Money, Education and the Future of the Country: What Do We Really Want?
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"This is about more than the election of a president in a few weeks. The American people have to decide what kind of country they want." -- New York Times columnist Bob Herbert.
It's now almost time for you to decide.
Do you want to help remake the nation as a real democracy, or do you want the corruption of it that has existed far too long?
Mr. Herbert wrote: "Do they want a country in which their democratic freedoms are eroded by a deliberate exploitation of their fear of terrorism, and their earning power is diminished by a crippling dependence on foreign oil?"
The real question is: Do you want to continue the system we now have -- an oligarchy? to quote a former peripatetic speaker at the Bay City Commission meetings.
Bay Cityans may recall Mr. Red Hat, Don Vandenberg, railing about oligarchy -- control of government by the wealthy minority. According to Webster: "Government in which a small group exercises control for corrupt and selfish purposes."
As it turns out, Mr. Vandenberg was prophetic because that's exactly what happened in this country, to the detriment of the common good. Control by the wealthy few, and enrichment of the same class, was promoted under the "trickle down" theory.
If the wealthy grew even richer their excess would trickle down to the rest of us. But the idea failed to recognize this has been tried before. It didn't work in the France of the Kings Louis, in Russia, in Victorian England or in the U.S. of the 1920s. The reaction in France and Russia was revolution, in England rise of the working classes and demise of the royalty and in the U.S. -- Crash of the stock market and DEPRESSION.
Today's version of an oligarchy is one in which the top 1 percent of income levels rakes off more than 21 percent of the nation's total personal income. That's the reality in the United States.
Times writer David Cay Johnston has noted this nation now taxes the poor, the middle class and upper middle class to subsidize the rich.
Highly insightful thinking that bears reflection by all as the most important national election in more than half a century nears.
Clueless ideologues like another Times columnist, ultra-conservative William Kristol, are screaming to high heaven about the nation descending into socialism. He and many others forget that the leadership that would allow destruction of the economy is more irresponsible than one that adopts proven remedies for economic adjustment. Their attempts to reverse the New Deal have met with disaster and their Alice in Wonderland pronouncements of the strength of the nation's economic fundamentals have been proven ridiculous.
Now, to education, the basis of all our wealth. The same New York writer observes that this nation is entertaining itself to death, an idea we have written about here several times.
The No Child Left Behind law, the seven year government experiment that punishes schools and educational personnel for the failure of children to learn, is education's version of "trickle down." It also has been a total failure and in fact creates an impediment to learning.
Diane Ravitch, professor of education at New York University, says last year 25,000 public schools (of 90,000) were labeled "failing" as a consequence of the No Child Left Behind legislation.
Prof. Ravitch comments: "There is growing evidence that most schools will become failing schools if the law sticks to its deadline that all children must be proficient in math and reading by 2014. One recent study published in Science magazine predicted that nearly all of California's elementary schools would fail by 2014 under current provisions of the law."
Mr. Herbert, one of the more thoughtful columnists in the nation, says this:
"A country that refuses to properly educate its young people or to maintain its physical plant is one that has clearly lost its way. Add in the myriad problems associated with unnecessary warfare and a clueless central government that wastes taxpayer dollars by the trillions, and you've got a society in danger of becoming completely unhinged."
In our view the children are among the most exploited class. Profit mongers target children with the most entrancing diversions, most with little educational value. In our world childhood has become a never-never land of play, stimulation, excitement where the work of education is not only secondary but peripheral. When kids tire of the myriad games, they might -- if the mood strikes them -- study a little.
In our view, children can't be forced to learn by bureaucratic laws like No Child Left Behind. Since income levels are the best indicator of how well a child learns, this program appears to be a misguided policy of punishing the teachers of the poor for the fact that their students are not rich.
And with the growing percentage of poor children (up to 50 percent or more in many schools) the number of schools failing to meet the requirements of NCLB is rising, a recent national report states.
Therefore, we should not be surprised that this nation's learning level is 21st among industrial nations of the world.
Children have to be inspired to learn by administrators and teachers who are focused on the needs of children, not the measurements of government. And by a government not bent on punishment of earnest mentors but on their support and encouragement.
And that ideal can only be reached by national policies that recognize children as human beings not as machines to be programmed, calibrated and have their brain cells counted.
And the exploitation of children by corporations must be moderated, if that is possible in a so-called "free enterprise" society.
With a nation that 89 percent of citizens polled agree is on the wrong track, the only way to change course positively is to elect leaders with common sense.
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Anonymous Says:
On October 17, 2008
at 07:58 AM
YOUR statement: "In our view, children can't be forced to learn by bureaucratic laws like No Child Left Behind. Since income levels are the best indicator of how well a child learns, this program appears to be a misguided policy of punishing the teachers of the poor for the fact that their students are not rich."
I disagree...Firstly, the failure of NCLB is because teachers "teach" to the test...and there has been no improvement in learning, of course due to that technique. ALSO, "a rich family" does not guarantee a child will learn..PARENTING is the best indicator...and it is not simply a commodity available only to "the rich" |
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Dave Rogers |
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