by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
There is a former President of the United States currently stumbling around cyberspace under the guise of once again trying to capture the highest political office in the land. But as he waddles from microphone to microphone, he also makes a point of issuing outrageous pronouncements which seem to have the primary focus of keeping his name in the news while increasing his on-line presence, and ultimately his value to advertisers - and even to his own bottom-line net worth.
It's all about the money, honey - and every "like" or "retweet" that the political manipulator and scoundrel gets because of his crackpot ideas makes him, and the platforms and "news" shows which feature his absurdities, that much more valuable to advertisers. Advertisers want their products and services to be seen by the most eyes possible, even if those eyes are primarily implanted in the skulls of lemmings, sheep, and people who run a high risk of drowning from looking up in rainstorms.
I'm going to make a few comments this morning about that politician without using his name - not because I'm worried about being sued, because I am not - it's all a matter of public record. I am omitting his name because I do not enjoy typing or using it - and I do not want to add to his on-line value - even by a modest penny or two that my efforts might generate on a really good blog day.
The conniving politician on whom I am focused today has lately put out some very bizarre ideas on American education, and since I am a retired school teacher and administrator, I feel a strong need to note and rebut what he is saying.
This featured politician, as well as many others, is clamoring for more public involvement in the schools - not the private schools where their children go, but the public schools where their tax dollars occasionally drift. The general public, however, already has a large interaction in the schools which their kids attend - from being room parents, helping with fundraising and special projects, to even volunteering in the classrooms. They go to the ballgames, spelling bees, field trips, activity days, bake sales and car washes, and may even check in at the prom.
But that is not the type of public involvement that this politician and others like him are seeking. They want community rabble-rousers storming school board meetings and intimidating members into making brash decisions which will limit educational opportunities for the students and ultimately help to keep them on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder throughout their lifetimes. Pulling books from library shelves and texts from classrooms is also all about controlling ideas and maintaining on old-line class system.
Money, honey.
Manipulating the uninformed is, at its base, all about maintaining the economic status quo and keeping the poor kids poor while enhancing the privileges of the privileged.
The right-wing politician about whom I am feverishly typing - and with one hand - said a few days ago that he favored the "election" of principals. Actually, principals are already "elected" (hired) by the votes of officials (school board members) who have themselves been elected by the public. The move to directly elect principals is actually a political maneuver to disrupt the operations of the schools.
Being the leader of the school is, by its very nature, contentious. Money is always tight, and deciding on ways to equitably distribute resources can be a minefield for administrators. And then there are a myriad of other pressures to deal with: testing and measures of student performance, student activities, staff and faculty issues, student discipline, community outreach, and even managing the occasional pandemic as it ravages the local school. A good principal is running to maintain his or her office every day - and has no time for the added nonsense of standing for a community election.
Yesterday, the verbose politician who is trying to increase his own political stature on the backs of American public school students and educators deployed another doozy of a distraction when ge pivoted to the subject of student discipline and suggested that when he returns to the presidency he would "end the leftist takeover of school discipline and juvenile justice" and "allow" the federal government to oversee school discipline through involvement by the Department of Justice and the Department of Education. The. presidential candidate, who some say has a history of conflating race with crime, said that "troubled youth" were "going wild" by indulging in criminal activities.
A threat of bringing in the big (federal) guns to manage school discipline is just one more less-than-subtle way to try and make crime a racial issue.
There is plenty of room to "reform" education in America, but that will be a losing battle as long as our already underpaid teachers are forced to purchase classroom supplies with their own funds, or pay off lunchroom debt out of their own pockets in order to be able to interact with students who aren't focused on hunger - or until good community citizens can once again feel safe in serving on school boards - or until students are free to study ideas and texts which are routinely recommended for those who wish to go to college, or until the day when active-shooter drills are just a bad memory.
Education should be free, available to all, and beyond the malignancies of politics.
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