The Republican Party has targeted our public school systems for destruction just as indisputably as they destroyed ACORN, an organization designed to register voters. At first, it seems impossible that anyone would want to destroy the very things that made this nation great. During the formative years of this country, people considered it a tragedy when children did not have a school to attend and went to great lengths to provide them. Something has happened to change this. The change is not just in preschool, K through 12, but also extends to PhD level education.
College education has become so expensive it is almost impossible for a working family to pay tuition and support a child while s/he goes to college. I mentioned this to point out their attack to destroy education has been relentless and extended from Ronald Reagan, who wanted to close the Department of Education. It is a game of hawk and dove. They attack until they win. They are attacking the doves, the teachers, the best among us; the people who answered a calling; the people who work hard for long hours; they do this job because they have a passion to teach. Republicans do not care if game theory points out what happens when the doves are gone.
To put the Republican motive in perspective, I looked at other public areas in addition to public schools they targeted. The post offices, prisons, firefighters, public service employees, towns that are having trouble sustaining budgets, and boarder guards are just a few examples of attack targets. Does this not only suggest a motive but also reveal tactics. They do much of this behind closed doors and what they do lacks anything that resembles ethical behavior. The one thing all of these things have in common is they present an opportunity for private enterprise to make money usually by shifting taxpayer dollars into private hand—congressional representatives make millions when these things happen. They do provide the service but from the moment they take over, they add 20% to 25% onto the cost as profit. However, there is more to the story!
In addition to an economic motive, there is a social conservative motive. The prisons in Arizona, for example, they have privatized prison and fill them with undocumented aliens, kids caught with a little bit of marijuana, and other petty crimes; they get paid by the number of prisoners. Republicans like the image of tough sheriffs “throwing punks into jail”. In an entirely different venue, Republicans took over Benton Harbor, Michigan from elected officials and are in the process of stripping and selling anything of value that belonged to the town’s people; not to mention a huge land grab to build a golf course. Congressman Issa (R.Ca) the viper guy and his committee are responsible for making the Post Office pay pension funds at ridiculous level designed to bankrupt them but also to provide a huge pot of money for who ever takes over the postal service. It goes on-and-on and our public schools are just another example.
Those who think they can never take over public schools and do it with the help of the American people better think again. Big money industry dominates our universities by paying grant money for hiring researchers to so research in taxpayer supported laboratories, and not teachers; teachers can not make them new products to sell. Universities charge in the area of $50,000 a year tuition to support a staff bloated with non-teacher..
At the lower levels, legislatures are enacting voucher program across the country. The programs take money out of public school and give it to private school. Does anyone really believe this is the way to make public schools better? The same is true of charter programs. Private schools can determine tuition costs; have room to manipulate federal law to control the race of their students; determine the curriculum, etc. The hard part for many people is to realize is that mega-church supported schools are the biggest part of the problem, there are a lot of them, and they are the worst offenders. They rake in millions of tax fee dollars for the ministers to live a lavish life style and receive millions of federal dollars to teach religious dogma, which they support as long as it is their dogma. Many of these churches fail to teach science, sex education, or women’s rights. Many teach a doctrine that says Biblical Law, which is equivalent to Sharia Law, should reign supreme over secular law; this is counter to the United States Constitution, which is the very document that says they can do this. Read and believe Catherine Crier’s 2005 Book Contempt. You will recognize the names she lists because you hear them almost everyday on television. In her book, she headlines the court system but discusses the drive of the religious right to take destroy our school system as well is front and center. The only reason you would not believe what she writes is that you do not want to believe it.
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