When I first began hearing right wing bloggers talking about ending public education, I wondered what that was all about. All of them benefited from such education and I might add cheaper tuition for higher ed than we have today. So why might they think this way? Oh I knew about the desire for vouchers where they'd take the tax money I pay on property and give it to somebody who only wanted their child educated in a right wing religious school. That's been around a long while. But really seeing an end to public education, who would want that? Now I not only have a clue but also the who and why of it.
I said I'd keep politics out of this blog, and I have but this is cultural. Our nation, as a democracy is based on the people being educated well enough to understand history, logic, and even reading. Without that, how does it work? I suggest the desire from people like the Kochs is that only a few will vote and they are doing their best to insure that happens!
For anybody who does value public education, the one they got, the one they hope future generations will get, pay attention to what is happening. Ending a vital educational system for the majority of Americans is the desire of some. Sure I know there are good private schools, which are not religious, but the average citizen cannot afford the cost. If people, who can, end up only caring about their private school, thinking-- great, my kid is taken care of-- the end result will be a very uneducated populace for their child to grow up having to work and live near because nobody can stay in a ritzy community or behind a gate forever.
16 comments:
I favor public education, but there must be standards that must be met and citizens have the right to demand high quality instruction and not social engineering. And by the way all of the parents who send their children to private and /or religious schools aren't right wing zealots who are against public education ! They have the right to have their child attend the school that they choose.
There is going to be some social engineering in any educational system. We want it there as a people and it's part of what we pay for when sending in our tax dollars. I don't want class time taken up either with politically correct classes (from either side). That should be taught by the teachers' behavior and the demands they make on the children for behaving rightly, not allowing bullying, etc.-- which has been a bit ignored in the rush to design classes to teach children to respect others. I don't think a class does that anyway if the student's behavior is ignored outside of the class.
I totally agree on the freedom to send their children to any school they want-- right or left wing. They have that right now, today! I do NOT agree it should be on my dollar (which is what vouchers are about) when it does not teach the curriculum of the public school (charter schools can meet those standards because that's what they committed to doing but I still don't like private corporations taking over public education). I do not want vouchers or their ilk destroying public education in the name of some religious freedom to have their child educated that evolution isn't true and creation happened in 6 days by a god still intervening. They can get that in their church and darned well pay their own tuition if it's what they want, but leave my tax dollar being spent on public education for the betterment of our culture which means it needs maximum time for teaching the basics not some politically correct class either.
I spent most of my school years attending public schools as did my children. My children and I also spent some years in parochial (Catholic) schools. Neither is without their problems or merits. It's a question of what one is looking for from education and one's priorities. Neither is perfect. I don't believe in publicly-funded vouchers for private school.
When it came time for college, I worked hard to make sure my children attended excellent small private colleges because of my own experiences in a large university where very often one is an ID number not a person. It was a good idea for our kids.
That said, public education is part of the principles on which our country was founded. I have never voted against public education funding in my life. I just wish it wasn't so watered down. I am horrified at the dropout rates and that parents are allowing it to happen. An uneducated populace spells disaster for our nation.
Well said Rain. This battle has been in full swing since the Reagan years. We saw what he did to the state University system and the massive corruption that has gathered at the upper levels. It's simple to me: a systematic destruction of Democracy.
An uneducated population is an easily controlled population.
My daughter graduated from Vanderbilt Vanderbilt. She was educated in public schools which were good ones. I took an interest in her school and her teachers, because they were teaching my child in her formative years. Some parents could care less. Every school district isn't the same and the quality of the eduction varies. I have talked to teachers ( a small number) who quite honestly didn't have the knowledge or the ability to teach yet they were kept on year after year. One bad teacher who teaches for years will have a negative influence on his, or her, students. A good teacher will have a positive effect on their lives..
I agree with all you say, and would just add that this country is having to import people from abroad who have technical skills that our educational system has failed to teach to our young people. What we need is more real education with substantive content.
We already rate something like 46th in education. Do we want a corporation teaching our children what they demand and having the right to do so because they are in control?
Public Education has been the foundation of America's success, but now it has slipped so badly that we no longer have a stake in the future. No more new inventions or ideas come from our country. China, for one, is cleaning our clock. It's just one more thing that the right wing have helped to destroy.
You guys crack me up. You act as if the nation's universities are some bastion of conservative power. It is the opposite. So why has college tuition risen so much faster than inflation in the last 15 years? Is it those greedy liberal faculty members looking to pad their own nests?
PS I attended a small private Christian elementary school and a large public high school and a medium public university. I agree with Kay, there are benefits and pitfalls at all learning institutions. The most important thing is to have parents engaged in their children's education and a school environment that fosters learning.
And, ingineer, you astound me how you so readilybelieve the right wing and what they tell you. Bastions of left wing thinking huh, how come all of our current Supreme Court Justices came from Ivy league universities and that includes the 5 conservative ones.
You like the idea that Perry as a long term Texas governor has reigned over a failed public education system there with the numbers Texas have of students who don't finish?
It takes money to make a public system work (ie taxes) and not just parents who care but a public who pays attention to the curriculum and the quality of the buildings and teachers. It is about more than our children and grandchildren but somebody else's too.
Did you read any of those links? What do you think about resegregating the country? Do you like knowing that Koch dollars are funding the current right wing onslaught against all public education?
Ingeneer 66 admits to cracking up so this notation may not find it's way through to rational absorption. I always celebrate the notion that some schools are noted for liberal and innovative idea, because it is in this environment that great discoveries, interventions, and new ideas rise. I can testify to the fact, having worked at several universities over the span of a career, that institutions un- tainted by fundamentalist radical thinking, are by nature---conservative, in that they teach 'critical reasoning.' Liberal institutions are more prone to magical thinking, religious rubbish, and phantom economics. Lawyers from these 'processed and canned ideological 'schools' usually produce fascist lawyers, and mistake opinions for facts.
I strongly believe in innovative thought. But you have to admit that most university professors and the presidents of those universities are known to be liberals. I am not saying that everybody that graduates is a liberal. You guys were the ones railing against the universities, not me.
And I did go to some of those links Rain. The folks involved said they had nothing to do with the Koch Brothers. I find it interesting that when black people want their kids to go to all black classes or schools that is OK, but when people want their kids to go to a close school and do not want their kids bussed to other areas so they can "create" diversity that is a problem.
Forced social engineering usually creates more problems than it solves.
I will have to do some more research on Texas education. My wife has a couple school districts there as clients and a friend of mine is an elementary school teacher there. I do know when my friend was out here visiting last spring she made several comments about the sorry state of education in California compared to Texas. Her sister is a teacher here. She said they have much smaller student to teacher ratios in Texas and more resources to work with in the classroom.
how do you know most university professors and deans are liberals and what does liberal mean to you? Someone with the ability to think through problems and use logic while not depending on religion? I do not rail against the universities; so not sure where that comes from. I want education to stay public and work on what isn't working. I want colleges to be reasonably priced to enable the middle class to go. I think it's education that is our future.
I don't know what you heard about Texas but their drop out rate is supposed to be near the top in the country. Maybe they get good results on those Bush tests which require memorization and not an ability to use logic. Given who they always support politically, I could believe that ;)
One other thing. There was a reason for integrating schools by moving kids around. It was because rich white people, who could live in gated communities didn't really care about the kind of school other kids went to-- even in the same district. I majored in elementary education and even in the 60s, they had us visiting different types of schools to see what the economic level did to the buildings, class size, etc. If the schools were all equal in quality, it might not matter; but that has not been the case. We are better as a people to know a variety of people, not thinking we only need to know those like ourselves economically and colorwise...
I agree with most of your last 2 posts. I think a virtually free university education in California was one of our strongest reasons for our economic success of the past. We were the 5th largest economy in the world when Gray Davis was elected governor and we were the eighth when he was kicked out of office. His policy was that everyone should go to college even if you were not qualified. And if you were not white or even illegal you could go for free, but the costs kept rising for the Asians and whites, even the poor whites. Now the costs have nearly doubled in the last 7 years. And universities offer a bunch of remedial classes that should only be taught at the junior college level and the crime rates on campus are up as well. Not everybody deserves to go to college. It should be something that is earned by kids that show they want to further their education. If they do not have the aptitude they should go to junior college or the military or find a trade.
As for the dropout rate in Texas, I wonder how many of those kids went back to the country they came from or moved to another state and that is why they are counted as dropouts? I know the dropout rate in California is astronomical. And the teachers unions just want more money as if that will solve the problem. Los Angeles Unified is trying a pilot program to rate teachers that includes parent input and peer review and the union is up in arms against it.
And I agree with you, ingineer. If we could just look at this problem as citizens who want our future generations to be successful and able to work at jobs that were productive, we'd be better off. Too often we see it as a partisan issue and want the other side to fail when they try things. We ought to see this one as cultural and not just the education community should be involved in finding answers to it.
I read more on Texas and it might be it's an issue of illegals who don't stick with it for other reasons. It is all complex.
I also believe we should make trade schools more available as too many kids today go to a university to study for a career where there are no jobs. It's part of freedom but they need to realize a piece of paper alone won't get them a job. I have read not enough want degrees in engineering, mathematics and hard sciences which is why we are importing workers for jobs that need that knowledge. It really does take us all caring but we better or it's going to be a very different country in the future.
I also don't think anybody has a right to attend college when it's not based on grades and having taken classes that prepare one for college. Most of those that get into a school without that though end up out the first year-- or did when I had kids in college and saw it happen with Pell Grants (and they weren't minorities but just kids without high enough high school grades or the right credits).
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