Democrats have spent generations developing programs that keep millions of Americans dependent upon government help. Educating these Americans might help them get out of a cycle of poverty and into the middle class and make them less dependent on the Democratic Party and the bureaucracies created by Democrats.
school teaching jobs Education is the Answer,When Sputnik was launched in 1957 during the Eisenhower administration, it scared Americans into promoting teaching math and science to meet the Soviet challenge of that era. Every year since 1957, Americans have been spending more on education than the prior year at a growth rate that exceeds inflation or the growth of the economy. By now the problem would be expected to be solveschool teaching jobsd, especially after the cry for better education was given a boost in 1983 during the Reagan administration with the publication of A Nation at Risk by the U.S. Department of Education.
Republicans on the other hand have invested a great deal of money in charter schools. If public schools suddenly became better and charter schools no longer appeared to be a better alternative, Republicans would lose their investments. When a Republican has to choose between losing some personal money and the general welre of the country, the choice is obvious. Many Republicans recall the stories of their grandparents who told them that while the Great Depression had its downside at least well to do milies could find good help. A permanent underclass is good for the 1% who need good, low cost help. If the uneducated become more skilled they could get uppity!
Politicians are one group that has nothing to gain by improving the public education school teaching jobs Education is the Answersystem of the United States. Formal studies and Jay Leno have proved that the American public has little comprehension of the U.S. political system. If Americans became more educated, would they continue to vote for the current Congress, state legislatures and local public officials? Just a minimal amount of additional education might help voters connect the dots enough to conclude they could vote in a better Congress, legislature or city council. The current crop of U.S. public officials knows a well-educated citizenry may be good for the nation, but it would be detrimental to an individual politicians job security.
Education is the answer! Politicians from President Barack Obama to the local school member agree that providing a good education to Americas children is one of the countrys prime objectives. Pundits ranging from Thomas Friedman to George Will have written that providing better education for the nations children is critical to U.S. competitiveness in meeting future challenges from developing countries, particularly China.
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Restructuring a school district to improve performance is extremely difficult, as well. There is evidence that smaller high schools are better at teaching all of its students than larger high schools, but try breaking up a Division I high school into several Division III high schools and see what an uproar it creates. The discussion will not even mention academics, but will be about football and ruining someones illusion about becoming a pro quarterback. The same discussion will occur if school districts try to merge; someone will lament giving up a longstanding traditional rivalry. If opposition involves something other than athletics, it will involve money. A merger will be opposed because the poorer district will be seen as a burden to the wealthier district; helping a neighbor will probably get lost. Of course, the staff of each district will oppose a merger because jobs or status may be threatened.
But the problems in public education arent fixed. While there are many fine schools in the United States, they do not teach enough students to overcome the poor education given to the large number of students in major urban districts and poor rural districts.
Education is the answer if Americans want to maintain and improve their standard of living. Unfortunately, many obstacles ranging from vested interests to petty jealousies need to be overcome first before curriculum priorities can even be discussed. Winston Churchill once observed that Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing when they have no other choice. Right now the U.S. education system works well enough for those fortunate enough to be in the top half of the socio-economic structure of America. The top half has options; the bottom half will need to wait a while longer before the nation has no choice but to do the right thing and improve its education system.
So why are public schools on average doing so poorly? Many would blame the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers the unions. In 2011, these unions and their allies soundly defeated Issue 2 in Ohio, which was an attempt to rebalance the power between management and labor. In 2010, Adrian Fenty was defeated as mayor of Washington D.C. Michelle Rhee, the Chancellor of the Washington D.C. and Fenty s appointee to the school system, accepted partial responsibility for Fentys defeat because of the backlash by the teachers union in response to Ms. Rhees reforms. Rhee also resigned. Clearly, the teachers unions play hardball when defending against attempts to reform education which the unions view as attacks on its prerogatives.
For those milies who spend thousands of dollars on the right preschools and prep schools to ensure that their children are accepted into the right private colleges and universities, good public education is not a good idea. People can become upset when they spend small fortunes to reach a goal only to learn that their offsprings rightful place in the Ivy League was taken by some poor student who somehow received a good education in a large urban school district. The same thought process occurs with a mily that struggles to leave a central city school district for an affluent suburb with a good public school system. Instead of paying high tuition, that mily has a much bigger mortgage and tax bills. The mily made an investment to get an advantage for its children over the children who remained in the central city. Unfortunately, it is human nature to want to maintain that advantage; the mily that moved no longer has an interest in trying to help the milies that remained behind.
But the teachers unions are only the most visible impediment to reform in public education. There are more subtle and unfortunately widespread obstructions to improving public education. Despite the applause for President Obamas specific comments on improving education in his State of the Union address, many people really do not want to see public education improve. But who could be against educating the American public?
