Wasted Resources!
Posted this on boomer-blog.com a while back, in three installments.
If I were to sit down and devise a plan that would result in the poor remaining poor and the rich remaining rich, I would design and fund public education in the manner it is being funded in this country today.
Funding public education through LOCAL property taxes accomplishes exactly that - it ensures that those families that have money will continue to have money in the next generation, while at the same time it makes sure that poor families remain poor.
By what measure of logic or reason, by what standard of fairness or decency, do we justify a system that provides a high-quality education to rich people, and a poor education to poor people?
There is no logic behind it, nor is it fair or reasonable in any manner. The United States is a strong and healthy country. But, that will only remain true if the people who live here are strong and healthy. Success in this country is tied to money, that is true, but money is just a by-product of the process of reaching and fulfilling your potential. Educational opportunity is the one undeniable ingredient for allowing someone to reach and fulfill their potential. The very strength of this country is based on the people being able to fulfill their potential.
At birth, there is no meaningful difference between the POTENTIAL of the children born in the slums and those born in Beverly Hills. Those who would claim that there is a big difference are either terribly uninformed, or lying to protect their own advantage.
To be continued...
BB
Part II
There are those who would selfishly (and stupidly) say that "I worked hard to get where I am today! Why should my taxes pay for someone else's education?"
Work as hard as you like, but without OPPORTUNITY, you would not have achieved what you have. If you are wealthy, either you inherited it, or you took advantage of the opportunities that living in this country provides. If you inherited it, then chances are someone in the history of your family made the transition from not being wealthy to being wealthy. And that person most likely was able to do that because of the opportunities this country provides.
In EITHER case, you owe your good fortune (at least in part) to the land of opportunity, and you OWE it to this country to do what you can to ensure that the same opportunities are available to ALL Americans now. The single most important and powerful opportunity that can be provided is educational opportunity. The quality of the education a child receives, from kindergarten on up through college, is perhaps the single most important factor in someone achieving their potential in life.
Providing equality in educational opportunity for everyone would be a good thing for the individuals involved, a good thing for the country, and a good thing for everyone living in this country, INCLUDING those who are already wealthy.
To be continued...
BB
Part III
To evaluate the potential of the young minds forced into sub-par educational environments, it is not even necessary to compare their potential to any other group, such as the young minds in more well-to-do areas.
It is only necessary to determine that there IS potential there, and that it IS being wasted, and such a determination should be obvious to all except the most self-centered and selfish. OF COURSE there is great potential in ANY young mind, and OF COURSE the realization of that potential is being blocked by an illogical, selfish, class-oriented educational system in this country.
And the sad irony of the whole mess is that those very people who short-sightedly defend such a system are being harmed as much by the waste of that potential as anyone else in the country.
BB