Will the last teacher in America please erase the chalkboard before you turn out the lights?

[Are_grits_groceries]

I realize this is hyperbole to say the least.

However, every day it seems that I read about massive cuts in education because of budget problems. I know that other areas are important to address, but what is that much more critical than teaching the children?

Providing jobs and basic services just to live are certainly at the top. However, it seems that some other areas are maintained with little sacrifice.

Many people in charge of budgeting do agonize over their decisions. However, others seem to feel that teachers are a fungible resource. One will do as well as another.

We bemoan the lack of scientific knowledge and the ideas in a lot of areas that people support as time passes. Some come from children living in families that actively promote these specious arguments. They teach them that anybody who doesn't think as they do are 'the enemy.'

However, a lot of people form ideas because there is a void to fill. They never had a decent education that could at least have imparted enough knowledge to make them ask questions instead of swallowing ridiculous ideas whole.

As education is continually cut, the latter group of people will grow. They will be more subject to whatever winds blow strongly enough to carry their minds along. They will not have a decent enough foundation to keep from moving with those currents without any resistance.

This country does not lack intelligent people. It lacks those that can tap that intelligence to fill the voids before the propagandists do. Once that process has occurred, changing a mind is extremely hard. You can't put any different ideas into a mind with no openings or one not willing to open any.

[msongs]

1. chalkboards? who has chalkboards anymore? nt

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. I am so heartened by the fact

that you focused on the most important part of what I wrote. I am honored.

[Brother Buzz]

4. Glen Beck?

:hide:

[Wednesdays]

6. The next poster will concentrate on the 2nd most important part.

The lights.

[donco6]

7. Ha! I thought the same thing.

They get a D- in "Name the main point of this article."

[lunatica]

8. UC Berkeley is still full of them

Every one of our department's classrooms uses old fashioned chalk and blackboards and erasers, along with the overhead projectors and the computer outlets for every desk.

[LiberalLoner]

3. I'm really afraid for the future of our nation. I truly think this is one more nail in the coffin

of our dying empire. I find myself dreaming of escape from this country.

[JCMach1]

5. I left in 2003 over the issues that are reaching critical mass now...

I taught HS U.S. Government at all levels.

I now teach and administer in higher ed. outside the U.S. and make 6 figures. This is almost 3x what I made in the U.S.

So yeah, teachers who stay on in places like Florida I really feel for.

[lunatica]

9. It's the final nail in the class wars

The rich still have their private schools and their ivy league private Universities. We, on the other hand get the service class education.

Watch. Someone will come along and accuse you of being a Conspiracy Theorist who thinks the illuminati are out to get you. It never fails.

[Are_grits_groceries]

12. You mean they aren't out to get me?

I am soooooooooooo disappointed. That was one of my favorites.

[madokie]

10. And this is all because the rich man doesn't want to pay his or her fair share of the taxes

No other reason

[donco6]

11. We had to cut 6.5% from our current year's funding.

No, not a cut in our *increase* as the RW meme claims. We receive 2.5 million less next year than this year. That meant closing two schools, placing all those kids in other schools which raises class sizes, and laying off around 20 teachers. No step raises next year, but we cut the contract by 3 days in exchange for a cost of living raise 2%. We didn't get anything last year at all.

If we're cut again next year by this amount, it will mean cutting current salaries. We can't raise class sizes anymore, as it is physically impossible to get any more kids in classrooms. Once you reach about 30, there isn't room for any more desks. I suppose they could take turns standing . . .

On top of this, we're supposed to raise our test scores to the same levels as the all-white, 2X our average income neighborhood down I-25. The state is coming in to "help" create and implement a new plan. Their first meeting was to tell us that our problem was we don't have enough parent engagement. Wow. Really? Hmm. We all have to sit there and nod . . . there isn't any other allowed response.

And then there's our facilities. Our newest building is 40 years old - most are more than 50. We've done everything possible to keep them up using operating funds, but that takes more dollars out of the classroom, and it can never tackle the biggest issues, like a new roof (one roof is more than $1 million, and we have 11 to replace). We've run bond elections 3 years in a row and failed (albeit by slimmer margins each time). Our voting community is elderly white, and our student community is Hispanic. The whites won't vote to give "those illegals" anything. Our HIspanics won't vote at all - even when they can.

Gangs are growing here. We're into 2nd generation now. When we call in parents to talk about how Jose is getting expelled for gang activity, Mom comes in with neck tattoos and talks about having to report for jail the next week. She then goes home and gets her uncles and cousins to beat up the kid that ratted out her kid. They drive around our parking lot looking for him until we call the Sheriff's office. They respond eventually, but none too fast because we had to cut the School Resource Officer from our budget, which pissed off the County folks so now we're on the shit list.

But I guess the solution is charters. They have some magic mojo that makes all this go away. Or maybe they just make all these kids "go away." It's too bad, because we do see success - even in the face of all this. Our test scores are up slowly. We have a lot more kids going to college (and yeah, I know "not all kids should go to college" blah blah. But we had barely 5%, and that's not OK). Our parents love their schools. Our enrollment is up. We have a great new dropout recovery school that exceeded our projections. But I guess none of that means anything to those in charge. It's too bad. We really tried hard.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. I get it

Same story here with a few different details.

It sucks, that's for sure.

[old mark]

13. The last teacher will probably have to do it herself - and don't expect to be paid

for staying overtime, either!!!

mark

[tom_paine]

15. Our Global Aristocracy (Americccan-division) doesn't want educated citizens

It wants savant-consumers. To paraphrase George Carlin, they want us just smart enough to run the machines.

Ed Bernays and Marketing/Advertising/PR now rules Americcca and the world. Those precepts have overturned the Enlightenment Ideals by scientifically proving that people are not creatures of reason, but infantile bundles of easily maipulated emotions with a thin veneer of "reason" which exists mostly to rationalize decisions already made at the reptile-brain level.

Our Global Aristocracy has, based on the sad scientific reality, begun looting our world ffrom top to bottom, to ensure when what they have creasted collapses, that they'll still be farting through silk while our descendants play Mad Max outside their gates.

The willful destruction of public education is simply a logical outgrowth of the observable policies of the Global Aristorcacy. They fear nothing more than educated citizens, so they have taken many expensive steps to make sure that there are damned few of this mutant species, as well as critical thinkers, another dangerous element and threat to their plans.