Reply #154: Two things. [View All]

[Jakes Progress]

First, it's not about the teachers. Teachers are the flashy villain the right wing is holding up for your consideration while they turn public schools into corporate entities. If this administration is helping to do that, they are either unfit for their job or they are in with the corporatists. I cannot find a third way to look at this because what they are doing to schools is just wrong. They dangle the teachers and the unions as bait, a flashy target for love or hate, while in the background they turn the keys over to corporations. It's about children. It's about any chance the country has to work out of its current mess.

Second, I'm afraid you are wrong. The education system is not broken. At least not until the neocons get a complete hold of it. I could spend several hours with the facts and statistics and analysis to support this, but you can do yourself a favor and get a copy of "Manufactured Crisis" by Dave Berliner and Bruce Biddle. There are lots and lots of resources that will prove the point, but this book will be the shortest way to understand the con game being played on the public about education.

I guess there is a last part too. The way to solve our problems is not to join together to split what crumbs the rich will let fall from their pie. Telling one group that you can't support them because they make more than $15 an hour isn't the way to go and it certainly won't make the world better for you son. He will have to combat the growing influence of the neocon movement which is hell-bent on eliminating the middle class and returning us to the days of the robber barons and working poor. Being flexible is just what a robber baron needs his workers to be, and I doubt that is the life you want for your son.