Money, money, and more money is at the center of most of the above
arguments. This is in keeping with my belief that the duo of money and power
drives right-wing politics while egalitarianism (fairness) drives left wing politics.
In our culture, money is power and power is money. Politics is traceable to biological
zero—survival of the fittest individual verses survival of the group or species
in Darwinian terms. The selfishness verse altruism axes of personalities guides.
Against this background, I found it strange that the content of the series of State
of the State speeches given by both Republican and Democratic governors across
the nation focused on education. Obviously, something seemed wrong with my
logic until I looked at the history of education as current statistical data reflects
party influence. As a caveat, Republican
politicians never say what they will do once the people elect them: Scott
Walker, Pat McCrory, and John Kasich among others are classic examples; this is
not just an understatement, it is provable fact. For example, they (Republicans) say the
want to educate "our" children. Whose children are they talking about? I see private schools that close their doors to
minorities and the poor. I see churches that supplement tuition costs for members
of their church and fight for taxpayers’ money to support their schools, while
they fight to lower taxes to support primary education but still give taxpayers’
money to private schools through voucher programs.
Both Republicans and Democrat want children to be “educated”,
but the term ‘education’ has a different meaning depending on who is saying it. When historian, David Hackett
Fischer in his beautiful book, Albion’s
Seeds, discussed regional education levels, he did it in a extraordinary way.
In the process, he discovered a significant thing. Students in Republican
regions of the country are educated differently than they are in regions that
are more progressive. The differences are not just subtle; they are startling. Republicans want to educate children in how to
read, write and do simple math, and the forth “R”, be well versed in some religious
doctrine, to be able to enter the working class work force but do not want them
to be highly educated which give them upward mobility. Progressives, on the
other hand, want society to provide for education of children to the level of
their ability; they want a meritocracy. To a Democrat it sounds unbelievable cruel
but a plutocracy needs cheap uneducated labor and do not want competition from
the lower class. For example, Fischer points out that the complicated fact that
in Virginia (Chesapeake Bay region), “high born” immigrants intentionally
import uneducated people and slaves; in fact, they shunned educated people through
a system of Anglican moral punishment.
The conservative party wants to conserve that situation. I
see law school and medical school tuition at $50,000 dollars a year, pre-professional
school tuition at $30 to $40,000. To become an engineer, veterinarian, dentist,
physician or lawyer is prohibitively expensive. Four years in pre-med and four
years in medical school means $320,000 tuition: The republicans say borrow the
money. In congress, they want to double the interest on student loan payment.
They passed “forever-crippling” bankruptcy laws if you do not pay back your
student loans; if you can one in the first place. To understand the impact of what
I am talking about, ask Mitt Romney how much his five sons borrowed for their
educations then ask a minimum wage worker with and intelligent son or daughter
how much they are willing to borrow to educate their children . . . it would take every dollar earned over 25 years to pay the tuition.
A case study can take place in North Carolina. The newly
empowered Republican controlled legislature passed a law to lower taxes on
businesses and raise taxes on common folk then asked for a school-bond to build
new schools. These ideas make it sound like the Republicans are strong supporters
of education. First, they opposed building school until they were in power; it
would increase taxes to much. Then they want to take credit for building schools
but they want to close two university campuses while they are telling business
to come to North Carolina because there is an educated work force. Do you see a
pattern in this? I do. Republican Governor McCrory invites business to North
Carolina and tells them our taxes are low and our children can read, write and believe
in God but neglects to say that the businesses will have to hire MBA’s and PhD’s
from Europe and India.
URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated
The hallmark of any modern enlightened society is a strong public educational system which by law, must conform to our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Indoctrination into any political or religious affiliation is expressly forbidden by these laws.
ReplyDeleteA voucher system, wherein the recipients receive public tax money to fund a private school is anathema to public education and in time will severely damage or kill public education. Such private schools are free to indoctrinate their students in whatever ism that suits their special interests, thus circumventing the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
We see the term "slippery slope" used often recently. Well, I see the term as appropriate to the educational system of our country if we allow even the slightest beginning of school vouchers. Public money for private schools is an abominable idea and should be resisted by all citizens as a weakening of our adherence of our Constitution.
In my state -- and many others, we have seen the advent of so called "Charter Schools". Such schools generally run by for-profit organizations and operate outside of the control of the publically elected school boards. In many cases, they are allowed to "cherry pick" their students, thus guaranteeing their success. The public schools are left with an academically weaker student body and their poorer performance is used by charter/voucher advocates as an example of the superiority of their (charter school) approach. It is interesting to note that even with the advantage of cherry picking, the actual measured performance of charter schools is only marginally better than their public counterparts.
There is great concern among professional educators that the Charter school approach is merely a first step toward vouchers, with the ultimate goal of privatizing the entire public school system of our country. Thus the applicability of the term "slippery slope"
If you love your country and believe in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, you MUST fight for the preservation of our public school system at all costs.
And here's something else to be concerned with if we should lose the public school system. Private Christian schools would be by far the biggest beneficiary, thus able to indoctrinate their students in their beliefs. Would this lead eventually to our country being designated as a "Christian Nation?" While this would be in direct opposition to the First Amendment of our Constitution, with a future Congress made up of mostly Christians, ways could be found .....!
This is a comment that has meaning as well as a lot of merit. It is well written and deserves to be a blog post so other could have access to it. It makes reference to are several well made important points I had over looked.
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