The education problem is merely another aspect of the HUMPTY DUMPTY NATION we are becoming, and at an accelerated rate. Though the main problem appears to be a fiscal fiasco, nearly all other aspects of our society are substantially contributory as well. This is becoming a nation in total disarray and all-hell is just around the corner.

Excellent Post Mr. Cyr..

“The “Department of Education” is no different. Having an actually educated and therefore self-educable citizenry — people able to life-long educate themselves independently, and experientially — is precisely what the Department of Education is there to prevent. If America had an actually educated and self-educable citizenry, then elections surely would have served a good purpose, back when they could have. The corporate party collaborating well “educated” liberals have for so many decades so ever reliably ensured that elections didn’t ever serve any good purpose, that now elections can’t and won’t possibly serve any good purpose anymore. The corporate states of America, Inc. has MovedOn to become just a possession of the Market-State… an amorphous extra-national alien entity that has no need to heed any election results.

There was nothing more uneducable than (D) “educated” liberal voters. ”

Why do liberals believe that education of children is what the Department of Education is for?

It’s quite obvious that the mission of the “Department of Agriculture” isn’t agriculture. It’s to cleanse the country of farmers, to replace good old wholesome food with unhealthy factory manufactured products that harm those who eat them.

It’s quite obvious that the mission of the “Department of Defense” isn’t defense. It’s to provide Luca Brasi persuasion, through either threats of or actual invasions and occupations, so that the corporations that own the rights to America’s might can make deals with poor people living over rich resources that those victims can’t refuse.

It’s quite obvious that the mission of the “Department of Energy” isn’t energy. It’s to provide inertia; to prevent the adequately scaled production of sensible energy solutions that neither promote catastrophic climate change, nor provide weapons-grade bomb yield materials.

It’s quite obvious that the mission of the “Department of Justice” isn’t justice. It’s to ensure that those who most deserve prosecution, conviction, and life-without-parole, are never ever even investigated for possible arrest; while hundreds of thousands of those who don’t deserve prosecution are regularly rounded up, railroaded through court, and mercilessly imprisoned, for purposes of persecution.

It’s quite obvious that the mission of the “Department of Labor” isn’t an **OF** Labor mission. It’s to regulate laborers and labor movements to mitigate any problems for the corporate entities coming from the “human resources” that they use up and discard.

It’s quite obvious that the mission of the “Environmental Protection Agency” isn’t to protect the environment. It’s to regulate environmentalists, and to make planet pollution more profitably sustainable.

The “Department of Education” is no different. Having an actually educated and therefore self-educable citizenry — people able to life-long educate themselves independently, and experientially — is precisely what the Department of Education is there to prevent. If America had an actually educated and self-educable citizenry, then elections surely would have served a good purpose, back when they could have. The corporate party collaborating well “educated” liberals have for so many decades so ever reliably ensured that elections didn’t ever serve any good purpose, that now elections can’t and won’t possibly serve any good purpose anymore. The corporate states of America, Inc. has MovedOn to become just a possession of the Market-State… an amorphous extra-national alien entity that has no need to heed any election results.

There was nothing more uneducable than (D) “educated” liberal voters.

Hell, I dunno. I had sex with my journalism teacher the summer after I graduated from high school, me and my best friend in fact. Not at the same time of course, but in short sequential order. We’re both now professional writers, though neither of us are journalists. But, hell, maybe that should be part of the curriculum:  pick your favorite teacher, graduate, smoke some dope with her, get drunk, and get naked. It worked for me. 

—

Let’s pretend like the above does not exist.

Here are a couple things rarely discussed that could be done to improve public schools:

Food.
Tackle football.
Local control of curriculum.

Food. We feed our kids shit in public schools, a sugar-carb diet with plenty of protein. Teaching by example is the best form of teaching in the world. We’re teaching them to be fat. Start feeding kids two good meals a day, particularly a good breakfast, and that would help them get to school on time, make them want to be there and help them focus. 

Football. Contact football has no place in schools.  I love football and I played in high school. It was also the way I scored my first narcotics when I suffered a near crippling back injury.  Other kids suffered dislocated elbows, broken legs, blown out knees—and of course we didn’t even log concussions.  Long and short, all of the injuries above resulted in a nice flow of pharmaceutical narcotics at the school, which many of the more business minded students sold to junkie ass bastards like me (not now of course, now I’m a saint). Regarding head injuries, it’s pretty stupid to support a game that damages the very thing we are trying to educate: the brain.  I won’t even mention the psychopath who coached freshman football. Yes I will:  There are lots of coaches out there with brain damage. They are violent. They are profane. They damage your kids on the football field and they teach history on the side. Contact football—and some of the whack jobs who coach it—need to go from our schools.

Local control of curriculum.  Our schools desperately need more comparative religion classes, more studies of mythology, more studies of philosophy.  And they need much more science—much more science.  But these type of classes are a threat to many people who want their kids not to understand the connection between all religions and mythology. And they sure don’t want their kids understanding scientific facts that render religious texts as superstition. Local control of curriculum and text books allows the dunderheads to keep our kids stupid.  It’s not enough to read. You have to analyse. It’s not enough to read. You have to know the history of what’s been written before. It’s not enough to read. You need to know what science has to say about what’s been written. 

Of course, we do need to respect freedom of religion. Parents should have the power to keep their kids from attending any class that the parents object to.  If they want their kids ignorant, let them be ignorant.  But if they don’t, then any kid in America—no matter where the kid lives, in rural Mississippi or inner-city New York—should have access to a world-class education at public schools. 

As for teachers, don’t vilify them. Screw ‘em. You’ll learn a lot more about their areas of expertise, with no head injuries, just head.

And pay ‘em more. Hell, they deserve it.

Education takes place in the home, but since Americans are not fond of taking responsibility for anything, their love of shirking makes it easy for the ruling classes to target the people who should be raising their children for them (in their minds, not mine!).

As long as we live in a country with a phenomenally STUPID public, we can continue to watch corporate profits explode and ordinary folks’ salaries and benefits shrink. It doesn’t matter that there are those of us who object to this process.

It’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy.  First, you set them to fail.  When they failed, you point the finger and say “I told you so” then take away everything from them and give it to your flunky contractor friends.  There, that’s how you dumb down an entire nation in 3 easy steps.

It all comes down to:

Do we want insanely large tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans or reasonably funded public schools?

The policies of the federal government and most of the states (particularly the ones run by Republicans) gives you the answer.

Corporations that invest in charter schools get a tax break.  So charter schools are “good”, even if in all but 17% of them they do the same or WORSE than public schools.

The goats are in charge of the cabbage patch and they are blaming US because there’s not enough cabbage.

And when they’ve eaten it all, and shit all over the garden so it’s fouled, they will tell us it’s the fault of Democrats and Liberals.

What do you want to bet they will be believed?

Today here in Indiana, they had GRADE SCHOOL children marching on the Capitol, in support of firing the “bad” teachers.
As usual, there is no sense in taking responsibility for doing your homework and focusing on your own education- just blame the teacher for your poor effort.
Parents of the children who participated in this had an opportunity to teach their kids a real lesson, but instead chose to show the kids how to put the blame on someone else—nice job!

rend

You’re right, of course.  But maybe, just maybe, he won’t bend to Duncan and corporate influences this time.

See, first came ‘Waiting for Superman’ to prep people for the coming assault.  Once everyone hated the teachers and teacher unions the Repub governor’s started the slaughter believing that they could get away with it.  After all, the corporate media and propaganda filmaking had paved the way.

“With all the evil people in the world, why are public schoolteachers being villainized? And how did they attract such powerful enemies?”

Easy to answer….They are teaching kids to think for themselves.

If you examine the new paradigm of elimination of traditional education (arts, sciences, etc.) and implementing methods to “prepare students for the marketplace”, you will see the end result of the intentional “dumbing down” of the US educational system by the the ruling oligarchy staring in the ‘80s.

It’s more than ironic that conservatives choose a time when corporations are earning astronomical profits while paying historically low taxes to blame poor-to-moderately-paid teachers for all of society’s ills.  When the rich get rich, they just want MORE -  they climb up the ladder and saw off any rung (e.g. public education) that might offer someone else a chance to climb up.
For that “gentle"person above who sent a child to college and got back an (insert diatribe here) educated liberal, remember that only God can “dam” (sic) someone ..... and His Son was/is the ultimate liberal. 

FYI to the grossly uninformed:              NO teachers’ union has the ability to hire or fire ANYone, nor the power to protect an unworthy employee.  Administrators have a contractual right/duty to hire and fire - it is a mere inconvenience to them that they must follow DUE PROCESS to do the firing - just as is required in ANY business worth its place in the marketplace. What conservative would work where terminations are done by whim or emotion?  Businesses routinely merge or bargain collectively - workers should be free to do so as well.

If you want to blame anyone for “bad” teachers, look no further than the faulty administrators and school boards who have no tools or skills for evaluation.  Moreover, boards and administrators annually force adoption of unproven fads in education; employee-teachers are not free to teach otherwise.  If a fad methodology fails, the administrators/boards are NEVER “fired”.  In fact, boards pay huge salaries and benefits to bring in new administrators and often pay huge reparations to outgoing administrators who “no longer fit the direction” of the district. NOTE: most boards are politically chosen and most often fiscally conservatives; nepotism and cronyism are rampant.
Administrators hire the cheapest labor available when they can to curry favor with boards - and find ways to pressure experienced teachers to leave (only because they cost more). 

By the way, which conservative would choose a “doctor” right out of an undergrad program to do major surgery rather than a physician with advanced degrees and lots of experience?  Education is at least as valuable as medical attention.

Always under the radar but always existing:  Americans
invariably admire the wealthy, not the well-educated; I
sent my good Republican son to university and 4 years
later he returned to me, a goddamn liberal; school
desegregation (Brown vs Board of Education) eliminated
my right to send my kid to a school in my (all-white)
neighborhood; all teachers are socialists; sex-
education causes promiscuity;  eliminating prayer in
public schools is a conspiracy perpetrated by
atheists…

It’s just plain easier to blame teachers than it is to fix the economic desparity at the heart of much of the failure of education. It costs a lot more money to educate than we are willing to pay, but politicians still have to act like they are doing something. So, they blame teachers and they are about to worsen the problem by lowering their pay and benefits even more.

The public school system’s 12+ years forced incarceration of near every child was how the corporate state regularly maintained its 99% popular vote mandates for the corporate party’s one party rule. The public schools regulated the indoctrinated minds of children, so that those that graduated into “normal” adulthood would be functionally incapable of independent thought, or critical thinking ability; unable to benefit from any experiential learning. The system’s successful students were “normal” mindless sheep easily herded into the (R) and (D) sheeple pens of the corporate party.

Consider the most successful products of the corporate state’s public school incarceration of children; the “educated” liberal voters:

When “educated” liberals were outraged with there being too much money in political campaigns, they (D) supported the more than doubling of the bribe money “contributed” in campaigns.

When “educated” liberals were outraged by a “dumb” war, they (D) voted to make it “necessary” to have more dumb wars… 1, 2, and now 3 more.

When “educated” liberals were outraged with the profits from denial of care in a SickCare system, they (D) voted to mandate that everyone be forced to pay higher premiums so greater profits would be made from greater denial of care, in a bigger and even sicker SickCare system.

When “educated” liberals were alarmed by the existential threat of catastrophic climate change, they (D) voted to develop a market for swapping pollution credits, so banksters can profit while the human habitable climate becomes uninhabitable.

In America, the corporate state’s elections only served the corporate persons’ interests. Through mergers and acquisitions, the corporate state of America became a wholly owned subsidiary of the global market-state that owes no allegiance to any nation, nor has any concern for any natural persons anywhere. In the market-state’s possessions, like America, elections only serve the market’s interests… like profitably privatizing the old public provided mutilation of children’s capacity to learn.

Teachers Unions were among the most reliable corporate state apparatchik organizations to GOTV for the corporate (R) & (D) party’s depraved Democrats (now the market-state party’s depraved Democrats).

Liberals collect diplomas to certify how well studied their ignorance is.

They are being “villainized” (don’t you mean “vilified”?) because there are too many worthless, illiterate teachers out there loose in the classroom, protected by the NEA, and it gives the profession and the unions a bad name.

Why are teachers villianized? Because they are the easiest targets. You think the socio-economic problems behind students lack of any motivation or interest in learning will take the blame? Teachers take the hits from both ends of the political spectrum. Johnson’s Great Society has created whole communities in which 15 years old who can’t buy a Snapple and a bag of chips on their own, are having children. You think they’re actually creating homes in which education is valued? From the Right, teachers are hated because they are public sector , unionized employees- wnd we all know how that sector has created the huge state and federal deficits, don’t we?

Lots of theory. But what is the number one predictor of academic success? It isn’t
Chinese parents. It isn’t private schools. It isn’t charter schools. It is funding for schools.

The heartening news is that today on ‘Democracy Now’ Obama decried the continual standardized testing which is the foundation of No Child Left Behind.  He admitted it only caused schools to ‘teach to the test’ and that creative, critical learning as well as student interest was being left behind.

I was amazed to hear Obama admit to this.  NCLB is touted by Arne Duncan and is the whole rational for the Charter School takeover and union busting.

Obama seems to intellectually know the truth, but cannot in reality buck the corporate pressure.

The truly sad state of affairs in the U.S. today is this:

Americans seem hell-bent on devaluing almost all occupations these days. I hear a lot of complaining that “those people” don’t work hard enough or that they’re over-paid.” It’s a self-destructive class warfare that will surely bring us down in due course.

And the wealthy, moneyed interests just laugh themselves to sleep knowing that all the “little people” will cannibalize themselves.

Before the usual, truth dig pissing contest begins… consider this…

Teachers are villified, because both the left and the right have turned the schools into a political bone to tear at, by focusing on teaching things that the opposite side feels is political indoctrination…

Since the left, has been vanquished, the right, views what the schools teach as a threat, both politically and economicly, and would like to destroy the schools and the teachers unions, who they feel are the root of the problem, because the right views them as liberals…

Both the left and the right are at fault, the schools have been used, by both of them…and the result has been decline….

The lefts pursuit of a political agenda in the schools, will come to nothing, because they have been defeated and discredited by the right..

History is written by the winners, the losers are discredited, and laughed at…

It might be more productive for the left to examine, how it failed politically against the right, and what it needs to do, to become politically viable again, other wise, there is no point…

I have worked in two different public school districts (one middle/upper class area and one immigrant/lower class area) and one junior college district of lower, middle and upper midle class parents over a period of three decades. (I also worked for a decade in Japanese schools, where you never hear this undermining of public education. Occasionally, but very cccasionally some liberal teacher will complain about the authoritarianism and conformity which is an integral part of the culture itself, where an often unspoken and unrecognized class discrimination is common. But nobody objects to public education as such.Teachers are generally respected.)
  In every situation I have found mosty good, earnest, conscientious teachers concerned about their students’ progress, with only a few who were sloppy and uncaring.  (I have met some stupid school board members interested only in cutting costs and supporting local business and politics—in short, in advancing their own agendas.)
  I myself went through public schools in a Pennsylvania district and a smaller, more rural high school in Indiana many years ago and got a very enriched education that prepared me well for college and beyond.  Almost all my teachers were hard working and conscientious, some more “interesting” than others, but all competent. 
  Public education in the US has been “picked on” by upper-class parents and wealthy entrepreneurs for decades.  It has become a routine kicking post for government agencies and taxpayers who are objecting to the taxes required to support public education for all students regardless of race or class.  They don’t see why they “have to pay to educate other peope’s kids.”  This is their shortcoming, not the schools in general.  It is called “lack of social intelligence” and is sponsored by people who want to privatize public education so that they can make a financial profit from the system.
  It’s all part of the “get rid of entitlements” program of narrow, selfish interests who couldn’t care less about humanity and its future, plus a lot of ignorant malcontents who like to have someone they can officially kick around in order to make a political noise and be heard. They are so abysmally stupid that they don’t realize they are cutting off their own lifeline.

Some folks blame teachers, because teachers are ‘Bad’.
Some folks say that’s wrong, because teachers are ‘Good’.
All those folks are right, there are good and bad teachers.

Some folks say all conservative republicans are ‘hypocritical, mendacious, vicious, self-serving, greedy ignorami’.
Conservative republicans claim to be ‘honest, thrifty, kind-hearted, public-spirited, wise stewards of our nation’.
In this case, the folks are right. There are no honest, thrifty, kind-hearted, public-spirited, wise stewards of our nation among conservative republicans.

No doubt there are some rare teachers who inspire students and make them want to learn, and just as many who discourage students and make them want to quit school.  However, the vast majority of teachers are in the middle.  They are capable of providing a decent education to those students who come to school with a desire to learn, but not capable of instilling a desire to learn in a child who wasn’t taught by his/her parent(s) to value education. 

There’s a reason why so many students of Asian descent do well in school.  It’s because their parents, who came from a society affected by the Chinese system created by the person we westerners refer to as Confucius, value education and have taught their children to value education.  Rather than scapegoating teachers for their students’ failure to value education or for their students’ lack of a desire to learn, we should blame the parents.

One of the real problems in school performance, ignored by everyone, is that what happens in the school is less important than what happens at home.
I had two friends years ago who graduated from high school in the same class. One, Dave, from a working class family that had no use for education, could not read or write upon graduation. His classmate, Luis, from a family of modest means but highly respectful of learning, went on to Yale and then Columbia graduate school.
In a nation coming apart at the seams, homelife is stressed to the breaking point. So is student performance.
To blame teachers for not being able to teach kids during a consciously engineered social meltdown is unprecedented scapegoating. One only has to consider who is furthered by such scapegoating. As always, follow the money.

Public schools are a reflection of the community or communities that they
serve.  Public schools have often been the scapegoat—when thousands of
immigrants came from Eastern and Southern Europe schools were condemned
for not “Americanizing” them; when the Russian launched Sputnik, condemned
for failing the country in science; when Japanese business outdid American
companies, condemned for not being as good as Japanese students (however,
when Japan’s economy tanked and America prospered, no credit was given). 
The push for charter schools and praise for private schools mask the fact that
these institutions seldom deal with those students who exhibit severe learning
handicaps.  If a student disrupts a class in parochial school, you find him in the
public classroom next month.  Student with a learning problem—dyslexic or
hyperactive—will find private schools telling parents to hire special teachers as
they do not deal with this.  Public schools do not “cherry pick” their students;
they cannot force parents to participate in their children’s education; they
accept the poor, the hungry, and isolated child. Are there bad teachers?  Yes,
but there are bad doctors, lawyers, politicians, clergy and business tycoons as
well.  If someone would only do the leg work and really visit the public schools,
I believe you would that an overwhelming majority of these men and women are
dedicated to their craft.  Often faced with lack of school funding, burden with
roles ranging from social worker to counselor, forced to adhere to educational
policies that have lacks reality, they work in outdated buildings and often with
outdated technology.  Yet, they reach tens of thousands of young minds, and
provides some of them an opportunity to overcome their personal obstacles.

“With all the evil people in the world, why are public schoolteachers being villainized?”

Easy. They are being villianized by the evil people. I figured out a long time ago that anyone those people hate is probably a hero.