This Week:

Quote of the Week

The Market Could Solve the CA Energy Crisis

No Pledge Drive, and Here's Why

Please Send Addresses of Possible Subscribers
Arbitrary Corporate Giving

Greetings,

I am fully aware that the "look" of this newsletter on email is quite dull. To increase your reading pleasure, you could subscribe to the paper version, which is quite attractive if I do say so myself. Alternatively, you could go to the Nygaard Notes website (address at end of this email). Webmaster extraordinaire JD Walker has really done an outstanding job of making the site readable and attractive if I do say so myself (on behalf of him). You can print it from the site, and it would look a lot nicer than it does in email, I think.

I hope people don't think that I have some vendetta against Target stores. Although it may seem like I am picking on that successful corporation, I want to stress that I use them only as an example, and that they are not a particularly "bad" corporation. The reason they are a good example is that they ARE successful, and they are successful because they act in ways that successful corporations have to work, given the way the system is set up.

Welcome to the new readers this week. As I always say, this is not a "typical" issue of Nygaard Notes. There is no such thing. But it is certainly rare to have two articles about the Notes themselves, as I do this week. Next week will be totally different. You'll see. In any case, I'm glad you are with us!

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week:

"In 1999, for the first time, the poor were more likely than the rich to have their tax returns audited, as the IRS followed orders from Congress to examine the working poor who apply for a special credit."

-- from a New York Times report, reprinted on page A6 of the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) of February 16th.

The Market Could Solve the California Energy Crisis

The story of Target and its school that appeared in this space two weeks ago is a handy metaphor for the Free Market as a whole. If you read some of the many recent commentaries on the energy crisis in California, you will find numerous opinion-makers who remind us that a "fully-deregulated" system in that state would not be having shortages. And how would this happen?

Utilities would simply raise the price of electricity until poor people were forced out of "the market." Eventually, the only people left in "the market" for energy would be those who were able and willing to buy power at the higher price. The people who couldn't pay their bills, and therefore had their power cut off, would no longer be in "the market." Voila! – no more shortages. This is the Miracle of the Market.

No Pledge Drive, and Here's Why

I said on February 2nd that "Later this month will be the bi-annual Nygaard Notes Pledge drive, so get those checkbooks ready!" Well, put those checkbooks away for a while, as I am not going to bother you with a financial appeal for a few months. "Why not?" I can hear you asking.

It's not that complicated. The whole point of the pledge drive, at this point, is to free up more time for me to do a better job on the Notes. (Better than it already is? Yes.) Eighty percent of the money that people pledge to support Nygaard Notes goes into a fund from which I "pay" myself. Depending on how much that is, that is how much less I have to work at my "day jobs" for pay, meaning that is how much more time I have to do a better job on Nygaard Notes. The remaining twenty percent goes to buy office supplies, stamps, research materials, etc.

The reality is that, while I am working as an editor of Access Press, which will be for a few more months yet (until the real editor returns to the saddle), I really don't have any extra time to put in working on the Notes. So what's the point of asking for more money? I will say that, in the interim, I will be scheming and plotting various ways to improve the Notes, so when I do another pledge drive, sometime in August or September probably, I will have some clear ideas about how to use the extra time that your generous support will give me.

Just as a point of interest, I have been approached a couple of times to sell advertising in Nygaard Notes. That's never going to happen. That would be very un-Nygaardian, as long-time readers can imagine. I expect and plan to eventually have enough readers to pay my wages, which will be modest, and to make this publication more influential and sustainable.

This is a good time to say a heartfelt THANK YOU to those of you who have already pledged your support to the Notes. I really do think of you every time I send out the latest issue. As for the rest of you, you may want to start budgeting now for the generous contribution you will want to make to support Nygaard Notes when the time comes.

Please Send Addresses of Possible Subscribers

I may not have a need for money right now, but I do have a need for new subscribers. So here is my simple request: Please send me as many names and addresses as possible of people you know who might like Nygaard Notes. Many of you have said that you have been meaning to do this. Now's the time!

There are three main reasons why I want Nygaard Notes to have more subscribers:

1. First of all, I think lots of people who haven't seen Nygaard Notes would like it, and would possibly find it useful as they go about their business of trying to understand the world and then to change it.

2. The more subscribers there are, the more clout the Notes will have as I try to go about my business of investigating things. More people will return my calls and emails, more people will send me interesting information, I'll get invited to more conferences and stuff so I can report to you on what goes on. Et cetera.

3. There is also a financial aspect for you here: The more readers that the Notes has, the less money per reader will I have to strive for in my attempt to make a living from the project.

What Will Happen If You Send Names?

When you send me a name and address, I send a letter to your friend/acquaintance saying something like, "[Your name] told me that you might enjoy receiving Nygaard Notes, so I am putting you on the subscription list. If you would prefer not to get it, just reply to this email saying ‘Unsubscribe' and I will take you off." Then I describe the Notes a little bit, and they start getting it.

A very high percentage of the people who get on the list in this way seem to stay on it. When people unsubscribe, I take them off the list immediately, no questions asked. "E-Z on, E-Z off," as the freeway signs say.

And, by the way, no subscriber to Nygaard Notes will ever end up on any other mailing lists as a result of being on the Nygaard Notes list. I wouldn't do that and, besides, can you imagine any marketing department being interested in the Nygaard Notes mailing list?

Most people get Nygaard Notes via email, but if you know someone who doesn't have email, send me their regular mail address, and I'll send them a few free copies.

Arbitrary Corporate Giving

1. All the citizens of your state use a democratic process to decide on funding levels for your public schools, then impose a progressive income tax at a rate sufficient to pay the costs of providing a good education for all children, or:

2. Your state funds an increasing percentage of the costs of schooling by getting citizens to agree to direct one percent of their credit card purchases to "the school of their choice," in return for which everyone gets a reduction in income taxes.

It doesn't matter which one you Minnesotans chose. Our state has already decided to move in the direction of Number 2. Here's the story:

Schools all over are facing funding shortfalls, and Minnesota-based retailer Target Stores is among the corporations which have decided to step in and help fill the gap. I wrote two weeks ago about the Target Corporation and its relationship with the Mill City Montessori school. This week I want to consider the fact that Target also has supplied, as of Valentine's Day, $34,669,378 in other "donations for our schools."

Let it be known that Target does not fund just any old school. They fund "the school of your choice." In The World of Target, each individual gets to "target" their "donation" to their own kids' school. And the individuals who get to "choose" are, of course, Target shoppers, who are no longer called "shoppers," but are now known as "guests." And they only get to "choose" if they use their Target Guest Cards (formerly known as "credit cards").

Some might see this program as "generous" on the part of Target, but I find it quite disturbing, as it reinforces the trend away from publicly-accountable spending financed through taxation (see Choice #1, above), and toward arbitrary corporate giving which is accountable only to corporate leadership. The story of Mill City Montessori that I told two weeks ago illustrates what I mean when I say "arbitrary corporate giving."

Here's how Target describes how their "School Fundraising" program works: "Target will donate an amount equal to 1% of your qualifying Target Guest Card purchases to the eligible K-12 school of your choice." (For those keeping track, that means that Target "Guests" have charged more than $3.6 billion dollars to their accounts.) More than 104,000 K-12 schools across the country are actively participating in "School Fundraising," and more than 4 million "Guests" have designated a school.

Here are some comments and questions about the "School Fundraising" program that you won't find in the Target promotional materials:

1. In contrast with school funding that comes from taxes, the payment of which is required of all citizens, Target's "support" for schools is a function of purchases at Target, making it a sort of voluntary sales "tax." Is this how we want to fund our schools?

2. It's likely that the schools attended by the children of "Target Parents" will be the major, if not the only, beneficiaries of the program, despite the fact that they are no more deserving of good schools than the children of parents who shop elsewhere. How about those Wal-Mart Parents? Or, stretch your mind and consider who might be "Thrift Store Parents."

3. What makes a school "eligible?" We don't know, but we do know that "Some restrictions apply" to the donations. Those restrictions are not specified in the Target promotional material.

4. The company is quite clear that "Target stores reserves (sic) the right to discontinue or alter the terms of this program at any time." This is the "arbitrary giving" part that fundamentally distinguishes private funding from public funding.

Education As A Right

Every society has a need for its children to learn how to live in the world. Much of this learning goes on regardless of the efforts (or lack of effort) on the part of the adults in the society, but there is also a role for deliberate and conscious teaching. The question raised by the increasing privatization of "public" education is "Who is responsible for educating our children?" Increasingly in the United States, the answer seems to be private corporations.

Let me stress again that I am focusing on Target Stores simply because it is a local example, and thus easy to research. There's nothing special about Target; examples of increased privatization of public schooling are everywhere. Consider the horrid Channel One "News" programming – a mandatory 12-minute in-class "news" program loaded with advertising. How about those Pepsi and Coke contracts that schools sign so they can get the money to pay for otherwise-too-costly school programs? Corporate logos are starting to appear on the sides of school buses, and my friend Rob's daughter Kelly was recently dismayed to learn that a school calendar that she needed to have was adorned with corporate logos, as well. I'll bet you can think of your own examples. Target is not the problem; the commercialization of our culture and the transformation of students from kids into consumers is the problem. And it's not an abstract problem.

Is education a privilege that is awarded to children based on their membership in certain groups which have access to the resources to provide it? Or is education a basic right which our society is responsible for providing to all, equally? If you think it is a right, then you should oppose the increased private funding of public schools, since it will inevitably give more rights to some than others. That's not fair, and it's not right.