, the state expenditure factor turns out to be a better indicator of a state’s fiscal capacity than it is of state effort.207 Broadly defining fiscal capacity as “a state’s potential ability to raise revenue from its own sources . . . without regard to current public or private resource use decisions,” Liu applies the federal government’s most commonly used measure for fiscal capacity – each state’s Total Taxable Resources – to compare each state’s ability to finance education.208 To measure state effort in education financing, he ranks each state according to the hypothetical tax rate that, when applied to the state fiscal capacity, produces the amount of state and local education revenue each state makes available.209 Comparing fiscal capacity and effort, he concludes that both measures help explain interstate disparities in per-pupil spending to some extent, but that the relationship between revenue and capacity is much stronger than the relationship between revenue and effort.210 In other words, state ability to raise education revenue helps explain interstate disparities in education revenue more than state effort does. If this is so, then the state expenditure factor of Title I is not explained as a reward for state effort, as some states can raise much more revenue with comparatively little effort, while others demonstrate high effort but cannot raise as much revenue. Instead, the state expenditure factor merely allows federal money to increase inequitable spending from state to state. 2. The Solution The state expenditure factor should be eliminated from the formula for calculating the allocation of Title I money to each state. Instead, allocation of Title I money should reflect the proportion of each state’s share of poor children. As Liu points out, such a reform would bring Title I in line with the federal formulas for special education, instruction in English as a second language, and child nutrition, none of which rely on state spending to calculate the federal share.211 In addition, the calculation of the number of eligible children has become more precise since 2001, when NCLB required the use of annually updated census data instead of poverty data updated only once every decade, making this figure a more reliable indicator of current need.212 With little to recommend it, and with equity arguments against it, the state expenditure factor should be removed. On top of the proportional allocation, the Title I formula should apply a geographic cost adjustment. One such measure is the Chambers Geographic Cost-of-Education Index, created for the National Center on Education Statistics, although other alternatives exist, each with pros and cons that will have to be considered.213 The cost adjustment would help ensure that the power of each federal dollar would be consistent from region to region. It would also help cushion the loss of federal funds for high-spending states, since those states tend to have higher costs. As Liu notes, such an adjustment would help make the change in formula more politically palatable, as it would be focused on equity all around: not only to low-spending states, most of whose spending is attributable to capacity rather than effort, but also to high-spending states, whose higher costs would be accounted for in the allocation. This recommendation does not address other aspects of the Title I formula that contribute to interstate inequity. For example, the hold-harmless provision limits the amount of money that can be decreased from a district’s annual allocation due to a decrease in poverty from one year to another, and the small-state minimum means that states with low populations receive more funding per child than they would otherwise receive.214 These two provisions have political teeth, if questionable equitable justifications, and should be a part of the negotiation around the change in the Title I formula. The Education Trust adopted Liu’s recommendation in its 2006 annual review of nationwide funding gaps, and a recent Heritage Foundation report similarly called for a proportional distribution of Title I funding with a regional adjustment.215 Because Title I contributes such a small percentage of overall per-pupil spending, implementing this recommendation would have but a small effect on overall interstate inequity. But it is a step in the right direction.

Second is the School Improvement Program set-aside – it draws funds away from the neediest districts and ignores the proportion of low-income students – only funding through an independent mechanism ensures equity.

Pasachoff 8 [Eloise Pasachoff (Professor of Law at Georgetown University, serves on the executive committee of the Education Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools, recipient of the Education Law Association's Steven S. Goldberg Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Education Law, M.P.A. from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School), “How the Federal Government Can Improve School Financing Systems”, The Brookings Institute, Center on Children & Families, January 2008, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/01_education_pasachoff.pdf]

Once Title I funds are allocated to the states, it is important to ensure that they are most sensibly allocated at the district level. Yet recent reports from the Center on Education Policy (CEP) indicate that most of the school districts that are slated to receive increases in Title I funding this year must relinquish that funding increase to the state, which may then transfer it to less needy districts and schools, because of a provision in Title I that requires states to set aside a certain fixed percentage of their Title I funds for school improvement programs throughout the state.216 Funding the School Improvement Program through a separate provision of Title I, instead of as a required reservation of regular Title I grants, would fix this problem. Moreover, as an analysis by the Center for American Progress demonstrates, states have wildly different amounts available to fund school improvement programs because states receive school improvement funds on the basis of the set-aside, rather than on the basis of the numbers of schools actually in need of improvement.217 Tying the funding to numbers of schools in need of improvement, at least in part, would introduce parity into the system. 1. The Problem Under NCLB, a school that fails to make “adequate yearly progress” for two years in a row under that state’s NCLB-mandated plan to provide challenging academic standards becomes identified as a “school in need of improvement” and therefore eligible for funds under the School Improvement Program.218 This funding is particularly important because becoming a school in need of improvement is merely the first step in a series of interventions and sanctions that can culminate, for those schools failing to make adequate yearly progress for five consecutive years, in a state take-over.219 It would thus seem sensible to ensure both that schools have adequate funding to avoid becoming a school in need of improvement in the first place and also that the School Improvement Program have adequate funding to turn schools around before they proceed past the needs-improvement stage. Yet the way the School Improvement Program is funded ensures neither. The primary way that this program is funded is through a mandatory set-aside of regularly allocated Title I funds: starting in 2004, states have had to reserve 4 percent of all Title I funds and distribute them to schools in need of improvement.220 To limit the adverse effects of such a set-aside, a hold-harmless provision prevents the state from reserving funds from a district under the School Improvement Program if it would result in the district’s receiving less Title I funding than the district received the previous year.221 The mandatory reservation coupled with the hold-harmless provision would not be a problem if Title I funds were increasing. But in 2005-2006, the 3 percent increase in Title I funding was offset by the 6 percent increase in the number of students eligible to receive such funding, and in 2006-2007, Title I funding actually decreased slightly.222 Moreover, the few districts that received a Title I increase high enough to support the 4 percent setaside are the districts with the largest numbers of low-income children, so the school improvement funds are being taken from the neediest districts and transferred elsewhere.223 The CEP calls this a “shell game,” where federal funding is simply shifted around without good reason to the detriment of low-income districts.224 According to CEP’s analysis, ten states received so little increase in Title I funding in the 2005-2006 school year that they could not meet the full 4 percent set-aside, protected as they are by the hold-harmless provision.225 Five other states were able to meet the set-aside only by using most of their Title I increase on the school improvement program.226 Further, the amount available under the school improvement program under these funding conditions is minimal. In 2005 in Oregon, for example, the entire amount available to support the school improvement program was only about $169,000, yet forty-four Title I schools were identified as being in need of improvement.227 Divided equally among those schools, the set-aside would translate into $3,834 – hardly enough to do anything meaningful in the way of school improvement. Not only did essentially all of the Title I increase that these states were slated to receive end up going to the school improvement program, but the amount available for school improvement money was itself negligible as well. For the 2006-2007 school year, the situation worsened: after the hold-harmless provision took effect, thirtysix states with districts that were supposed to gain Title I funds had less than 4 percent available for the school improvement fund.228 Therefore, none of the districts in these states that should have received an increase in Title I funds due to an increase in low-income children were actually slated to receive it. Four other states could reach the set-aside only by using almost all of their supposed increase.229 Although Department of Education statistics show that about 38 percent of districts were to receive funding increases in the 2006-2007 year, only about 10 percent of districts were to receive funding increases after the four percent set-aside is accounted for.230 And since funding increases are only available because the numbers of eligible children have gone up, the real effect is negative. An examination of the impact of the set-aside on individual districts reveals an even greater problem. Those districts that receive an increase in Title I funds do so because of increased numbers of eligible children.231 Yet the 4 percent set-aside is calculated after adding up each state’s combined district allocation, and the school improvement funds must be used to support school improvement activities in any school identified as in need of improvement, regardless of whether the school is in a district with large numbers of at-risk children.232 For example, 60 percent of Pennsylvania’s expected Title I increase for the 2006-2007 school year was because of the increase in Philadelphia’s eligible children.233 But despite its growing number of poor children, Philadelphia will have to give up much of that increase to support state-wide programs, making the burden of the 4 percent setaside fall disproportionately on Philadelphia.234 Philadelphia and the other large districts in this category may, of course, get some of the funds back through school improvement programs, but that funding will generally be less than their formula increases and must be spent on different purposes.235 Because of the set-aside, needy schools are effectively losing regularly-allocated federal dollars – on which they could have counted to fund ongoing programs to improve learning – in order to fund the school improvement program, through which they may receive fewer dollars in the form of one-year grants covering non-recurrent costs.236 As for the impact of the set-aside provision on the state, NCLB authorizes the state to use 5 percent of the 4 percent set-aside to fund school improvement activities at a state-wide level.237 But the minimal amount of money available means that there is very little funding left for these activities. With the $169,000 that was available for the school improvement fund in Oregon in 2005-2006, for example, the state could retain only $8,450, a negligibly small sum for any state-wide school improvement effort.238 A separate problem in the way the school improvement fund is structured is that it bears no connection to the numbers of schools identified as needing improvement in any given state. Contrast the situations in Minnesota and Georgia in 2004-2005, as examined by the Center for American Progress in a recent study of the NCLB school improvement structure.239 In 2004-2005, Minnesota’s school improvement fund was only $628,335, instead of the $4.2 million that would have been available had the state been able to retain the full 4 percent, as the state lost Title I funds.240 In the meantime, an additional ten schools in Minnesota gained the status of being in need of improvement.241 During this same year, Georgia’s school improvement fund more than doubled because of an increase in overall Title I funds – yet ninety fewer schools were identified as being in need of improvement than in the previous year.242 It is difficult to see how a system intending to encourage school improvement nationwide can rationally support such disparate treatment.

Education inequality is the main driver of income inequality.

Baker 12 [Celia R. Baker, 12-27-2012, "Evidence says educational inequality is hurting the U.S. economy," DeseretNews, http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865569511/Evidence-says-educational-inequality-is-hurting-the-US-economy.html]

An expanding earnings gap in the United States is creating a chasm between the nation's wealthy few and its cash-strapped majority. And, it feeds off a growing divide in educational opportunities afforded to rich and poor kids, according to stories in The Atlantic magazine and The New York Times. The parallel expansion of those gaps could hobble U.S. economic growth, say studies by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Brookings Institution. Mind the gaps An analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows that income inequality has grown in most parts of the United States since the late 1970s. On average, incomes fell by close to 6 percent among the bottom fifth of households between the late 1990s and the mid-2000s, while rising by 8.6 percent among the top fifth. And, incomes grew even faster — by 14 percent — among the top 5 percent of households. During the same period, the educational achievement gap between rich kids and poor kids widened, too. That gap was 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born in 1976, according to a Stanford University study. The achievement gap between rich and poor students is twice as wide as the more well-known achievement gap between black and white students, the Stanford study showed. As the American Dream’s promise of upward mobility through personal effort drifts out of reach for growing throngs of young people, hope in a prosperous future dims for everyone. A new book by the Brookings Institution Press, “Inequality in America,” states that a growing number of economists “suspect that once inequality passes a certain point it may jeopardize economic stability and economic growth,” according to The New York Times. The U.S. is one of the major countries in which rising income inequality creates economic conditions that stifle upward mobility and make it harder for hard-working people to get the rewards they deserve, said a report for the OECD, a Paris-based international study group. While the U.S. spends more on education per pupil than many other countries, inequalities in school financing and disparities in parental resources create an uneven playing field for American students, according to an analysis of the OECD report by the Center for American Progress. Better rich than smart More than ever before, getting the kind of education that leads to a well-paying job and secure future in the United States is dependent on already having the advantages of wealth. It’s getting harder and harder for low- and middle-income kids — even those who test smarter than their wealthier peers — to tap into the learning opportunities they need to get ahead in life. Low-income students with above-average scores on eighth-grade tests have a college graduation rate of just 26 percent. That’s 4 percentage points lower than the college graduation rate for wealthy students with below-average test scores, according to data from The New York Times. Thirty years ago, a 31 percentage point spread separated the share of rich and poor students earning college degrees. That gap has since widened to 45 points. Poverty isn’t the only disadvantage faced by bright kids from poor backgrounds, The New York Times story said. At college, low-income students face competition from peers who grew up with perquisites many poor kids lack, such as preschools, tutors, summer camps, music lessons and stable, prosperous families. Low-income students often miss out on guidance from family members, can be easily swamped by mounting debts, and might feel pressure to contribute income toward their families. “The story of their lost footing is also the story of something larger — the growing role that education plays in preserving class divisions,” the story said. “Poor students have long trailed affluent peers in school performance, but from grade-school tests to college completion, the gaps are growing. With school success and earning prospects ever more entwined, the consequences carry far: education, a force meant to erode class barriers, appears to be fortifying them.” Massachusetts microcosm Massachusetts is home to America’s oldest school, Boston Latin, and oldest college, Harvard, and the state’s students place first in the U.S. Department of Education’s nationwide rankings. But, over the past 20 years, Massachusetts has also racked up the nation’s second-biggest increase in income inequality, according to the story in The Atlantic magazine. This, in a state that gave birth to education pioneer Horace Mann, who said in 1848 that “education, beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of the conditions of men.” Median incomes of families in Boston’s poorer suburbs have tumbled as factory jobs gave way to service industry jobs. Meanwhile, in the town's wealthy enclaves, hedge-fund managers tear down modest homes to build mansions supported by incomes that rose by 161 percent over the past two decades. The wealth and education of Massachusetts’ upper 20 percent hasn’t translated to overall economic health. The Massachusetts economy fared even worse than the national economy over the past decade, according to a report by the think tank MassINC, which cites inequality issues as integral to the problem. “A key component of the American Dream is to be able to secure and maintain a stable, good paying job that can support a family and be accompanied by health and retirement benefits,” said the MassINC report. “The poor job creation performance of the U.S. and Massachusetts economies over the past decade has led to fewer jobs that provide a middle-class standard of living, especially for men and women with no post-secondary degree.”

Economic inequality causes biodiversity loss.

Mikkelson et al 7 [Gregory M. Mikkleson (Professor at McGill School of Environment & Department of Philosophy), Andrew Gonzales (Biology associate at McGill School of Environment & Department of Philosophy), and Gary D. Peterson (Professor of Environmental Science, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University), “Economic Inequality Predicts Biodiversity Loss”, May 16, 2007, http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0000444&type=printable] SJ

Human activities have dramatically increased the rates of species and population extinction [1]. This directly undermines the richness and diversity of life on Earth [2,3], and indirectly threatens human welfare, e.g., through negative effects of species loss on ecosystem services [4,5]. The proximate causes of biodiversity loss are relatively well understood, with habitat destruction, climate change, biotic homogenization, resource extraction, and pollution the major factors [6,7]. However, the socioeconomic forces behind these biophysical drivers are poorly known [8]. While the sheer size of a country’s economy predicts its overall environmental impact reasonably well [9], little is known about how the distribution of wealth or income within an economy affects the environment. Olson [10] suggested that small groups with considerable inequality might favor the provision of a public good. The idea is that when the majority of the wealth is held by a few resource-users, it is in their interest to conserve regardless of what the poorer members of the group do. Some more recent theoretical analyses also support this perspective [11,12]. However, others suggest that inequality may hinder conservation [13,14], and empirical work has shown that inequality can thwart the collective action required for environmental protection [15] and public health [16]. Although these studies suggest a connection between inequality and environmental degradation, the sign and strength of the relationship with biodiversity remains unknown. We therefore used new high-quality data to test whether and how strongly inequality is linked to biodiversity loss. We examined two different spatial scales – entire countries, and states within the US – and used the Gini ratio of income inequality as our measure of economic inequality. This statistic, applied to households at the country scale and families at the state scale, can theoretically vary between 0 and 1. 0 would indicate that all of the households or families in a given society have exactly the same income, while 1 would mean that a single household or family earns all of the income, with no one else receiving any. Actual Gini ratios have ranged from 0.16 to 0.68 among different countries and years between 1960 and 1999 [17], and from 0.31 to 0.53 among different US states and years between 1969 and 1999 [18]. Our measure of biodiversity loss in countries is the number of plant and vertebrate species known to be threatened in 2004 [19]. We implicitly controlled for biophysical variables, such as area and climate, by including a variable that is highly correlated with them, namely the total number of plant and vertebrate species (again, in 2004). We explicitly controlled for two socioeconomic variables, human population size [20] and gross domestic product purchasing power parity (GDP PPP) per capita. GDP PPP is an adjusted version of the GDP, ensuring that each dollar ‘‘buys an equivalent amount of goods or services irrespective of the country.’’ [21] We also included the square of GDP PPP per capita in our analysis, to permit detection of the non-linear ‘‘environmental Kuznets’’ relationships that some have proposed for environmental impacts – first increasing, but then decreasing, with per capita GDP [22]. Finally, we allowed for a time lag between socioeconomic causes and biological effects, rather than using contemporary data for all variables. We chose 1989 for our socioeconomic data, since that is the year for which Gini ratios are available for the largest number of countries: 61 [17]. Missing information about variables other than inequality limited our final sample size to 45 countries. Together these countries cover 51% of the Earth’s land surface excluding Antarctica, and currently contain 62% of the world population and generate 71% of the gross world product [20,21]. As an indicator of biodiversity loss within US states, we used the number of permanent resident bird species with statistically significant declines in abundance (P-value,0.10) over the period covered in the breeding bird survey, 1966–2005 [23]. Permanent residents are presumably the species most affected by within-state socioeconomic conditions. We also controlled for the total number of permanent resident bird species in 2005, and human population size [24] and per capita income [25]. Again allowing for a time lag between socioeconomic causes and biological effects, our state inequality and per capita income data are for 1969, and population data for 1970 – the years for which these socioeconomic statistics are available and that are closest to the start of the bird monitoring period in 1966. For five states, our sources lack information about one or more of the variables in our analysis. So our sample size at this scale is also 45, with these 45 states collectively extending over 91% of the US land surface, containing 97% of its human population, and accounting for 97% of its total income [24,25]. We used multiple regression to analyze the data described above. Analysis of residuals warranted the use of a power model at the country scale. This accords with previous studies finding power relationships between countries’ biophysical and socioeconomic characteristics and their environmental impacts [9,26]. For US states, residual analysis warranted a linear model. See Materials and methods for more detail. RESULTS Among both countries and states, we found striking relationships between income inequality and biodiversity loss. As Figure 1 shows, societies with more unequal distributions of income experience greater losses of biodiversity. After other variables have been taken into account, the country-level Gini ratio of household income inequality in 1989 has a highly significant power relationship with the number of threatened plant and vertebrate species in 2004 (P = 6.461026 ). The estimated inequality exponent is 1.76, which means that a 1% increase in the Gini ratio is associated with an almost 2% rise in the number of threatened species. Inequality is even more significant (P = 1.161026 ) after removing statistical outliers (Brazil, Jamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, and New Zealand). Alternative models confirm this link between economic inequality and biodiversity loss (see Table 1 and Materials and methods). Among US states, the Gini ratio of family income inequality in 1969 has a significant linear relationship, after controlling for other variables, with the number of permanent resident bird species that experienced significant declines in abundance between 1966 and 2005 (P = 0.02 for inequality). Once again, this result is robust to the exclusion of outliers (California, Maryland, New York, South Carolina, Texas, and Washington; P-value of inequality = 4.061023 ), and confirmed by alternative models. Among both countries and states, inequality remains significant if the percentage of extant species that are threatened or declining, rather than the raw number of threatened or declining species, is used as the dependent variable (P = 6.461026 and 0.02, respectively). We tested the appropriateness of our socioeconomic variables in two ways. First, we tried all possible time lags for which our data allow a sample size of at least 20. The results support our original choices of time lag, and indicate how the strength of the relationship between economic inequality and biodiversity loss varies across different time lags. For most time lags, this relationship is stronger than those found between biodiversity loss and either human population size or affluence. See Table S1 in the supplementary information for more information. Second, we checked how well changes over time in socioeconomic variables, rather than values at a single time, explain biodiversity loss. Except for the change in per capita GDP at the country level, such changes do not correlate significantly with threatened or declining species (P-value of change in inequality = 0.16 for countries and 0.98 for US states). Finally, we did one more check on the robustness of our results at the country scale, and one more on the appropriateness of our dependent variable at the US state scale. For countries, we tested whether inequality remains significant after controlling for geography, and for the demise of communist regimes. Dummy variables were used to indicate whether a country is in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, or Latin America; and whether it is excommunist or not. (An additional dummy variable for North America was not required, since only one country in our analysis – the US – is in that continent.) In a power model with the biophysical and socioeconomic variables used in the main analysis, plus the five geographic and one historical dummy variable just mentioned, the Gini ratio in 1989 still has a statistically significant, positive relationship with the number of threatened species in 2004 (P = 0.03). For states, we tested whether a measure of biodiversity gain, rather than loss, has any relationship with economic inequality. (No comparable statistics on biodiversity gain are available at the country scale.) After controlling for other variables, the Gini ratio in 1969 has a negative linear relationship with the number of permanent resident bird species that experienced significantly positive trends in abundance 1966–2005. Although this negative relationship is not statistically significant (P = 0.19), it rules out the possibility that unequal states might simply have greater species turnover than more equal states. If inequality only increased gross turnover, rather than net biodiversity loss, then both declining and increasing species would be positively correlated with inequality. DISCUSSION We have thus demonstrated a striking correlation between economic inequality and biodiversity loss. While our findings cohere with previous work showing links between inequality and human health [16], they contrast with previous research suggesting that the overall size of an economy (i.e., population times per capita GDP or income) is the primary driver of environmental impacts [9,26]. According to one cross-country analysis of per capita GDP and threatened species, the numbers of threatened species in most taxa follow a U-shaped pattern: first falling, but then rising, with increasing per capita GDP [26]. This is the opposite of the hump-shaped ‘‘environmental Kuznets’’ relationship expected by many economists between affluence and its environmental impacts. We used very similar data on threatened and total species; and we also allowed for detection of monotonic, U- shaped, and hump-shaped relationships; by adding a quadratic term for GDP PPP per capita. Nevertheless, we did not find any such patterns. This may be partly due to sample size (45 countries in our analysis, as opposed to more than 100 [26]). But the previous study also did not include inequality, or allow for a time lag between socioeconomic causes and biological effects, as we have. Future research could test the generality of the link between economic equality and biological diversity, e.g., by examining states or provinces in countries other than the US. Further studies are also needed to establish the degree to which this link arises from common influences on both variables vs. direct effects of equality on biodiversity. In this analysis, we took two steps toward proving a direct causal relationship. First, we controlled for several likely common causes, and second, we incorporated time lags that are more realistic than any instantaneous effect of equality on biodiversity would be. Controlling for other potentially confounding variables – e.g., the degree to which different societies are governed democratically – could further test the extent to which this relationship is causal. But perhaps most importantly, future studies should explore possible mechanisms

Biodiversity loss causes extinction.

Jackson 12 [Ross, PhD in operations research at Case Western, Masters in Industrial management at Purdue, Chairman of GAIA Trust, Ex-Independent IT consultant and software designer specializing in international finance. “Occupy World Street” http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=YfpyNxdvu4IC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=occupy+wall+street+marxism+criticism&ots=VgS8nTrZ1B&sig=-ZkZnlymqND7x5Lb8UecwY1fcjM]

A substantial majority of scientists agree that the world is currently undergoing the sixth known extinction of species, the most recent being when the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteor crashing into the earth.' While the previous five extinctions were spurred by volcanic eruptions, meteor impacts, and other exogenous causes, the current one has been brought on by human actions. Species extinction is another example of ecosystem reaction to overload, and is potentially fatal for humankind, as we are dependent on other plant and animal species for our own survival. A number of biologists have predicted that up to one-fifth of all living species could disappear within 30 years, and that if present trends continue, one-half of all species of life on earth will be extinct in less than 100 years, including one-third of the mammal population as a result of habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, and climate change. Daniel Simberloff.a University of Tennessee ecologist and prominent expert in biological diversity, says, "The speed at which species are being lost is much faster than any we've seen in the past— including those [extinctions) related to meteor collisions." One of the major direct causes is loss of habitat as humans take over more and more of the space previously occupied by other species as population grows. Hunting, logging, overfishing, and pollution have also caused significant losses. Many species of birds, frogs, and other animals sensitive to toxins have fallen to pollution. Other life-forms can be very sensitive to subtle changes caused by increasing CO, levels. For example, coral reefs are dying on account of a complex of factors, including small temperature and acidity changes in the oceans, while the polar bear's time is running out as the arctic ice melts. Many plants and insects are disappearing without us even noticing, as are many microorganisms in soils that are depleted by chemical agriculture. These extinctions are going to have serious consequences for humanity. It is impossible to predict specifically how this ongoing mass-extinction event will affect the human population other than to say that it will be severely negative. The problem is that natural systems are complex, deeply interconnected, and far beyond our capability to understand. A species that disappears may have unpredictable effects on the whole food chain, all the way up to humans at the top. Biodiversity is not just about pleasant experiences of humankind in nature, but is about resilience, robustness, and redundancy in the face of change—it is nature's immune system. When we weaken biodiversity, we increase the likelihood of some aspect of nature going off in an entirely unexpected direction that is potentially fatal for humankind, for example, mutations and cell crossovers leading to new kinds of dangerous bacteria and viruses, or perhaps fatal attacks on crops or domesticated animals that we are dependent upon for food.

Educational inequality destroys democracy – it’s the foundation of effective political citizenry.

Chen 15 [Amy Yun­Ping Chen (Visiting Faculty in the Department of Education at Lindenwood University, PhD, St. Louis University), “Educational Inequality: An Impediment to True Democracy in the United States”, Sociology Study, May 2015, Vol. 5, No. 5, 382‐390, http://www.davidpublisher.org/Public/uploads/Contribute/55f62bc2bf7b8.pdf]

EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY AND FAILURE OF DEMOCRACY The Collapse of Equal Opportunity The ultimate aim of democracy and education is to meet the need for freedom, liberty, and equality for all (Allen and Reich 2013; Barber 2001; Dewey 1916; Gutmann 1999; Gutmann 2001; Noddings 2013). A true democracy never advocates segregation and inequality with regard to race and class. On the contrary, many American children grow up without the skills and knowledge they need to thrive in the contemporary era due to relentless inequalities. Racial and socioeconomic discrimination has the ability to distinguish two types of citizens, privileged and unprivileged, which contradicts the core notion of democratic education. Education is the major pillar upon which the future of the United States rests (Allen and Reich 2013; Dewey 1916; Gutmann 1999). It is constructed for the public good, and everyone should share in it equally. Schools should produce educated citizens who are capable of changing the destiny of a country and creating better opportunities for future generations. In order to help schools deliver high-quality education to every child, state governments and civic society must provide sufficient educational resources, equal public funding appropriations, and equal educational opportunities. With the aid of such support, schools will be able to help children develop their knowledge of democracy, prepare them for citizenship, and gain professional skills. However, the persistent failures of urban education and repeated efforts to change the problematic situations have shaped many of the educational policies and reforms over time. Unfortunately, the realities of racial segregation, educational inequalities, high dropout rates, low academic achievement, and insufficient resources have remained constant and have become complex challenges (Duncan and Murnane 2014; Lipman 2003; Ravitch 2010). These crises are deeply embedded in the intersection of racial oppression and socioeconomic inequality. Public school funding comes from state and local sources, and nearly half of the money is derived from local taxes. This generates a large gap between wealthy and poor communities. The subject of poverty is often associated with race; hence, low-income minority students are the most affected by social and educational inequalities and face severe discrimination in their daily lives (Nieto 2005; Nieto and Bode 2008; Ravitch 2010; Ravitch 2013; Sleeter 2007). Take an in-depth instance, the current state of educational inequity in the Saint Louis Region, as represented by the Normandy School District which exemplifies the failure of urban education in regard to poverty and race. In the 2014 demographic profile of Normandy School District, nearly 98% of the student population was Black, and 91.5% of the students received free and reduced lunch plans (Department of Elementary & Secondary Education Missouri [DESE] 2014). Many city residents invest in the outcomes of students in high-income and White-dominated areas. Numerous educational resources and sufficient funding bolster the schools in these high-property districts. In contrast, the Normandy School District usually faces limited educational support which negatively impacts student performance. Loss of accreditation also forces the district to close schools, which takes away from students’ educational opportunities. And the gap between low-income minority students and students of other racial and class groups becomes wider. Since the early 1970s, the public has resisted the idea of racial integration and presently individual and parental choices in education increase the gap between racial and socioeconomic groups (Bartlett et al. 2002; Ravitch 2010; Ravitch 2013). Many low-income minority students have lost equal access for quality education. Citizens neglect the notion of public good and the goal of democracy (Barber 1993). Such ignorance and egotistical behavior among residents of urban areas destroy the progress of democratic education in inner-city public schools (Bartlett et al. 2002; Beal and Hendry 2012; Lipman 2003; Nieto 2005; Ravitch 2010; Ravitch 2013). The fundamental concept of democracy aims to offer equal access to all members of society and to ensure that they are empowered to make a good life for themselves and establish the public good for the country. Quality education is a method to eliminate poverty and encourage the engine of shared prosperity for generations of Americans. When education improves the preparation and productivity of young members of the community, it increases the wealth of the country and leads many people to their American dreams. Nevertheless, the persistent and long-standing educational inequalities are an obstacle for the United States becoming a nation with true democracy and equal liberty. Thus, democracy becomes a superficial aspect and a beautiful bubble, and it is not realized in practice. The Collapse of Political Responsibility Hochschild and Scovronick (2003) stated, “Education also powerfully affects people’s involvement with politics and their community, thereby creating another link between the nested structure of inequalities in schooling and the American dream” (Hochschild and Scovronick 2003: 24). Well-educated members of the community largely understand their obligation as participants in a democratic society, and they likely know current political facts and participate in political activities. The virtue of education in a democracy is that it tends to prepare children for citizenship and to foster in them the knowledge necessary for them to function in a civic society. But today in the United States, only some Americans fully exercise their political rights, and these are often citizens with high incomes, high socioeconomic statuses, and high levels of formal education. According to the American Political Science Association Taskforce (2005): In 1990, nearly nine out of 10 individuals in families with incomes over $75,000 reported voting in presidential elections, while only half of those in families with incomes under $15,000 reported voting. Fifty-six percent (56%) of those with incomes of at least $75,000 reported participating in political campaign activities, compared with a mere 6% among Americans with incomes under $15,000. (American Political Science Association Taskforce 2005: 80-81) The evidence indicates that there is a significant correlation between income status and the practice of citizenship. Americans with higher socioeconomic status usually enjoy not only higher educational achievement and salaries, but also have greater resources and skills to engage in politics and organizations. Education provides opportunities for Americans to acquire knowledge of democracy and to recognize their duty as members of a democratic society. Nevertheless, educational inequalities can lead to disparities in resources and skills between privileged and unprivileged people. The situation demolishes the goal of promoting democracy. The voices of U.S. citizens are heard unequally, and collective decisions respond much more to the privileged than to people of average means. The gap of inequality will increase. Instead of making progress, U.S. politics will continue to involve exclusion and unfairness, which strongly distorts the primary framework of democracy. The Collapse of Common Good Hochschild and Scovronick (2003) stated, “Achieving one’s dream would not be possible past one generation, or for many even within the first generation, if the ideology of the American dream did not include prescriptions for pursuing collective goals” (Hochschild and Scovronick 2003: 13). Achieving the American dream and establishing a successful democratic nation require the transmission of knowledge, resources, and skills with great frequency (Allen and Reich 2013; Noddlings 2013). All members of the society should have an intellectually challenging education, including the necessary human and material resources. Schools must provide equal opportunity for all children and cultivate them to be effective contributors to their communities and should promote collaboration for the common good. Sadly, racial segregation and socioeconomic differentiation in schools push away the practices of equal opportunity and integration (Carter and Welner 2013; Duncan and Murnane 2014; Kozol 2006; Nieto 2005). Children from poor or minority families struggle with more problems related to socioeconomic constraints and racial discrimination. The current social, educational, and economic conditions are making wealthy people wealthier and poor people poorer and widening wage gaps between classes. Also, employment still largely depends on the levels of education and skills acquired (Lareau 2003; Lipman 2003). This causes many low-income people to be unable to meet their expenses even if they are working day and night. The power of this reality destroys the goal of U.S. democracy and the creation of common good. Individual and parental choices in education increase the rate of segregation and reduce the spirit of integration and collaboration (Beal and Hendry 2012; Ravitch 2013). Upper- and middle-class parents opt to send their children to schools that match their social status or are dominated by their racial groups (Holme 2002; Lareau 2000; Lee and Bowen 2006). This makes it difficult for the government to prepare future generations for diversity and collaboration. Homogenous environments cannot help children to open themselves up and understand the notion of collaboration and the respect of individual differences (Holme 2002; Lareau 2003; Nieto and Bode 2008). Furthermore, choice allows the government to allocate educational resources unequally and encourages negative perceptions of selection to certain school districts. This leaves many low-income minority students behind and deprives them of educational opportunities. The United States is a nation composed of diverse racial and ethnic populations. Everyone in the nation should be proud to reflect that through establishing equal opportunity and harmonious collaboration. Benjamin Franklin stated, “Younger people (should be) equipped to function as economically independent and politically sophisticated citizens” (as cited in L. Pangle and T. Pangle 2000: 29). Harmony, integration, and common interests are the major elements needed for a democratic society to flourish. The purpose of U.S. education is to prepare our children to reach common goals with adequate skills and knowledge, which assist them in developing a better future and nation (Allen and Reich 2013; Barber 2001; Goodland et al. 2004; Gutmann 1999; Gutmann 2001). However, racial segregation in schools, class discrimination, and growing educational inequality and inequity not only widen the gap between different racial and class groups, but also deepen the prejudiced attitudes and negative biases that work to further such situations in the first place. In essence, they threaten the goals of democracy, demolish collaborative opportunity, and ruin the aims of the common interest. CONCLUSIONS The core principles of U.S. education are supposed to include quality of educational opportunity and establishment of an equitable outcome. The principles should not advocate for a Race to the Top, a competition, or be a matter of individual choice with privileged sectors. U.S. education consistently needs to ensure the delivery of reliable, dependable, and equitable public services. The goal of the United States as a democratic society should be to provide an equal quality education to all children, so each of them has an equal chance to succeed in the world and promote the common good for the country. Current educational reforms emphasize only high-stakes testing, test-based accountability, individual competition, and school choice, which all create a sense of crisis for racial segregation and class discrimination and lead to growing injustice in regard to educational opportunity. U.S. democracy is an ideal dream that offers possibilities for each citizen according to achievement and ability, free from racism, classism, and discrimination. Public education has been a primary mechanism for U.S. democracy, and it is also a reflection of society. Inferior education will eventually ruin our children, society, and nation. Nevertheless, education is the long-term solution for supporting social justice and fighting inequality. Children need to be equipped with adequate knowledge, critical thinking and judgment skills, and a sense of obligation and ethics. Both the government and the people share responsibility to give an equal chance and quality education to future generations, regardless of whether the child is from a wealthy or poor family or whether the child is White or Black. Education is a universal means of achieving other relative human rights, the protection of which is a core element of democracy. It can empower a country’s economy and society. Preventing racial and class inequality in social and educational sectors is of utmost importance. True democracy always opposes educational inequality.

U.S. democratic decline spills over globally – it’s fragile now.

Gallagher 16 [Adam Gallagher, 12-11-2016, "Global Democracy in the Trump Era: Will the U.S. Abandon Its Leadership Role?," American Prospect, http://prospect.org/article/global-democracy-trump-era-will-us-abandon-its-leadership-role]

Troubling as democratic backsliding may be in these parts of the world, the erosion of basic freedoms in Europe and the United States is arguably even more dangerous. Trump’s election and the emergence of the nationalist far-right in Europe should disabuse us of the notion that once a liberal democracy has been “consolidated,” as political scientists put it, it is here to stay. It no longer holds that once democratic institutions, a vibrant civil society, and certain level of wealth are established, democracy is secure. If anything, liberal democracies around the world are in a more precarious position than is often believed, argue Harvard University Lecturer Yascha Mounk and University of Melbourne political scientist Roberto Stefan Foa in a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Democracy. Their research demonstrates that the U.S. and Europe are exhibiting the same declines in public support for democracy, public openness to nondemocratic forms of government, and the same growing support for “antisystem” parties and movements, as newer emerging democracies. Democratic backsliding in the U.S., aggravated by the president-elect’s own inflammatory and unsubstantiated claims about what actually occurred on Election Day, presents a special hazard to democratic norms internationally. The U.S. has historically played a vital role in advancing global democracy. To be sure, American democracy faces its own serious problems—for example, economic inequality is worse in the United States than in Turkmenistan, host to one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Nevertheless, in the 1980s and ‘90s, as the Soviet Union crumbled, many in the world looked to the American system as a model of prosperity and liberty. In the 1980s, the U.S. founded organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy to promote democracy internationally. The political and financial support of the United States and its European allies played a decisive role in the “Third Wave” described by Huntington.

Global democracy solves nuclear war – it’s the greatest force for peace.

Muravchik 1 [Joshua Muravchik, resident scholar The American Enterprise Institute, July 11-14, 2001
http://www.npec-web.org/syllabi/muravchik.htm]

The greatest impetus for world peace -- and perforce of nuclear peace -- is the spread of democracy. In a famous article, and subsequent book, Francis Fukuyama argued that democracy's extension was leading to "the end of history." By this he meant the conclusion of man's quest for the right social order, but he also meant the "diminution of the likelihood of large-scale conflict between states." (1) Fukuyama's phrase was intentionally provocative, even tongue-in-cheek, but he was pointing to two down-to-earth historical observations: that democracies are more peaceful than other kinds of government and that the world is growing more democratic. Neither point has gone unchallenged. Only a few decades ago, as distinguished an observer of international relations as George Kennan made a claim quite contrary to the first of these assertions. Democracies, he said, were slow to anger, but once aroused "a democracy . . . . fights in anger . . . . to the bitter end." (2) Kennan's view was strongly influenced by the policy of "unconditional surrender" pursued in World War II. But subsequent experience, such as the negotiated settlements America sought in Korea and Vietnam proved him wrong. Democracies are not only slow to anger but also quick to compromise. And to forgive. Notwithstanding the insistence on unconditional surrender, America treated Japan and that part of Germany that it occupied with extraordinary generosity. In recent years a burgeoning literature has discussed the peacefulness of democracies. Indeed the proposition that democracies do not go to war with one another has been described by one political scientist as being "as close as anything we have to an empirical law in international relations." (3) Some of those who find enthusiasm for democracy off-putting have challenged this proposition, but their challenges have only served as empirical tests that have confirmed its robustness. For example, the academic Paul Gottfried and the columnist-turned-politician Patrick J. Buchanan have both instanced democratic England's declaration of war against democratic Finland during World War II. (4) In fact, after much procrastination, England did accede to the pressure of its Soviet ally to declare war against Finland which was allied with Germany. But the declaration was purely formal: no fighting ensued between England and Finland. Surely this is an exception that proves the rule. That Freedom House could count 120 freely elected governments by early 2001 (out of a total of 192 independent states) bespeaks a vast transformation in human governance within the span of 225 years. In 1775, the number of democracies was zero. In 1776, the birth of the United States of America brought the total up to one. Since then, democracy has spread at an accelerating pace, most of the growth having occurred within the twentieth century, with greatest momentum since 1974. That this momentum has slackened somewhat since its pinnacle in 1989, destined to be remembered as one of the most revolutionary years in all history, was inevitable. So many peoples were swept up in the democratic tide that there was certain to be some backsliding. Most countries' democratic evolution has included some fits and starts rather than a smooth progression. So it must be for the world as a whole. Nonetheless, the overall trend remains powerful and clear. Despite the backsliding, the number and proportion of democracies stands higher today than ever before. This progress offers a source of hope for enduring nuclear peace. The danger of nuclear war was radically reduced almost overnight when Russia abandoned Communism and turned to democracy. For other ominous corners of the world, we may be in a kind of race between the emergence or growth of nuclear arsenals and the advent of democratization. If this is so, the greatest cause for worry may rest with the Moslem Middle East where nuclear arsenals do not yet exist but where the prospects for democracy may be still more remote.