I might have just seen the dumbest political bumper sticker. Yes, I am guilty of having really bad bumper stickers on my car, at one time or the other. But this one takes prize.
Public School Survivor: Fight to keep government out of our schools.
I mean seriously, it even had a ribbon on it. Like public schools are a blight on our society, and we must find a cure.
I must admit, I am quite biased on the issue of Public Education. Not only am I a product of public schools whether in NYC, Eastchester, NY, North Penn HS and my first two years of college at Bucks County Community College, but being the son of two NYC Public School teachers kind of clouds my judgement from the profiteers that believe education isn't a community service and the most important investment we can make in our future.
I don't know if as a society we have forgotten the value of public education, or that not every venture requires a profit margin to pay off. I mean, not only have public school ensured access for countless Americans to a quality education, but it has given many service minded Americans a career with middle class mobility.
Government is not the threat to our public school system. An ever expanding austerity of the mind is destroying us from the inside out. I guess it was inevitable that our new age cut and shift conservatives would find their way to an American instution that Thomas Jefferson cherished as the only way a free citizenry could represent their interests:
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see it is in their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
I understand that all the tax payer money that goes into public schools makes some on The Right salivate. All that money that could be available for there for-profit cronies. Imagine the investment oppurtunites, the abilities to cut public education and shift the money to the private sector where the oppurtunities for profit are endless.
However, the future of our nation is not a commodity and our teachers aren't leaches of our tax money. Our form of government is incompatible to a nation whose priorities exclude the education of the people, not some of the people, nor most of the people but reasonable access for all the people.