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TechnoratiSo There Is Money that Could Have Helped Schools
The secret is out.
Like a note confiscated by the teacher and read aloud to the class, there can no longer be any doubt about the message being sent.
With the passage of the bailout bill for Wall Street, everyone now knows that the government can come up with a gazillion dollars (I'm not a math teacher, but I believe that is the approximate sum) to address a national problem if it's deemed serious enough.
Being a social studies teacher, I'll give you a simple quiz to assess your comprehension of the Wall Street giveaway. This means either:
A) Before this bailout, we haven't had any serious problems in America that would require a massive spending initiative.
B) Government had the capacity all along to address any of the major crises in America with the needed funds, but has refused to do so.
Gottcha! This one's a trick question -- the answer actually depends on who's taking the test.
If you are taking this test as you travel from the Cayman Islands to Wall Street in a personal Lear jet, one answer is appropriate.
The same answer applies to the politician taking the quiz while being chauffeured between fundraising dinners and appointments with lobbyists.
The answer is very different if the test is taken from the Ninth Ward in New Orleans; on the Interstate 35-W Bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis; from a hospital bed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center; or in a classroom on Main Street.
The reality of the neglect of public schools in the United States is astonishing. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the national school system infrastructure a "D" on its annual report card.
Overcrowded classrooms have cheated students from the individual attention they deserve. Teachers struggle to make ends meet, as the average increase in salaries nationally was 2.1 percent last year, while official inflation increased by more than 3.1 percent.
The solution to the problems in education, we have been told, is the same solution to everything else: "Let the free market rip." Advocates for public schools have been lectured about improving education by introducing the business model. Privatize with charter schools and vouchers. Get rid of elected officials and bring in high-paid CEOs to run the schools.
Judging by the way corporate executives sabotaged their own system, I would rather see the student body president appointed to run the Department of Education.
With shrinking state budgets, school districts across the country, including Seattle, are asking their constituents to prepare for cuts in education spending.
The justification for starving schools because of diminishing funds may have slid by last month. Now, pleading poverty and other "dog ate my homework" kinds of excuses just won't fly.
Total government spending (federal, state and local) on education in 2001 accounted for 4 percent of gross domestic product. The federal share of this spending, however, amounted to less than 8 percent of the total.
It's clear that the federal government -- Democrats and Republicans -- have had other priorities.
In the world's richest country, we now know there is no sum of money so big it cannot be raised if the problem is deemed important enough.
Our community says, "Money for Main Street Middle School, not for Wall Street!"
27 Comments so far
Show AllFor 1000's & 1000's of years the parents of children in Native Tribes taught their children all they needed to know to live simply with the earth & with the Tribe. Money wasn't even needed. The leaders of Tribes were usually the Elders who were merely guides for the Tribe chosen for their wisdom as Tribes were not set up on some big business I am the boss your the slave, nor in any I am the big political boss the average person never gets to see me, and you slaves will do what I say.
In your political world both parties are now perhaps controlled by the New World Order just as the planned financial crisis has Bankers calling for a new world order globalist banking system. Both political parties of your world wrote your election laws so no one could really challenge their dictatorial stranglehold on what you call the seats of your Govt. You are a Representative Republic that your founders who were mostly Freemasons & Deists stated they patterned after Rome in order to set up their branch of the new order of the ages. They had and have today a very deep secret worldly political agenda upon the earth.
You have been programmed/brainwashed to think in a Right/Left Political Ideology by either your parents, through your educational system, churches, or by your own choices without considering much that all reality has merely been manufactured for you in this world of manufactured reality.
This world has a form of reality but whether it is actually reality is a different question all together. Sometimes the reality of this world comes down to whether you have money in your pocket to buy the things you need.
I am rather an old, but happy Indian because I chose to ignore your world, politics & all as I raised my eyebrows everytime people of your world would say they are this thing, Free. I couldn't figure out exactly what it was they were free from?
The difference in Tribal education is that the education was free. In your world the Universities & Colleges hoard knowledge & if you want that knowledge you have to pay for that knowledge. If a person has a pretty much singular pursuit in their life your educational system says, Oh, no, you have to take & pay for all these other courses to, as they then give people the lie, we want you to have a well rounded education. Money.
Your world is harldly more than a system of manipulations all based around money whether for food, housing, clothing, education, ect. Your world is a dog eat dog world where money to some means far more than the lives of people.
Power & money the product of even the 1st Nation/States long ago stretching back through time. Even worse those Nation/States that wanted to be Empires because men wanted their own glory upon the earth, to glorify themselves & their works upon the earth.
They have always used the methods of manipulations to seduce people to their evils upon the earth to manipulate the human mind & heart. A part of this is creating external & internal enemies to further consolidate power, wealth, and keep people confused about their real agendas & ambitions.
Strange world? You bet!
The type of education you describe, which I would call ongoing apprenticeship for lack of a better term, is a wonderful way to bring up children. For millenia, children learned by the sides of their parents, slowly absorbing the techniques and values that supported the group.
We are now so fragmented - we live in one place, work in another. By necessity we often leave our children in the care of others. But I do think including the children in everyday things like cooking or shopping for food or taking care of plants can be a most rewarding way to spend time.
One of my best memories is coming home from work, picking my children up from day care or school and letting them sit on tall schools in the kitchen and help me prepare dinner. Instead of being in a rush, we talked and learned together. The companionship and intimacy was priceless.
Joe
To all those who believe Teachers and their Unions are the cause of the education crisis in this country. The crisis started in the Raygun era in California then went national when he was preessnut of da u.s.of asshole.
You see, there is a fallacy of logic that ditto headed amurikuns subscribe to. Unequal property taxes produces equal education. Dial in the fascist doctrine since Bush, Sr. for Charter Corporate Schooling and taxpayer money for religious schools, the concerted effort of all repunant pigs to destroy any Union, the Teachers being the last and largest, well, thats a no brainer for you anti education scumbags anyway.
I could defend this more but, hey, I' retired. I've seen this puke lit up so many times by fascists, neoliberals wanting to spread all that money around to their corporate friends its like feeding cotton candy to children at any podunk fair.
Our studies here show that Charter schools don't really work. They can be sucessful on an individual basis, but really can't be duplicated. Most are average at best.
WE have sharing of tax money here between school dists. Called Robin Hood! Hasn't helped. But you got the date of the start of the problem exactly.
So There Is Money that Could Have Helped Schools...and healthcare for all, crumbling infrastructure repairs, alternative energy development, passenger rail system creation, provided adaquate housing for people with low incomes, raised the "minimum" wage to a "living" wage...it really does get down to one's priorities and those whose demands make the most noise.
Poet
"...and those whose demands make the most noise."
If only this were true.
Squandering our assets so that the Democrats can never have their 'social' programs for taxpayers is the whole idea of the Republicans. It's been that way ever since Reagan's 'trickle down' on you. Now they've bankrupt America and the rest of the world as well - Heckuva job!
Steve Leigh
This is a fantastic article! Jesse gets right to the point. The priorities of the economic system are entirely skewed. When people in New Orleans go years without decent housing and thousands can't return to their city, the U.S. government and corporations don't see that as a crisis. But when Wall Street loses money on paper , they can throw 700 Billion to them within a week. We need to fight to change the priorities---and to get rid of the system dominated by profit and not human need.
Keep writing , Jesse!
Not sure what Thomas was getting at... But, this article reminds me of when I was in the fifth grade and I used to play that Sim City computer game. You know, the one where you rule the city and then unleash catastrophic events when you get bored, just to make it challenging once in awhile. It took me over a decade to realize that that game is basically a metaphor (maybe even a damned simile) of how the world (not just our nation) is run today. The bottom line is that our government doesn't want to solve problems, because then they wouldn't be of any "need".
I hate to sound like "that guy" who doesn't shut up about conspiracy theory documentaries, but I am that guy and guess what? If we all would just watch both Zeitgeist movies (yes, even the first park that debunks religion) with a clear and open mind we would all realize what needs to happen in order to make things right again.
"You will never silence the voice of the voiceless." - RATM
Sim City and you were in the fifth grade...It took you ten years to finally deduce it was a metaphor...
Is there anyone here who discerns a distinct breakdown of intellectual activity, beyond this poor soul? This person's humility to admit this is phenomenal.
Intended sarcasm? Well, don't try to sell it as great literature.
"The bottom line is that our government doesn't want to solve problems"
Thats pretty much it. Add the Teachers unions and the petty Princes of education and you have the problem.
More,
Don't go there. You are better than that and it is because of good teachers. And if you think Unionized teachers are the problem, I have a war in Iraq and Afghanistan I'll sell you.
Unions are part of the problem. Do you believe you can provide a quality education in 6 hours. I certainly don't.
But I didn't mean to give the impression that unions were THE problem. They are just a small part. Texas is a right to work state and we don't have teacher unions with any power. Our schools and graduates aren't any better than Chicago's.
"You are better than that and it is because of good teachers.:
That may be one of the nicest things anyone has said to me lately. Thanks. But that is exactly my point. Today's teachers cannot deliver the education I got. And in college they are worse. Far too much politics there.
We have 3 teachers in the family (my wife and I both hold teaching certificates...which means diddly because we never taught, but we know the difference in current teacher training)and not one of them would go into teaching today.
Can you imagine that a teacher today having to deal with tests that judge them and determine funding, the immense amount of paperwork, the man hours wasted with administrators, the inability to discipline the students and dealing with parents that are not as interested in their childrens education, teaching from textbooks that have been simplified and a classes that has been decontented. Well, thats what we have in Texas. And I don't think for a moment the teachers today are giving the kids the education I got. Its simply been made impossible for them to do their job in my opinion. ( I speak only of Tecas for sure of course)
Teachers aren't the problem, the education industry is.
Walmart greeters don't need a good education, which is all corporate America really cares about.
I can't argue with that. It looks that way doesn't it? And liberals are helping tyhem....$#@%(*&^
Out of curiosity; how are liberals helping, and whom are they helping? !@#$@$#%&# (just messin around) But for real, who are they helpin
"You will never silence the voice of the voiceless." - RATM
The Democrats who claim to be "liberal" but then pander to social "conservative" interests thinking that that is how they win are one. Second, Walmart, like most big monied corporations, get huge sums of money and they want to misuse that money for picking their puppet politicians or those who they think will be their best puppets. Democrats fall into the trap of believing that somehow they won't win if they don't have enough money and that the voters won't donate enough anyway so they'll take some "easy" shortcuts and get huge quickies from the corporate interests despite the fact that those corporations tie some restrictions to it. Any pol, liberal or conservative, who tries to expose while using corporate cash, automatically gets black mailed. At least that's the basics.
As near as I can tell the folks educating Teachers seem to be more interested in ideology than education. I can only speak about Texas though.
I have got to watch those generalizations.
The answer is C.
And most school systems have more than enough money to do their jobs. You can't give any kid a quality education teaching 6 hours a day though.
No doubt about it. Most private schools waste that money on abusing religion and trying to preach and teach the young into being bible thumpers. And then there's money wasted on building sports stadiums and sleazy contracts with food companies ready to dump their corn-fed overdrugged shit to poison the young even further.
That's a useless post.
Actually, from what I've seen, your assertion that "most" school systems have more than enough money requires some evidence. So does the "teaching 6 hours a day" assertion.
Chicago has a 6 hour day as do many others. Mostly unionized.
Look at any school budget and you will find it top heavy with management. Our city of 10,000 has a Superintendent, an Asst. Superintendent, 3 criccula administrators, etc. Simply compare that with before all the whiz bang theories that are producing illiterates. Far too much paper pushing required than educating.
Go to your local school and attend a few of the classes. You will be ashamed what passes for teaching today. Its been more money, more money for 40 years now and a trend line straight down in learning.
I worked for nearly twenty years in a fast-growing school district in CA. It grew top heavy when Reagan was president, with the same kind of set up you describe. And those new administrators (the old ones got dumped) got massive salaries and cost of living raises, while those down the line kept the same old salaries, but cost of living increases diminished yearly. We were unionized, as were the teachers.
In the schools, teachers had so much testing and paperwork to do, they had to depend on their aides to work with the students because they had no time to. I knew several teachers who used their own money to buy special teaching aids and ordinary supplies for their students who couldn't afford to buy their own, and because there was no money from the district for them. It was very like this country is now. Riches at the top, rags at the bottom.
As for the six hour days, I remember only having six periods a day, each period was about 50 minutes, with an hour for lunch, in junior and high school and that was in the '50s. Of course I was on a school bus for a couple of hours each day too.
"Of course I was on a school bus for a couple of hours each day too."
BUMMER!
Thanks for the post.
I'll bet that like most private schools in my state, most public schools invest in outsourcing all their infrastructure through sleazy contracts be it food, religion, books, computers, tvs, and god knows what else. Education has been privatized by both the libs and cons.
Here's a cure to fix this mess:
http://www.moderateindependent.com/v2i4schools.htm
Thanks for the link Frederick .