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A $23 billion emergency proposal to save teacher jobs in the wake of the state budget crisis looks to be hitting the chopping block. Tom Harkin has pulled his amendment from the war supplemental because the White House didn’t forwarded a budget request. Dave Obey says he’ll add it back in on Thursday, but according to Politico, he’s “clearly frustrated by the administration’s approach and, after the setback in the Senate, said the White House is creating conditions that only invite failure.”
A couple of weeks ago, Dave Dayen wrote about a special tax credit that has been allowing hedge funds to make enormous profits from building charter schools. Which, of course, takes money out of public offers and puts it in the pockets of Wall Street profiteers. Juan Gonzalez has been covering this at the New York Daily news, and as he told Amy Goodman, “The result is, you can put in ten million dollars and in seven years double your money.”
Paul Rosenberg wrote a very good post about the practical and philosophical reasons that underpin the conservative desire to dismantle public education:
- The attack on public education itself is a prime example of the attack on social democratic ideas and institutions…this serves to discredit public education, take money away from the public education system, and take money and jobs away from public employees and their unions.
- The siphoning off of certain students into separate learning environments is part of the conservative agenda for inscribing hierarchical differences in society.
- The creation of lucrative money-making opportunities funnels public money to more wealthy members of society.
- The creation of private governance structures further strengthens the power of unaccountable conservative elites, weakening democratic control.
- The private governance structures in turn empower crony networks that can also serve as organizing foundations for further consolidation of conservative power.
The government has set up a series of financial incentives that are loaded in the direction of dismantling public education (as well as the teachers’ unions). The ability of public schools to provide quality education will decrease with additional teacher layoffs, even as hedge funds are financing campaigns for the expansion of charter schools, which they are making a killing from.
The destruction of the public education system has been a long-term ambition of the Heritage Foundation. They are, predictably, opposing the money for teachers’ salaries.
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About FDL Action
the war must go on
teachers can always find a job at Walmart
thank you Obama
thank you Dumbocrats
In the headline, “Dismantel” or “Dismantle”?
That is a great add. My daughter is a teacher in Colorado. Always spending money out of her salary for art material etc. Pathetic and oh so telling about what is going on in this country
Thanks Bobash – we’ll get it fixed.
Thanks Jane, this is surreal.
but if we pay teachers where will we ever find the money to pay the damages caused by BP.
Priorities.
Why can’t we get the hedgefunds to fund public schools like this as well as their charter schools? Why can’t we insist that public or private test scores have to go up lets say 10% in 7 years or no payback at all?
Another objective of the proliferation of charter schools is to bust the unions.
Also kids must be more well rounded gym class for four years is a must America has a weight problem.
Plus arts, home ec and shop must be mandatory our elite run the country with management theories and accounting they have no idea how to make stuff.
America is rich because we make better stuff than anyone else or at least we use to.
Because we made stuff we had money in our banks which the banks chose to gamble away rather than reinvest the cash into America making more stuff.
It’s all been so dispiriting, disquiting, disjointed and phreakin depressing for so long now.
Since Reagan as Prez (never MIND as Gov of CA) it’s been thirty years of losing ground in all aspects of our lives.
That’s more than half my life on this rock.
At 16, or even 20 . . . it felt we had the social accords and prog positives in hand and the bastards on the run.
It gets tiring, worrisome, after 3 decades of this, I’ll admit.
And still, I read a post like this one Mz. Hamsher where yet MORE sunlight is shed on the snakes in their caves and I manage a wry smile . . . because EVERY thing that’s done not in the benefit of we the people is now being shown the light, shown to the light.
Everything they do, none of it’s safe from our scrutiny, our understanding.
And the bastards don’t get away with it all, without hearing from us, one way or another. That’s something to smile about. And, I smile watching as more and more people in this country regardless of party, politics, or religion or anything else, I smile as I see them all wake up to the scam.
So thanks for all the sunlight you and FDL bring . . . and yet another big assed wry smile to you and thanks for reminding me why I even care anymore . . . . cuz it’s GOOD to smile about that light. And I love to think, they DO squirm, don’t they. Yeah, they squirm.
Well fuck, if there are no public schools just send everyone to a private school. 2 more years with this a hole in the WH and the nation will be unrecognizable. Another 4 years after that and it will begin to resemble “The Lord of the Flies.”
More and more, Obama seems to be revealed as a classic republican. You have this, the social security business, a health care reform designed after every republican approach of the past 50 years. Ugh. I wonder what the state of the democratic party would be if the republican party hadn’t undergone it’s transformation over the past few decades into what we have now.
I read that, too, and I like your suggestion. I won’t hold my breath, but seriously: why not?
And yes, the charter schools proliferate, and one aim is definitely to bust the teachers’ unions. I have a number of friends and family members who are teachers. Those who’ve been employed for 10 years or more are mostly going to be “ok,” but the newer teachers (mostly younger) are not going to do so well in the long run.
There have already been numerous cuts to overall salaries and benefits, plus teachers these days no longer get the generous benefits that the prior generation got. And I, too, know of some teachers who have to pay out of pocket for various kinds of supplies, plus many teachers now have to be fund raisers (in a variety of ways) to obtain funding for almost any “special” activities (like going somewhere off campus for a different learning experience, etc). The list goes on.
CA, which used to be a national leader in terms of K – Univ public education, has really declined over the past decade or so and has some of the highest student to teacher ratios in the nation. I keep hearing conservatives here whine that there are too many teachers still.
A real crying shame.
I like the idea about taxing the hedgefund investments for the benefit of public schools. Would be nice.
I grew up in California public schools through grade six. When I came back as a high school teacher in 1968, the state was already beginning to decline. I had classes of 39 kids……I gave up trying to teach students to write the perfect paper and hoped they would learn to write the perfect paragraph (I couldn’t read 150+ papers a night!). After several years….as I realized that I couldn’t do 30 years of this….I was just trying to teach them to write a perfect sentence. It was god-awful. I can’t imagine what it is like now. Politicians hate teachers…..but mostly they want to get their hands on education money….the last big pot.
But if we pay teachers, where the fack will we find the money to pay for unbridled unending WAR? Priorities, folks, priorities!
And thank you, Jane, for this post. Please keep this sad situation in the headlights.
There are a random amount of geniuses out there the more we educate people the more likely we educate another genius who will help us keep making the coolest stuff.
But education is not just about test scores like No Child Left Behind thought. Its about creativity music, art, shop, home ec, etc
Without creativity we might have the smartest kids but we won’t be making the coolest stuff everyone wants.
I made a T-Shirt I wore to school often in Home Ec, I made a bookcase in woodshop, a metal tool box in metals, I took apart a lawn mower engine in auto mechanics never did put it back together:), I painted in art, drew plans for the inside of a house in drafting.
I liked that I got to learn all this cool stuff. I feel it has helped me a bunch in life even if I don’t make money doing any of this.
If anything I feel sorry for Elite kids in private school who don’t learn this stuff.
Tax Banker bonuses?
It’s pretty hard, I can tell you. My roommate teaches 6th grade. I think she’s found some good ways to teach writing skills to her kids, but it’s definitely at the level of: what can I accomplish with this large group of kids in a very short period of time? And she readily admits that a certain percent of her students annually simply will not make it. She can pretty much predict who will be dealing drugs and/or other criminal activities, as well as who’s headed to to the big house.
It’s pretty graphic, and she’s pretty dedicated. Also works a ton of uncompensated overtime, which most teachers do but don’t get any credit for it. Most conservatives like to live with the delusion that teachers work this “easy” job that’s not really a 40 hour work week, plus they get long vacations. Not really accurate at all. My roommate tends to work at least 50 to 60 hours per week during the school year. And yes, she does get a longish summer vacation, but geesh! She needs it. Ever taught 6th graders all day long? Yikes.
Obama’s philosophy is,
if a bill doesn’t have a “toll booth” for the private sector
it ain’t worth doing at all.
All of the bullet points noted above are simply disgusting (though not the least bit surprising), but I find this one particularly disturbing.
It’s just so frustrating to listen to politicians demonize teachers. I know that those politicians know they are lying, but their agenda isn’t obvious to the general public. Also, because teacher salaries aren’t so great, many teachers work a second job during the summer. They also take educational seminars to maintain their credentials. In my years of teaching I saw a couple of (only a couple of) teachers who probably should have been offloaded because of mediocre performance.
I swear, It’s like Reagan’s back
One way to boost test score even out the funding Gap between rich and poor schools. Its a shame that our Presidents don’t send their kids to public school. It also narrows the mind of our Elite class and encourages group think.
Second year round schooling. kids forget stuff over summer break plus we can graduate kids faster or choose to teach them more at the highschool level I’m not sure which idea is best.
Maybe let the smarter kids graduate faster and use the extra time to bring the rest up to their level.
Next idea better food in schools organic fresh raw food that we don’t have to waste money on cooking.
Fresh Fruit, veggies, nuts for protein.
Kids who are hungry do not pay attention Breakfast and Lunch for poorer kids or for everyone who wants it.
Also organic food means lower healthcare costs later. Plus the savings from not having to cook meals would save schools money.
Higher pay for teachers and smaller classes are a must.
David Swanson is upstairs!
Republican, Socialist Join Opposition to War Funding
Dismantling public education is a very good idea. Government has been promising–and failing–to solve the problem of education for more than 100 years. At what point do we say enough is enough? Think about it: if you hired someone to do a job, and year after year he failed but promised he could do the job next year if you just pay him more money, wouldn’t you at some point draw a line? Or would you just keep paying him forever? People still think government can solve the problem of education–are you kidding me, people?
You just never know…
Sure, dismantle it over time by starvation and negligence, and once it is a shell of it’s former self, put it out of it’s misery.
Now why does this theory sound familiar?
Over the years, I have had the opportunity to work with many folks with graduate degrees in education, particularly higher education, from the very best schools that one would ordinarily view as left-leaning. It has been very disheartening to see that the vast majority of them have wholly internalized the right-wing framing on unions, charters, bad teachers, accountability, etc.
As far as electing politicians i’d short anyone with an Ivy League degree, or a Rhodes Scholarship.
Dumb people are better for corporations, because they absorb the TV commercials better. Duh.
Are you crazy? Public education has accounted for almost all the economic and social advances made by our nation.
My son is a second-grader in a public school in California. The school district is in desperate straits due to the Shock and Awe state budget. The principal, with great support from the district, is doing a terrific job keeping parents aware, stimulating letter writing campaigns, and enlisting the PTA to help fundraising.
They are asking parents to donate a dollar a day to prevent teacher layoffs. $365. It’s not easy to come up with extra scratch like that, but we are doing our best to come as close as we can. The teachers are awesome, as Leen’s daughter is, using their own meager salaries to buy supplies, supplemented by whatever the parents can help with.
The commitment and determination of the principal and teachers is just awesome. They are the heroes that I’m glad my boy gets to see. He understands what’s going on, and knows who the heroes are. He knows who the bad guys are, too.
Not long ago my son opened his first bank account. We sat at the banker’s desk, he filled out the card, the whole routine. I was so proud! It’s one of those childhood rites of passage. The interest was miniscule, just pennies, but that wasn’t the point. Learning thrift, learning to save, starting to understand money — that’s what it was about.
After one statement cycle, the bank changed the account terms and started charging $20 a month service fee. We closed the account immediately. He learned a lesson: if you put your money in the bank, and leave it there long enough, the bank will eventually take all of it.
Our children are not stupid. The banksters and hedge funds and Meg Whitman may think that taking away our kids’ education will keep them from understanding what’s going on. They think they can literally steal our kids’ money. My boy knows what a bully is, though. He may only be seven, but he can figure out who the bad guys are. And he will remember these bad guys his whole life, just like we remember playground bullies all our lives.
Schools as units of social control and as a way of making sure the increasingly feeble minded elite stay in power makes America less able to make cool stuff.
We can get buy for awhile with increasingly stupid leaders, Bush, Sarah, Rand Paul, and their Chicago, Austrian freemarket fantasies but we can’t get by if we do not make cool stuff.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/44818
Obama maybe smart but he suffers from the same group think that produced Bush and the same elite arrogance that comes from thinking you are the Elite, add on to that the lack of chances to express creativity and real world job experience and we have an elite class that believes bank Ponzai schemes really are better investments than building cars and other real world goods.
We went from a generation of students who drove us to land on the Moon and return, to a generation who can recite passages of the Old Testament… maybe.
Education is just something else to loot for Team Obama. If I had to choose between our elites and a hoard of locusts, I would probably have to go with the locusts. The locusts can’t be everywhere but our elites apparently can.
You lost me.
The very Worst thing any country can do is to cut education. Where will our future leaders, thinkers, doctors and on and on if we As a Nation do not invest in the future of the next generation? How can you enumerate what is lost every time society loses just one child let alone the Millions we are letting down/losing every year with these cuts?
I wish I knew what you are talking about. Let’s look at spending. Government spending on education has just about doubled in the last 30 years (adjusted for inflation); it is now spending $200,000 per classroom. Starvation and negligence? Not at all. And what do you mean “shell of its former self?” When was this golden age of public education?
Sorry, lateral reference.
I have a niece whose school offers a semi-elective where Old Testament passages are regularly the topic of discussions, while the science curriculum is bedraggled.
This is a public school, in Northern California.
Do you mind supplying total number of classrooms in the country plus the budget figures you are using? So we can check your numbers. Are we talking federal funds only or all funding? Thanks.
The numbers are probably a diversion.
Education should be monstrously expensive and prioritized above all else. So setting a ceiling like ‘more than we spent last year or the last decade’ is a facade. It costs what it costs, and by squeezing it into a budget as an afterthought is ludicrous.
Just curious….did you attend public schools? Did you learn well? Would you hope for such an education for your own and others’ children? I attended public schools in middle-class/working neighborhoods in California in the 1950s and similar neighborhoods in Houston in the late 50s-early 60s. I was well prepared by public school teachers to learn, to think, to speak, to reason. Teachers were respected in those days. It was true even then that children whose parents valued and supported education generally did better than those whose parents didn’t support or value education.
Teddy Partridge is upstairs!
No Non-Discrimination Mandate in the DADT “Repeal” Sham
Had a teaching license for 32 years. Never made over $32000 a year. Am the richest for the experience and the lives I have touched.
That said, PUBLIC EDUCATION, is in crises from this starve the beast every child left behind agenda.
Which is why charter schools, which do worse than public schools on average (at least one school has gone downhill since chartering) and seem to be out-of-control ways to give tax money to bondholders, are failures as schools. That’s not surprising as they exist partly to siphon tax dollars into investors’ coffers, but mostly to destroy teachers’ unions — and eventually public education itself.
Tip of the hat.
Thank you for your service!
I teach in a primary school in Florida. My principal just lost her job after 29 years with the district, 13 as principal. The reason? Test scores didn’t go high enough fast enough, a gift from Jeb Bush when he was governor. The years he was in office we were expected to make roughly 3% gain a year. The year he left office the expectation increased to 12% a year. 95% of our students passed their tests but the 5% who didn’t (special education, extremely poor children of color) make us a total failure under NCLB.
And Obama and Duncan attached a nifty little requirement that principals must be fired in underperforming schools in order to receive stimulus funding. And they are planning on implementing even more wonderful Republican plans with the Race to the Top grant money, straight from the Heritage Foundation. Much of the impetus to destroy teachers’ unions and public schools is now led by Ivy League educated Democrats.
Congress has been sitting on reauthorization of NCLB for a couple of years now and seem little inclined to “fix” the law during an election year, as Obama promised during the campaign. The World Bank, the IMF, the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and the Billionaire Hedge Fund Club have been working on dismantling public education for a long time now. With Obama and Duncan they see the best chance they’ve had in a generation of getting their way.
Tragic. I wish you would write this up for Seminal……it deserves much wider publication!
…as the teachers descend on the thread to swat down the nonsense.
Thank you, too.
Thanks!
This place keeps me sane.*g*
I have a brother in law who retired after 35 years teaching in the public schools of a major Midwestern city. I once told him I thought “no child left behind” was designed to destroy public education. “Of course it is” he said. “You might be surprised to learn that most teachers and administrators don’t know that”. Obama is continuing the Regan agenda of privatizing everything. Obama is a fucking Republican. The New Democrats (DLC) are actually the New Republicans. This is an atomic joke on the “little people” who still think they are Democrats. Hush up y’all. Lets see how long it takes them to figure it out.
Imagine how much parents would save on daycare with yearlong schooling. Imagine how many more people can work if they did not need a job that pays enough to cover daycare.
We need to axe No Child Left behind. Its being used to fire teachers now good teachers.
Obama doesn’t worry about public schools. His girls go to an expensive and elite private school. His are taken care of and that’s what is important.
This documentary reveals a deeper problem and made a lot of sense to me: PLAY AGAIN (trailers, especially the second one).
In NJ, our governor hates the teachers’ union. Here is something from the Camden County Conservative Examiner:
Meanwhile Christie has vetoed the legislatures bill to extend the “millionaires’ tax” so that hedge fund managers and corporate CEO’s can get a tax cut.
Real education (not job training) turns people into liberals Jane. When the new feudalism is mature, the working class will be illiterate.
Why the surprise? Isn’t it clear to everyone by now Obama is a Conservative Democrat with his head up the ass of the most powerful interests in the world. He has sold progressives, liberals, and our interests out at every turn, in every legislative battle, so why would anyone be surprised this President, who openly claims he is not ideological and bound to no ideological policies, why is anyone surprised his only goal is make himself look good by passing a policy, doesn’t have to be a good or effective policy, it just has to pass the congress and have his signature so he can boast about his accomplishments. We are the fools who actually thought this guy was anything but the political animal he is. And if you are still drinking his kool-aid, you really are dumb fuck.
I stopped having any faith in any leadership from Obama on a damned thing. He is clearly a political animal looking out for his own ass. He has no concern for the fallout from his policy, only that he gets to claim he passed something. Because you see, in conservative democrats like Bill Clinton and Obama, as well as every republican , having effective policies is not important, its the optics of looking like you are getting something done. After all, most americans can’t even tell you the most elementary thing about our government and how it works, so cynical politicians like these come to us every 2 or 4 years proclaiming their accomplishments, and point to bills like the health reform and financial reform bills. Only problem is the bills Obama has passed will make very little difference in the average americans life, but will continue to enrich the bastards who have robbed this nation blind for years. And how do they get away with passing these destructive bills, they only have to answer to the most politically ignorant public in the history of man.
Americans can make fun of Europe, but at least they are aware of their government and how it works, and actually have an election system that ensures them they will at least come close to electing someone who will really represent them. We sit on our pompous asses over here, make fun of other nations, and continue to sell this nation out to the likes of Goldman Sachs and BP. Then we get all angry when something disastrous happens.
Will this spill make americans re-think anything about the structural problems that really got into this mess, hell no, we will continue on our merry little way after the media stops covering these disasters, remaining forever stupid and dumb. In case you can’t tell by this long post, I am pissed at the absolute ignorance of the people of this nation that keeps us perpetually stuck in this hell we are living, and because we refuse to use our fucking brains or find any courage to stand up and challenge the status quo and our leaders who, after all, work for us. No lets blame the immigrants, no lets blame the gays, no lets blame the blacks, no lets blame the ________(you fill in the blank). As long as we continue on with this destructive cycle, we all might as well sit down, shut the hell up, and let Goldman Sachs and BP run the damn country, as they currently do!
Perhaps a little comic relief is in order: Romans Go Home
Amazing, isn’t it…They always are ready to burn down the wrong freaking house…Let me see, TBTF Bank or Public Schools, really tough choice, really really yeah right…
Public schools have always been in trouble…Too many hands in the pot stirring the pot…Need more people like Steve Perry and less people like
the government changing the focus with every president…I’m not sure how many of you have been to a high school in the last 10 years but its not the
same as it was when we were growing up…In the Los Angeles area, some of them were like lock down, even the tough kids became afraid…Then you look at NY and the public schools want to shut down the charter schools and things in this economy are only going to get tougher for the next few years…I would like to know who’s bright idea was it to allow hedgefunds to rob public school funds…
Charters are also using public money to speculate in real estate:
http://www.stickwithanose.com/2010/02/17/charters-real-estate-speculation/
A new blog that follows charter school fraud needs some hits:
http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/
Marcy Wheeler is upstairs!
BP’s Own Internal Documents Prove It Knew Its Oil Leak Estimates Were Bogus
Any FYI for those of you who are blog junkies & education policy focused – In Seattle
http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/
this blog has a lot of people contributing to the national issues as they’re falling on our heads in Seattle –
we have the lackeys of the billionaires broad and gates putting their Sistine Chapel fingers together to create … powerpoint idiocy, bullshit, and lots of opportunity for the crony connected, unaccountable to clean out the public.
rmm.
Yesterday, I read in the Hamburger Allgemeine that the city of Hamburg is hiring 700 new teachers.
One place to look for data is the Digest of Education Statistics. By my calculations, in 1980 we spent at all levels an average of about $6400 per pupil in K-12 public schools; in 2009, we spent about $12000 per pupil. Those figures are inflation adjusted. Whatever source of data you use, the trend is the same: we are spending more and more money per student but government still hasn’t solved the problem of education. You wouldn’t trust your landscaping to a gardener with a comparably poor track record; why in the world would you trust the education of your children to government, when that is so much more important? It is time to end the mad fantasy of US public education.
Nice fucking post…You certainly tell it like it is and most people feel exactly as you feel…And they want to do the same things you want to do…
they’re tired of waiting…Jane is like most of us…Made as Hell…Lets clean this mess up & move on…
This wasn’t Americans fault, the media was the first line of defense and they been asleep at the wheel since the 80′s and deregulation…Capitalism was like a virus…it snuck in through the mail by a few politicians, spread throughout every business model corrupting every business and every politician until they take the Cap off & the whole system blows up and Americans find out they’ve been sold down the river by the media and the politicians and they got this damn virus still in the system…
Well to sum up, the Obama’s priorities-ending fat kids, making fat cats.
Organic gardens-a ruse for the hubby being pro-nuclear power, pro-war and pro offshore drilling? It never ends. Oh yeah, and I just read from Teddy Partridge he really really loves the Gays too. Not enough to actually stand up for them though. But damn it-let’s get the fat kids!
That’s the Mrs. priority-so noble ain’t it? At least Laura wanted the kids to READ for God’s sake. I keep having this image that the Bushie jr. hey hey soft Texas accent will come over Obama and he’ll rip off the mask.
“Fooled you suckers! It is my third term.”
Well done.
In North Carolina, Reagan destroyed the most successful desegregation programs, which caused a flight to private schools in the New South cities that were drawing folks from other states. For a lot of small rural counties, the school board is totally white, send their kids to gospel segregation academies, and the student population is all black. There are exceptions, big exception to this trend. But in Wake County, “neighborhood school” advocates just won a majority on the school board. And other school districts have been hit with a major cut in state funds.
But parents of kids in public schools have not put it all together except for “we are facing tough times.” But it is getting so critical that a few black Republican commissioners are talking about property tax increases, administrators are taking voluntary cuts in salaries.
Charles Davis is upstairs!
New Military Clandestine Directive Short on Oversight… By Design
I think your math is WAY off –
THE REASONS your principal lost her job:
1. 29 years – time for cheaper pay, time for less health problems, time for a more willing serf.
2. 29 years …
Ooops! maybe my math is off, two, to? too!
rmm.
Well, You know what the farmers say?
Educate ‘em above the 5th grade, and you lose a good field hand.
The Lords can’t rule overly educated Serfs.
Well, by and large that’s a good thing at least.
(Son of 2 teachers who couldn’t stand administrators – although there are a few good ones here and there, many if not most are politicians, not educators.)
The psychologists destroyed the public education system LONG before any Republicans. Or unions.
No one gives a crap about it because it’s a joke. My child has not been in the public school system (oh, and you who are ready, no, it isn’t a religious school or home school) and it was the best decision I ever made.
Not one day has she every woke up in the morning and said, “I don’t want to go to school.” She loves going to school and looks forward to it starting every September.
And I know THAT is unusual. And it isn’t just her, her classmates feel the same. And, she is at the top of the testing boards.
Her teachers care and intend to teach and are not baby sitters. And, they aren’t out running around trying to get politicians elected who will then vote them a better contract–a conflict of interest if every there was one. Give the politician money and he’ll give US more money.
I am sure there are public school teachers who are good at what they do. I am talking about the overall system.
Thanks.
It is true that more dollars are being spent on education. But it’s not like teachers have benefited from those dollars. Have you tracked the cost of textbooks, paper, pencils etc? All of these items have skyrocketed in cost. And please don’t for forget the hundreds of millions being made by testing companies on those mandated state tests. We have been slowly plucking the feathers of the education chicken for years. And NOW we’re upset that the bird can’t lay eggs!
Here it is and it ain’t pretty. The American experiment in democracy has abjectly failed.We are witnessing the death throes of the United States. The great unwashed masses still think we have a two party system. They don’t realize we have a no party system. And, perhaps most importantly,exactly what the hell did we put in the WH? Welcome to 1984. Eric Blair, I’m glad you are not here to see this. But thanks for the heads up.
Solution as usual is simple. We have tried that before and it worked with no one getting affected adversely, budgets being balanced and the incentive to make money still intact for those who wanted to scale up the ladder in society.
It is Progressive Taxes we had till start of 1970s with top bracket paying 90% of their income in taxes and still being rich than others which is the incentive they have been striving for.
dmitchell I take it you went to a boarding school?
You do know the boarding school kids ended capitalism as we knew it in 2008. The Federal Govt you hate, had to bail out all the banks and other private companies for example AIG run by boarding school kids at the tone of say a couple trillion dollars.
Let us not mention the boarding school kids that currently run BP, have you watch what these kids are doing the Gulf Of Mexico.
Dmithcell you do know the Boarding School kids came up with this brillant idea to move the USA MFG base abroad to places like China, India, etc. so all of this talk about education probably should be taking place in CHina, India, nations that will have good jobs for kids.
dmithchell what does the USA now make? or create? not much, thanks to the Board kids you love, I doubt if the public education kids would have destroyed the USA like private school kids.
dmitchell at the end of the day people need good jobs, being a harvard grad with no job equals un-employed.
dmitchell go learn mandarin, be useful
Christie is also going after libary funding.
A twofer — wreck the schools AND limit libary access and services.
Seems like these Repubs think the world can be run by some small coterie of uberwealthy, so just ignore the rest.
Dumbing Down Teachers: Attacking Colleges of Education in the Name of Reform (Part I); Henry Giroux; Truthout; 5/25/10
American History, Texas Style; Scott Horton; 5/24/10