Okay - in my 55+ neighborhood - the age factor is actually closer to 65+ with no end of opinions on no end of social issues...
And - after raising children who went through various Canadian/provincial and American/state public school systems there was a serious concern voiced around my kitchen table with the present quality of education for all of our grandchildren.
What are they learning? If it's true according to a survey by the Jewish National League that 40% of recent college graduates don't know about the Holocaust what do they know of World War II? Do they know there was a WWII?
What is being taught from kindergarten to 12th grade? Or - worse what isn't being taught?
In 1990 the United States was ranked 6th globally in Education. What happened? Speculation around my kitchen table was Bill Clinton winning two terms in the White House and the Clinton's [rumored] agenda to weaken America's strong middle class by diluting public school education. One wonders, because...by 2000 when the Clinton's handed over the keys to the people's house the United States ranked 17th globally in Education. So - the numbers might support the neglect of something...
Personally, if I was leading a vast, diverse country such as the United States I would not want to lead a country of 'stupid' people - I'd want to lead a country packed with 'smart' well educated people. Smart people are able to understand more layers of different concepts - and - also contribute to new concepts, innovation, research, development...you get the idea. Stupid people are far more difficult to lead because they require more maintenance and social programs and more of everything..
George W. set out a program of "No Child Left Behind" but funding for education got cut everywhere federally that trickled down to each state - overshadowed by an increase in military funding after 9/11.
However - if America is to keep up let alone compete - we need an entire nation of well educated, well read, well informed - smart people. Henry Ford understood that concept when he not only increased the pay for his assembly workers to $5 a day he paid all of his workers $5 a day including all minorities who worked for him.
Perhaps the emerging social elite of [new] money [over the last three plus decades] as in politicians who have enriched themselves while in political office for several terms and corporate CEOs with multi-million dollar stock options and payouts - as well as sports and entertainment celebrities with multi-million dollar contracts - feel entitled and above the general public/middle class. They - therefore want better educations for their offspring so are willing to see the numbers in the middle class significantly reduced along with the quality of a middle class, public education.[That attitude has been in the news.]
Well - around my kitchen table the discussion was frenzied. Everyone was adamant that money from the 'general-public/middle class' bought tickets to sport events, to music concerts, to movie theaters, for federal and state taxes, and consumer products - which actually 'paid' for the lifestyles of every single person who might 'think' they are part of the social-elite! If "we-the-people" complained about the price of tickets, concerts, taxes and many consumer products - and stopped paying with our hard earned [lower] incomes - everyone at the top 5% might find themselves toppled rather abruptly from their present zip codes.
So folks - here we are well into the 21st Century with America having dropped even lower in ranking globally to 27th!
President Trump [who grew up one of the social elite] appointed Betsy DeVos [another one of the social elite] as Secretary of Education. Does Besty DeVos like the status quo of a diluted public school education curriculum? It would appear so...Because - Betsy! - what have you been doing with our education tax dollars allocated to your budget?
Teachers, our front line soldiers, charged with the care and education of our country's 'future' [literally and figuratively] have been tasked with steady program cuts -and- budget cuts -and- low wages -and- poor school maintenance - while politicians give lip service to parents, teachers and union representatives.
North of the 49th Parallel, the average Canadian elementary school teacher makes $6,000+ a year more for the same experience and does not need to deal with buying school supplies for their classroom, drafty windows, leaky roofs and heating/cooling problems. [Okay so the USD is .30 cents stronger than the CDN dollar - fine but the Canadian teacher is spending their money in Canada.]
Okay Betsy let's reshuffle the education deck. If you wouldn't send your kids to any of the public schools you are responsible for - why?
Lets start with why...*What if all entry level teachers started at a set $40,000 across the country no matter where they taught? *What if all neglected school maintenance in every state that needed it was budgeted and implemented immediately? [Money is there - how fast was 8.6B allocated for the coronavirus?]
*What if music, physical education were offered in all schools from K to 12 and a Life-Skills program like Home Economics, Nutrition & Health and Shop/Home Maintenance were returned to high school? *What if History was K to 12 with American History K to 4th Grade then World History 5th to 12th with how America fit in with World History? *What if Math, and all Sciences and English was from K to 12? *What if we actually taught our kids equally with all school budgets the same no matter what zip code they live in? *What if all states were standardized so that no matter where our kids lived they got the same high quality education? *What if our kids were taught 'to' think not fed diluted-limited information of 'what' to think?
*What if the education standard we enjoyed in 1990 was returned to all American public schools in 2020? Let's make it unconstitutional to cut any school budget.
And - while we're discussing education...About 15 years ago there was a sudden surge of small pseudo colleges that popped up in office spaces on side street strip malls across the country. Somehow these businesses [eg. College America] got certification to offer and graduate students with a host of second-tier diplomas in assistant type courses for everything from medical billing to home inspections. In ten to eighteen months - often less - returning adults and high school graduates could get approved student loans for new careers or a career change. However, getting a job afterwards was often not so easy - but millions of dollars in lucrative student loans were funneled to thousands of these business taught by people with limited or marginal experience.
Then seeing the diversion of student loan money heading in the direction of so many smaller pop-up colleges - all of the already established and historically accredited national universities and colleges joined in the mix and began to raise their tuition rates to increase their bottom line. The result now is a generation of student's with an artificially high rate of student debt along with high interest credit card debt. The general public should not step up to relieve this - because it would be an insult to those who have paid their loans - but perhaps the colleges and universities that raised their costs from double [some triple] could refund a portion of what they 'looted' from America's future working citizens.
Greed and our education [just like for-profit with our healthcare] places the very future of this Republic at risk.
*Sherrie Todd-Beshore was a feature writer and columnist [for a number of magazines & newspapers - Memoir From 'There to 'Here'] who shifted to fiction in 2006 with 16 novels in print. This blog attempts to highlight some of the social issues now reaching critical mass in America. The next one is: Immigration In America...
http://www.patchworkpublishing.com/
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