Education - the NEWEST industry the illiterate but well to do can fix!

[truedelphi]

http://www.theawl.com/2013/09/are-the-startup-fellas-hellbent-on-destroying-education-even-literate

Helluva good rant, the above is, over at "The Awl.

I especially like the last two paragraphs:

"This is exactly how we are are in danger of wrecking our educational system, and so much else. Instead of taking pains to preserve what we have, and demanding that any cuts to funding or alterations in our practices, however minute, be subjected to the most rigorous resistance and interrogation, we're unaccountably willing to risk enormous sums, often in public money, on "experiments" to "fix" what isn't broken—on charter schools, MOOCs, and for-profit universities, for example, in the case of education—only to find that each time, these alleged improvements consist mainly of snake oil and charlatanism.

"We might blame the culture of Silicon Valley, which appears to believe that "building an app" and throwing a few million dollars at it is always a good idea; or we might blame California Governor Jerry Brown, who's already squandered some unclear amount of public money on Udacity classes in a disastrous pilot program at San Jose State, which began in January and was suspended in a matter of months. Brown is desperate for band-aids, however tiny, however hopelessly ineffectual, with which he may pretend to conceal the giant hemorrhaging gashes in the state budget (substantially caused by the quintupling of California's prison population since 1980). Here is an idea for you, Governor Brown: legalize marijuana! No matter what the police and private prison lobbies say."
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Hells bells, here in California the "state voter-approved" and state legalized med marijuana clinics were bringing in some 125 million bucks a year. Now that dollar amount is down by half that, due to the Eric Holder DOJ policy of cracking into the dispensaries and shutting them down. And to forcing some six thousand people out of high paying jobs and into unemployment. (In my county, if you lose a good job, there is 18% unemployment, so good luck with finding another job.)

A police chief over in Humboldt or Mendocino County has realized and gone publicly on the record that the taxation of legal med marijuana means we can have fully staffed schools, police departments, fire departments etc.

And although the Prison Industry would take a hit, so what?

Our children are already spending far too much time on their computers and other devices. We need the best teachers that we can find, and we need them now. And "industry chieftains" don't understand that, as they look down on teachers.