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Comment by jorblumesea | Hacker News Reader

The biggest danger to the flyover states is the states themselves. While investment in education remains high, the future doesn't look great. Top tier state research universities are seeing their budgets slashed and faculty poached by the ivys. Declining tax base, reduced federal funding and sadly an anti intellectual voter base will destroy the advancement opportunity of the middle class and hurt American R&D. The coasts meanwhile continue to pour money into investment and state schools.

Excellent article on the issue: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/midwest...

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Anti-intellectual is an odd criticism to level at the Midwest. The Midwest has some of the highest performing (by NAEP math scores) education systems in the country (Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas). Some of the strongest growing states, like California, have among the worst.

The article doesn’t support your statement either. It’s basically a comparison of funding at Midwestern public schools versus expensive coastal private schools. E.g. they compare the endowments of midwestern publics to Harvard, etc., while leaving out U Chicago and Northwestern. Your last point is also wrong. Out of the handful of 5 states that spent more on universities in 2017 than 2008, 3 are in the Midwest. Most states cut funding, with no noticible pattern of the Midwest cutting more than the costs. MN cut about the same as MA and CT, IA and MO cut about the same as NJ.

The anti-intellectual image is due to the voters of those states. They consistently vote against personal freedoms due to their religiousness, vote against spending money for fellow citizen’s healthcare and education and infrastructure, but are for spending on military, subsidizing stadiums for sports, and tax cuts for corporations. All while claiming they’re fiscally conservative, but actually adding to the deficit.

They are anti net neutrality, anti efforts to combat climate change, and anti marijuana, but pro spending on police and pro asset forfeiture. Also, their legislators have had problems with teaching evolution and/or have wanted to introduce religion into public schools.

It's really an urban vs rural/suburban divide though, but enough to paint basically the states that vote Republican as backwards, because almost every time there a political issue coming up, they seem to be on the opposite side of where most young professionals, especially in science related fields are.

You've shown that many midwesterners are anti-progressive, but that is not the same thing as anti-intellectual. Furthermore, the optics of where they stand relative to young professionals in the sciences are just that - optics that don't necessarily reflect anything. Consider student movements in the past that haven't gone anywhere or were really misguided in hindsight (there are enough).

My response is in the context of anti intellectualism being an odd criticism for why tech startups might not consider Midwest. There are other factors of course, but my reasons, in my experience, are big reasons why employees tech startups would want don't want the Midwest due to anti intellectualism.

I'd argue that it's both anti-progressive and anti-intellectual. I live in a stereotypical flyover area, and the sentiment is spot on. People vote against things that would clearly help them, because that's what everyone at church is doing.

This isn't an overstatement either. I know these people. Their opinions are what someone told them to think. Almost completely void of logic. Fox news said some shit, so it must be true! This sounds exaggerated. It isn't.

Some guy was running for office and totally did the "Jesus, show me the way" campaign. Crosses on his election signs, the whole nine yards. He was neck in neck with the incumbent (who was well liked, I might add) just based on this crap. Until he got arrested for nearly beating a guy to death. Not very Jesus of him, is it?

I live in a stereotypical flyover area, and the sentiment is spot on.

As have I, and the sentiment is a silly caricature.

People vote against things that would clearly help them, because that's what everyone at church is doing.

Can you list some of these things?

As far as I can tell, the progressive legislative agenda has done nil to help anyone in the flyover country. Obamacare is a disaster, factories have been shuttered because they can't compete in a globalized economy (neither the left or right are at fault here), and progressive cultural values do not align with the moral and ethical stances of these people.

Not to mention, they are continually mocked, condescended too, and made fun of by coastal elites.

This isn't an overstatement either. I know these people.

I know them too, and you've painted a caricature.

Their opinions are what someone told them to think. Almost completely void of logic. Fox news said some shit, so it must be true! This sounds exaggerated. It isn't.

Oh, like almost every mainstream liberal that I know? CNN, ABC or MSNBC told them some shit, so it must be true.

So some crazy guy ran for office and lost. What's your point?

> problems with teaching evolution

This is literally the only thing in your whole list that is "anti-intellectual". Everything else just stems from a different set of values than your own.

I've lived on the Midwest pretty much my whole life and Illinois and Minnesota are generally Democrat states with large city populations. The other state I've lived in, Iowa, historically has been pretty tolerant (but that is changing recently) and was the fourth state to legalize gay marriage. I know people from a lot of small towns where they were taught evolution and were not anti-intellectual at all. The Midwest covers an absolutely huge area and while some people follow this stereotype probably the majority of people in the Midwest don't.

You're just describing political positions you disagree with. Nothing you said is disproportionately midwestern. I'd need to see polls to believe that they hold these positions. Midwest has been pretty purple in many of the past elections.

How has the midwest show themselves to be anti net neutrality? How have they shown themselves to be anti marijuana? Illinois and Michigan are in talks of legalizing it, and already have very light penalties on having it in small amounts. Subsidizing stadiums for sport? St Louis just lost the Rams to LA for refusing to build a stadium.

I think you need to stop painting anyone that has voted Republican in the past decade as a political enemy. Most of those issues you stated don't even seem that partisan.

Could we please not take this discussion right into the same old tired partisan politics?

Three of the top ten richest public universities in the United states, by endowment, are in the Midwest, potentially 5 if you want to count Pennsylvania as part of the Midwest (4 if you count Pittsburgh, 5 if you count Pittsburgh and Penn State)[0]. These are definitionally the university systems that don't require much state funding, and I'm perfectly happy having my state not spend a ridiculous amount on a university worth more than 1/6 of the entire state budget for the year. To reinforce the comment I'm responding to: Minnesota is #9 on that list and that's one of the states that cut funding. Clearly they're doing ok still.

To the anti-intellectual point, I would argue that while rural voters in Michigan might be somewhat anti-intellectual, they clearly get drowned out by the pro-intellectuals in the urban areas. Take a look at a county-by-county breakdown of voting sometime -- the entire state is red except for 4 or 5 counties, but the state often elects democrats to statewide office.

[0]http://www.businessinsider.com/richest-public-universities-i...

Pennsylvania isn't considered the Midwest. It ends at Ohio. Eastern Pennsylvania is closer to NYC than it is to Chicago.

Well, as a Michigander, I think of the Midwest as the Rust Belt, which I realize may be disagreeable to some, like another commenter in this thread. That said, culturally speaking, Pittsburgh has far more in common with Cleveland than with Philadelphia. Pennsylvania is a very divided state, so I would count part of it as the East Coast and part as the Midwest, geographically if nothing else. But that very disagreement is why I called that part out separately.

Start driving down 76W and you'll see quite the opposite. Yes, eastern PA is urban, but after you get far enough west the only thing on the radio is country and gospel.

I also wouldn't claim Pittsburgh is anti-intellectual considering the startup scene and the universities in the area. The suburbs around Pittsburgh are a bit of a different story.

And Western Pennsylvania is closer to Chicago than to NYC. Eastern Penn cities like Philly are definitely considered part of the East Coast, culturally, but western Penn such as Pittsburgh is definitely part of the Midwest.

I made a typo. Western Pennsylvania is closer to NYC than Chicago. I did a google maps from the northwestern corner where I-80 crosses into Pennsylvania, to Chicago and NYC.

As an entire state no, but Pittsburgh and the western half of the state definitely feels Midwestern.

In Michigan, the majority of students don't benefit from the huge endowment that UM has, the schools don't have financial ties.

(Michigan State alone has larger enrollment than UMich and then there are quite a few more public universities and then also community colleges)

Measuring intellectualism by voting pattern is :-/

The problem is when talking about anti-intellectualism, people say "Midwest" instead of "Rust Belt."

I grew up in Minnesota, so to me "Midwest" is Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, maybe Michigan and Illinois.

But the anti-intellectualism streak is really in the Rust Belt, like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, and sure, parts of Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, and Michigan.

The apparent contradiction of anti-intellectualism and high educational attainment is due to broad brush strokes in our definition of "Midwest." Minnesota especially doesn't fit into that mold.

Moral of the story: you guys need to get off the coasts once in a while.

You are the first person I have heard define Midwest that way. Midwest includes Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri too [1]. Although many people view the Northwest Territory [2] after the revolutionary war as the "Midwest": Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota. Culturally, the second definition makes more sense to me as someone who has lived in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and spent significant time in several of the other states in the first definition.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Territory

The University of Wisconsin at Madison has been largely targeted by Governor Scott Walker. He has made large cuts to the budget, had tried to remove professor tenure, and has more or less filled the Board of Regents with his political friends. When I was still in grad school (~2 years ago), people were worried about a brain drain from the school. Why would a great professor want to stay at UWisc if the Governor is taking away tenure and threatening to do performance reviews? Of course, Walker is trying to get reelected now so he is proposing tuition cuts for students to try to save face.

In Illinois, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been hit hard by funding shortfalls as well. This has been going on for years now since the state government cannot get its act together. The university is still great, but you have to wonder at what point the cuts will take their toll. A rising star professor may not want to stay at an institution that always needs to worry about funding and whether or not they need to furlough employees. At some point, the best researchers and teachers leave and go elsewhere.

Even if this were true at a macro level, I've got to imagine there are plenty of investing opportunities at the micro level. Smart people with the right skills who for various reasons don't want to live in SF, NY, etc. And because their expenses are lower, they are happy to work for a lower salary than their peers in those cities.

And who knows - maybe if top talent can be enticed back to these places then the trends you describe above might start to reverse.

I've heard NYC smells bad.

(Seriously. Not everyone wants to do the big city thing.)

Its part of the charm /s. Yes, the streets smell of garbage in the summer.

Try smelling Market street in San Francisco. ;)

It smells like dog shit mixed with parmesan cheese... 42nd Street

Live in NJ!

That's a pretty complex financial problem that you're over simplifying. The flyover states can't very easily invest more, they don't have the growth to do it. The coastal areas do largely have the growth to invest (in some cases a lot of growth), which makes it dramatically easier to do so. They have the flowing tax base expansion, the labor expansion.

It's the difference between being Facebook with 45% net income profit margins, and being a manufacturer in Ohio with 4% net income margins. If you're Facebook, you're drowning in opportunity and cash. Growth does that for you, in many cases it begets further easy growth. The manufacturer's scenario is rock and a hard place stagnation, and if they slip up even a bit, it's bankruptcy.

In 77 years, Arkansas has added one million people. They might add 20k to 30k per year in a good year.

West Virginia hasn't grown its population 84 years.

Mississippi has added one million people in a hundred years.

Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania have barely grown their populations in half a century.

Some of this is down to their mistakes, some of it is shit luck of getting slammed by very large macro economic forces, huge technology changes (whereas earlier technology changes had blessed those locations).

These states are perpetually trapped in a scenario where they can't afford to make the moves to attract sustained growth, and they can't grow because they can't afford to make those expensive moves. It's stagnation hell. The only likely way out, is a major technology inflection point, and being sure to catch the wave.

Percentage-wise, the population of Ohio has grown more than New York since 1960.

edit: Another way to put it is that Mississippi has doubled in population in 100 years - roughly 1.5 million to 3 million

Did you know that one of the best places in the US for biotech is Indiana? That is because both Purdue and Indiana University, state schools, are powerhouses in that field. I don't see any significant funding issues for them from a research/education perspective. More funding does not necessarily mean better outcomes nor does less funding necessarily mean worse outcomes. How the funding is spent matters much more. In my experience at Purdue, much of that funding goes toward research and education in the science and engineering departments.

Excellent article from the same coastal thought-bubble that predicted Clinton's 99% chance of victory.

Simpler explanation would be that specialties with the luxury of centralizing (ex: investment banking, tech, advertising, certain types of law, etc.) typically do--for all of the obvious reasons.

edit: And I did not write this as a celebration of her loss or political flamebait. I wrote it to point out that there is a gaping blind spot in the coastal worldview, which has already had severe real-life consequences.

I mean, without addressing your empty ad hominem, are you seriously saying the fact that schools suck has nothing to do with service/intellectual jobs moving elsewhere?

Ad hominem is after the person, not the thought bubble.

Most of the big places are going after IQ more than anything else. Know plenty of local students and interns who went on to take lucrative jobs at big companies with either a state diploma, or no college at all.

I don't believe it is coincidental that so many of the founders in this space are college drop-outs.

Is centralization of resources really needed for a thriving economy though? Germany begs to differ [1].

[1] http://freakonomics.com/podcast/secrets-german-economy-steal...

With the wild-west capitalism we worship and embrace, entropy propels us toward increasing centralization. Gates and Thiel called it clearly, a very long time ago, that most of these markets are natural monopolies (under our system).

Not happy about it, and perhaps if we exercised a little sanity like the Europeans, we could reverse the trend. I'm not holding my breath.

1. It's more of a coastal thing it seems than a trend of the West (I say that jokingly).

2. Is it capitalism that leads to centralization, or the lack of it? I suppose it's how you define the term -- is it a passive accumulation of capital (like money that just sits in a bank), or is it the active use of money to attempt innovation and generate more wealth?

In the latter case, I'd hope to imagine a cycle of continuous disruption and redistribution of capital that prevents centralization.

3. Are monopolies inherently bad? Or is it simply the lack of interoperability (i.e. lack of choices / cost of switching is too high for a consumer)?

4. Reverse the trend. What do you suggest then -- a break-up of tech monopolies? Or maybe forget all about the coasts, and try to emulate the German economy in the Midwest?

#2) I'd say it's the combo: the interaction of unregulated capitalism and specific types of business that can centralize, or "scale", nicely. Most of the trades are doing quite nicely right now because geography, licensing, and the bespoke nature of their work have somewhat protected them from the tech onslaught. Taxi drivers, not so much. Of course, more/less regulation would raise/lower the bar for what would be scalable.

#3) Unregulated monopolies, certainly bad, not as much from a consumer perspective as from one of raw power. I don't really care if I don't have the latest shiniest gadget for the best price. I do care that Bill Gates probably has more say on how my kids are educated than I do.

Regulated monopolies are another story. Like the power company, they're subject to far more rules and due process than the tech giants. Google can shut down a paying customer with impunity. Power company has to honor a process even for customers that are late on their bill. I like that aspect, but then there's the regulatory capture, so... Even under Obama, who is supposed to be the "liberal" guy, we had the "Holder Doctrine" of let's not enforce the law too hard if it costs US megacorps any money. This will probably have to get worse before it gets better.

#4) I have no silver bullets. I was just disappointed that the top comment dismissed an entire region as a victim of its own foolishness, making little mention of all the other externalities, of which there are many.

Thanks for hearing me out. Do you have any silver bullets?

Europe has the same problems and no real engine for growth and innovation. There are plenty of innovative and brilliant companies and people in europe but the system kills most efforts because its so tightly regulated.

I am not even talking banking sector here. Just in general.

Fair enough, but consider the US predicament.

We have the coastal areas of high education, high income, and high costs that mostly end in a wash if you exclude the prestige of it all. Prices so high that people who do ordinary jobs can't even afford the place.

We also have an incredible number of rural areas mired in meth and joblessness. The elites say "Invest more in education!" Where's the money when the tax base is jobless? Where are the students when the scholars packed their bags for greener pastures long ago? Where are the jobs when it only takes a few smart people to automate something for the entire world? I've been to factories where they only need two to satisfy the entirety of world demand, and there are only a handful of people there, and the second factory is just for redundancy...

This is what "growth and innovation" have given us. Two unattractive monocultures.

I like western europe better. To each his own.

edit: If I were more awake, this probably could have been condensed into: Why speed up entropy?

Because of the expontantial growth of technology. Every technolocial advancement open up the door for a new competitor to become a threat to an incumbent.

Very few european companies become global players which you have to to survive. You have no choice.

Why speed up entropy?

-Quality of life for employees - there are plenty of economically stable regions across the midwest where you can get a 4 bedroom house in a great neighborhood for $200,000.

-Political stability for the investor class. The tech industry effectively has 6 votes in the Senate right now, and they've realized what a vulnerability that is.

Your entire argument is predicated upon the current American model of taxation/funding - i.e. that education spending is funded by individual states. There is an argument that this funding model is completely broken for the reasons outlined. It's not a death spiral if you don't want it to be.

My entire argument is predicated on:

A) current technology has drastically reduced the headcount required to get the important things done

B) we papering over that with make-work. defense is mostly make-work for engineers/managers/clerks/tradesmen. farming is propped up with direct and indirect subsidies. US healthcare and higher ed are packed to the gills with admin staff. cranking out more professionals is just going to put more stress on the make-work systems.

C) Fueling growth to bridge the gap between supply and demand is an ecological time-bomb.

> The elites say "Invest more in education!"

No, the actual dominant elites don't; as they are behind the “starve the beast” movement that seeks to dismantle public services including education.

> Where's the money when the tax base is jobless?

The people actually saying “invest more in education” tend also to support greater federal funding of that function, especially for economically disadvantaged areas, and also to support shifting the federal tax burden more toward capital holders and/or profitable corporations, rather than the working class, so joblessness in the local economy of certain regions for which increased educational investment is sought isn't really a barrier to their preferred policy.

Of course, they also tend to support other targeted shorter-payoff-window programs to support local economic development as well, also with out-of-region funding.

Not talking Koch brother 0.0xxx1% elites. Just people I know who went to good schools and serve professional functions.

Left wing ones lament that we haven't spent more on education. Right wing ones lament that people aren't taking advantage of the opportunities that have already been afforded.

From my own perspective (automation, and this could be my thought-bubble?), we have a situation where we need fewer and fewer people to do most of the important things. Due to that leverage, these positions are relatively few, and demand a very high level of knowledge, intelligence, and responsibility. If the world only needs a full-time staff of 30 to do X, training 30,000 to do it is just wasted time and effort.

The buzz currently seems to be around UBI to address this. Maybe the right way, maybe not. I have no crystal ball on that one.

So many people pin their hopes on "growth", but is that what we really need? We are already devouring the earth just to keep people busy cranking out and devouring BS. Watch the cartoons with your kids one day. Behold all of the neon goo and plastic junk being pushed on them. Then watch FOX with the parents. Advertised medicines to fix health problems they earned at the advertised restaurants and leisure activities. Advertised financial products and scams to maintain enough revenue to afford the rest of it.

So, as a prescription for making better-rounded individuals, education is fantastic. As a prescription for fixing "flyover country", I don't buy it.

If you have some time. I wrote about the problem with European businesses.

http://000fff.org/why-is-europe-failing-to-create-more-unico...

I will read it. Thanks!

edit: Just read it. Always refreshing to talk to someone who doesn't have all of the answers!

Only thing I would add is to look at the glass as half-full. Western Europe's political systems seem to be in better shape than our own, their safety nets more generous, their public debt generally lower, and their inclination to start wars greatly reduced. If we have to sacrifice a few unicorns for that, seems like a fair trade to me.

Yeah but that is also it's Achilles heel. It's one of the reasons they can't make immigration work. Which contrary to popular belief it actually does quite well in the US despite it's many flaws.

I grew up in Denmark and is used to the Scandinavian way of thinking all I am saying is that it has it's own issues and one of them is growth despite a few places.

Eh. Classical Christaller-Lösch theory holds that there are two patterns of spatial expansion, the hierarchical centers model and the moving frontier model.

In the hierarchical center model, the balance between economies and diseconomies of agglomeration lead to a pattern where smaller centers linked to the big center emerge; then these centers become large in their own right and growth goes on recursively. This is usually more clearly seen in cities (look up on Google Maps with the satellite photo layer: Berlin, London, Tokyo, Sao Paulo....) but some nations like Germany will apear to have this pattern too.

In the other model spatial growth is constrained on the one side by a coast or something like that, and has a vast, gradually developing frontier on the other hand. Brazil has one coast only and is like this. Rio de Janeiro is a major city next to a coast and is like this, Sao Paulo is the singular major city further inland and is the opposite of this (a cobweb).

The US has two coasts. And for reasons, the west coast started developing on its own, not as a tributary to the east coast. Flyover country could have grown in the cobweb hierarchical centers fashion, but what's the undeniable capital of the Midwest? Not to mention farm belts etc. and an agrarian economy propped up by subsidies, etc.

The biggest reason the west coast jump started development on its own would be the California Gold rush.

I didn't know there was a name for that. Thanks!

Civilization has typically been tied to the water. We have a Chicago-New Orleans-St. Louis triangle. My guess would be that the interstate highway system and container shipping have severely diminished its importance.

Well, Germany is half the size of Texas with nearly 4x the population, so it could easily be argued that Germany does have centralization of resources...

> Excellent article from the same coastal thought-bubble that predicted Clinton's 99% chance of victory.

Not wrong though, eh?

538 predicted Trump chances of winning with 30%, which is a huge number. Clearly we are living in one of those timelines. I think people failed to interpret what that 30% meant. Edit: I am reading the rest of your comments which are very insightful.

Thanks huherto!

I made bets on the outcome, but did not collect figuring that it would be ill-gotten gain and bad karma. If our city people had to hang out with their in-laws in Appalachia for a month every year, they would have seen it just as clearly.

The notion of “flyover states” as an intrinsically pejorative term is a desperate attempt by those, who have already given up their natural lives for the collective allure of cities, to drag those with more (land, peace, free time, wisdom, etc.) along with them, to satisfy the appetite of their ever-growing shadows.

No...that's "filler states".

Plenty of CA and plenty of NY is not "coastal". IMO VC is leaving a ton on the table by not leveraging the excellent state universities and low cost of living relative to SF/NY

> anti intellectual voter base will destroy the advancement opportunity of the middle class

Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, etc. Most of the failing inner cities with bad schools and high crime rates have been run by democrats for decades. If anything, it is the far left that should realize that their policies to do not work long term.

> Most of the failing inner cities with bad schools and high crime rates have been run by democrats for decades.

So have the successful, thriving cities.

Name one?

Seriously. Everyone knows what the difference is but they're too afraid to say it.

Did you notice how all of your examples happen to be Rust Belt cities? Also note that you didn't mention San Francisco, Seattle, New York or Los Angeles which have all been run by Democrats for decades. Is it possible that the economics have more of an impact than the politics? Meanwhile, according to this analysis, 3 of the 6 best public high schools in the country are Chicago Public Schools.

https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-public-high-schools/

> didn't mention San Francisco, Seattle, New York or Los Angeles which have all been run by Democrats for decades.

Are you really citing SF, New York, and Los Angeles as success stories. Those areas have some of the highest rates of homelessness in the US. In addition to the run away costs of living in those cities, they are certainly not models for success. Those examples don't help your argument...

I am citing them as places that are not "failing inner cities with bad schools and high crime rates have been run by democrats for decades." as OP claimed. Chicago doesn't fall into that category either, but that is a discussion for another day. Bringing up cost-of-living or homelessness is simply moving the goalposts from the original claim.

The focus of my post was that it seems clear that economics is what forced those cities to crash. Look at Rust Belt cities (Milwaukee, Cleveland, Baltimore, Detroit, Buffalo, Gary) and you will find significant population decline and high crime rates. Trying to make it a political discussion brings in personal bias.

> The focus of my post was that it seems clear that economics is what forced those cities to crash.

Economic policies from politicians influence economics. If policies are bad for business, jobs will leave, crime will rise and populations will decline. Economics don't happen in a vacuum. Most if not all of those declining cities have been consistently run by democrats

>Most if not all of those declining cities have been consistently run by democrats

And so have most of the growing, thriving cities. Individual cities have very little say in global economic shifts. We are seeing this same story play out in Republican-controlled rural areas.

First some jobs leave (outsource or automation), then laborforce participation declines, next we see drug use increase, which makes more people unemployable, as a result employers leave the area and more jobs are lost. Then you go back to step 1 and re-run.

Trying to cast everything in a partisan light may be blinding you to the similarities.

Baltimore is Rust Belt?

It is certainly debatable, some lists include it and some don't. Baltimore is not in the traditional industrial heartland or even the Midwest, but it's economic makeup in the mid-20th century is very similar to traditional Rust Belt cities (large ports, metal production, manufacturing).

includes - https://www.thoughtco.com/rust-belt-industrial-heartland-of-...

doesn't include - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_Belt

Um, to counter one example... Maryland actually tops US News and World Reports' high school rankings overall. [1] Their city public schools were recognized for improvement by the US Department of Education for a number of years. [2] I'm sure there are problematic areas, but it seems bad practice to go after the entire Baltimore public school system over this -- on the whole, my impression is that it seems pretty decent.

The Atlantic article reflected concerns about Midwest research spending. Since the Midwest has states that are both Democrat dominated and Republican dominated in politics, I'm not sure you can actually draw any partisan conclusions from that article.

(There is a political divide on research spending opinion per surveys [3], but even here, most Republicans either support increased scientific research spending, or keeping it at the same levels.)

[1] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/... [2] https://www.ed.gov/labor-management-collaboration/conference... [3] http://www.people-press.org/2017/04/24/how-republicans-and-d...

zero surprise that the Atlantic staff would free up time to do a hit piece on the Midwest. It's not like anyone had previously thought that UW Madison would match Yale in the endowment Dept. Atlantic loves doing cultural victory laps over the Midwest to assauge their other more obvious setbacks

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