POLITICS IN EDUCATION: SCARY STUFF

President Barrack Obama has listed education among his six top priorities of his administration in the coming four years. I am pleased to hear this. However, we have to recognize that the word ‘education’ is like the word ‘furniture’, it is a group noun. So many things in educations that need government attention fall under that heading that the lack of focus makes his pronouncement scary.

Education, like freedom of speech, and health care are human rights, as such, we should not deny a citizen an education because of economic class. This puts education on the Democratic social agenda. Exactly like one would expect in an egalitarian society, which would be the exact opposite of a privileged society.

The Republican Party’s assault on public education verses private education—voucher program—put  focus on “education for profit”, religious influence, and the industrial take over of our universities. By opening up the subject, Obama may be putting our educational system at risk of further corruption; there are some powerful forces out there waiting to pounce on any weakness. If George W. Bush proposed such a thing, I would be terrorized. Charter schools verses public schools, religious verse secular, private college verses state supported university, off-shore professional education verses domestic professional education, foreign verses domestic education, but also research verses teaching in United States.

In the process, I hope the President pays attention the University Industrial Complex problem: the selling out of taxpayer funded institutions to commodity groups and patentable research while neglecting teaching. For the most part, University administrations are hiding the problem from the public (University Industrial Complex; Amazon Kindle.com). What is especially worrying is the paradox of having the United States Department of Commerce involved in helping big industry to force this change in state universities across the entire Nation. The recent example of University of Minnesota for example making “contribution to entrepreneurial efforts” part of a professor’s tenure evaluation is making a mockery of good teaching efforts. Tenure is there to afford protection for professors to teach controversial subjects; it has nothing to do with starting new businesses. Why would a parent send a child to a school where administrators reward professors for not teaching?