-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
America likes to think of itself as a country where one’s abilities determine one’s fortune. America was founded by those fleeing European countries where upward mobility was restricted by the state.
The opportunity to obtain a good education is essential to a society that values meritocracy.
James Bryant Conant, president of Harvard University from 1933 to 1953, recognized that students should be chosen based on their intellectual abilities rather than their family connections. A meritocracy, based on equal opportunity, is the cornerstone of a free society. Without free public education, there is no mechanism allowing the talented to display their abilities.
Educational opportunity should be the great equalizer in our society, it should not be reserved only for those who can afford the costs of private schools. Yet numerous states are using tax payer funds to subsidize the rich who treat their kids to an education at a private school. These states are cutting funding to public education, and using those same funds to provide vouchers subsides to those who least need them.
Yet the rich are not content with being able to afford the costs of private education, they expect tax payers to subsidize their expenditures. In Colorado, the board of the Douglas County School District voted for a pilot program that provides parents $4,500 for each student. That falls significantly short of the tuition that ranges from $7,000 to $14,000.
In states across the nation, lawmakers slash public school spending while funding voucher programs. In New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) slashed $820 million in school spending last year while financing a school voucher expansion which “would cost about $825 million.” In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Corbett (R) proposed nearly a billion dollars in education cuts, while pushing a voucher plan that “is estimated to cost taxpayers $730 million in the first four years.”
When Republicans talk about cutting spending, they are excluding the rich from those cuts.
H/T: The Economist, LA Times, Think Progress.
What is it about public school that scares the Right so much? The wealthy just don’t want to be seen competing and “losing” to those poor people. The attempted killing of the public school system is still in progress as the Koch Brothers and their Teapublican progeny are still attacking those lazy and over paid public school teachers!
Mike S. sez: “That is indeed the back story, but the disease has been spread by the “Great Conservative Conspiracy” (Koch Bros., Mellon Scaife, Mars Family, etc. to provide its pathology countrywide.”
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Exactly right Mike. It is just that the Citizen’s Council, which is nothing more than a sanitized version of the KKK, put the infrastructure in place. The New South Republicans are one and the same as the Old South Democrats (DINOs) who are now spreading the gospel of exceptionalism and greed.
“The new Confederacy is not a lot different from the old Confederacy in many respects.”
OS,
That is indeed the back story, but the disease has been spread by the “Great Conservative Conspiracy” (Koch Bros., Mellon Scaife, Mars Family, etc. to provide its pathology countrywide.
Pardon the lack of commas. I blame last night’s coma.
“By denying our, all of our, children the best education deliverable, we are keeping them – and us – from going home.”
frank,
Ain’t it the damned truth. I guess the game has always been to con the people into supporting that which is in their worst interests.
Re: Feudal Aristocracy, look at the weeks long “royal wedding” media blitz. How many of us leading lives of quiet desperation, working for low pay and struggling to maintain our families, watch
“Celebrity Apprentice,” “Undercover Boss,” etc. to comfort ourselves by watching our “betters.” “Sad” and “Angry” also sum up my own state of mind.
The video I’m going to share with you wouldn’t be possible without education. Captured by Stephane Guisard and Jose Francisco Salgado at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile’s Atacama Desert, it just might make you cry. “For someone who was never meant for this world, I must confess I’m suddenly having a hard time leaving it. Of course, they say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. Maybe I’m not leaving… maybe I’m going home.” – Vincent, Gattaca. By denying our all of our children the best education deliverable, we are keeping them – and us – from going home.
Yep, Elaine, and the back story is the whole movement was started by the White Citizen’s Council in the south after forced integration. The Council schools sprang up everywhere and on their campuses, not a brown or black face to be seen anywhere. Later, they began to admit a few minorities if they were talented athletes. Along about that time, the WCC dropped the “White” and simply used the name “Citizen’s Council.”
Then there were the schools started by fundy religious groups that wanted to protect the children from the (shudder) secular influences of a public school curriculum that taught (horrors) evolution as fact. We had a big fundy Christianst one in this area, but it (thankfully) finally went belly up.
The new Confederacy is not a lot different from the old Confederacy in many respects.
Nal,
Thanks for doing a post on this subject. I’ve read a number of articles on the subject of privatizing of public schools/draining money from public schools that have caused me great concern.
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REPORT: Meet The Billionaires Who Are Trying To Privatize Our Schools And Kill Public Education
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/21/billionaires-privatize-education/
Excerpt:
Two weeks ago, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) marked “a new era for education in Indiana” when he signed into law one of the most expansive school voucher laws in the country, opening up a huge fund of tax dollars for private schools. A few days later, the Wisconsin state Assembly vastly expanded school vouchers, freeing up tax dollars even for private religious schools. GOP legislators in the Pennsylvania Senate say they have the votes to pass a sweeping voucher bill of their own. And on Capitol Hill, House Republicans successfully revived Washington, D.C.’s voucher system after it was killed off two years ago.
This rapid expansion of voucher programs — which undermine and undercut public education by funnelling taxpayer money to private schools — is remarkable. After all, vouchers have been unpopular with the American public. Between 1966 and 2000, vouchers were put up for a vote in states 25 times, and voters rejected the program 24 of those times.
Yet if one looks behind the curtain — at the foundations, non-profits, Political Action Committees (PAC) — into the workings of the voucher movement, it’s apparent why it has gained strength in recent years. A tight-knit group of right-wing millionaires and billionaires, bankers, industrialists, lobby shops, and hardcore ideologues has been plotting this war on public education, quietly setting up front group after front group to promote the idea that the only way to save public education is to destroy it — disguising their movement with the innocent-sounding moniker of “school choice.”
Mike, what saddens and angers me the most is that the very people who will be hurt the most by this destruction, the working poor and the middle class, are in the vanguard of the movement to return us to a feudal aristocracy.
Look at the pictures from the teabagger rallys, scan the crowds at Palin and Bachmann events. Sure there are quite a number of Social Security hoverrounds in the crowds and certainly the signage indicates plenty of illiterates but the vast middle are people who will be the most damaged by the cuts they think they want to make.
Like the poor dirt farmers that fought for the treasonous bastards of the old Confederacy then front line troops for the new Confederacy are those with the most to lose and nothing to gain from the success of these masters of the universe.
There is something terribly wrong when you can go to the school parking lot and see student parking filled with brand new Mercedes, Ferrari, Dodge Vipers and Beemers, then walk over to faculty parking and see older model economy cars and pickup trucks.
We are falling further and further behind, and there are major efforts to disrupt and defund our public education system even more. I have posted it before, but it bears repeating for reinforcement purposes. The video below was originally a PowerPoint presentation by a teacher for a seminar. The data presented are three years old, but still quite relevant. Although some of the data have changed a bit since this presentation was made, the numbers become even more dismal, not better.
“The modern Confederate party is trying desperately to recreate that period in modern America. They truly want to destroy public education in America. They have been working at it for years.”
frank,
I agree with your entire comment. Sadly, they have been quite effective in doing so, despite the efforts of many dedicated teaching professionals. Even public education itself has been widely uneven, given the income disparity in varied school districts. We have seen in thread after thread here the results of the assault on US education by the corporate/fundamentalist elite. The equation of communism to fascism for instance is the result of the watered down teaching of history. There are no doubt thousands of examples of how deliberate attacks upon public education have led to an uninformed public, willing to vote for false memes and being swayed propaganda, for which they lack the knowledge to confront.
I believe anyone can look at this last administration and fully comprehend how taking care of little Georgie, the scion of big Georgie, actually works out. (Friends of big Georgie actually had to suspend the Constitution in order to get little Georgie into office)
In order to give their scions success, it is necessary there be as little competition as possible. All the very rich guys look to the Republican party to make it happen. And the Republicans oblige … after all, the epitome of their intelligent thought is the Ryan Medicare Plan.
AY, I never considered sports teams to be a real part of the educational package. There are pro and semi-pro teams who use the school’s facilities and logo and pretend to be amateurs, when they are actually no more than farm camps for the major leagues.
At the secondary school level, those sports teams are the farm camps for the pro and semi-pro teams sponsored by colleges and universities.
OS,
You have left out football….
I taught at a private school for a short time. It was miserable. Administration made it quite clear to faculty that Little Johnny, the scion of Big Johnny, a Very Rich Guy, was not to do badly in his coursework. even though Little Johnny was as dumb as a box of rocks. Private schools have to go after the money like a cheap politician. And I might add, with the same eventual outcome we see in our bought and paid for politicians that brought us the economic mess in which we find ourselves now.
Most public school administrators and faculty do not have to sell their integrity for money from the parents of their students.
Nal,
I agree with your broader point about vouchers, but the idea that the public schools enable an unstacked meritocracy is very questionable. Kids who are intellectually middle of the road, but are born to college educated parents who put an emphasis on grades and help with homework will easily do better than all but the rare genius from less affluent homes.
Equality of educational opportunity is important because it helps keep the deck stacking to a minimum and gives the rare genius, the self-starter, the children of immigrants, and the children of the upwardly mobile the chance to succeed. Just don’t mistake that with a system where everyone’s individual abilities are fairly evaluated.
puzzling,
So you would support means testing vouchers?
I would be good with vouchers if they covered the full cost of the private school, including transportation, were means tested, and would require private schools not to discriminate. Basically, provide the same opportunities for everyone that public schools provide.
Does that resemble any voucher program anyone has ever seen?
One of the hallmarks of the antebellum South was a lack of public services and facilities, particularly public education. There is a reason there is an “ignorant hillbilly” stereotype of the region. In reality that structure was designed to reinforce and further enrich the planter aristocracy. Even some of that planter class understood that the structure was going to lead to the destruction of the region. Yet they fought even even the smallest inroads against them. They went so far as to prevent modern industrialization in the South because it might reduce their absolute power.
The modern Confederate party is trying desperately to recreate that period in modern America. They truly want to destroy public education in America. They have been working at it for years.
One of the true lies they like to tel is “since the 1970’s school funding has increased 180%, WHAT ARE THEY DOING WITH ALL THAT MONEY?” But, of course, 2 seconds of googling will inform you that the rate of inflation during that time period has been 560% meaning schools have much less to spend.
NCLB was just another assault on public education as are all the pointless tests and the bogus “pay for performance” plans. The Confederate led legislatures and Governors of Wisconsin and Ohio have both pushed bills that would remove those testing and performance requirements from private schools. They are so bold now that they don’t even pretend.
So those Colorado parents that could not afford the full $7,000 tuition, but could afford to make up the $2,500 difference after the voucher should instead be forced to put their kids into marginal to failing State-monopolized schools? All because the voucher is too low for 100% of students to afford private schools?
If the voucher was $10,000, would you be good with it? Because that’s about what it costs for the government bureaucracy to fill that seat in a public school in the first place. Every $4,500 voucher taken in that Colorado community is saving taxpayers $5,500 in school outlays.
Doesn’t that just make your heart go pitter patter….