I, like my fellow/sister Americans–regardless of our respective skin color, background, or zipcode–value my hard-won freedoms: to vote, to have the opportunity to be educated, to thrive by earning a fair return on my labor, to decide if, when or how to start or grow a family, and to love whom I love.
I, like my fellow/sister Americans–regardless of our respective skin color, background, or zipcode–value my hard-won freedoms: to vote, to have the opportunity to be educated, to thrive by earning a fair return on my labor, to decide if, when or how to start or grow a family, and to love whom I love.
Our freedoms simply cannot exist if we forfeit the values expressed by Lincoln, the democratic values reliant on a government of, by and for the people.
Those are the values and freedoms Biden defends (here and beyond our doors)–and those are the values and freedoms Tr*mp and every MAGA Republican wants to attack and take away, all to ensure minority rule for a racist, sexist, nativist and LGBTQ-hating wealthy, well connected few.
That’s the choice before us this year, from the Presidency, down through Congress, and across state legislatures. Vote, and vote your values–because when WE vote, we win.
We need to get higher education more affordable here in the US. As far as I understand, higher education even is mostly free in Europe. I'm not sure how they do it, but would like to know. Currently it takes tremendous wealth in the US to send your kiddo to college.
I'm a huge proponent of countries emulating other countries in areas they have success. But sadly we all go our own ways.
Matt, other countries with “free” higher ed don’t exactly open the doors to all who wish to pursue an education. In some countries students are “tracked” into (by grades, performance, testing and inclination) higher ed (ie; “college”) or to apprenticeships/trades. In the early ‘90’s my then husband and I hosted a former Soviet small businessman who came to study the process/techniques of a similar business my ex was owner of. Delightful fellow, he stayed with us for about a month. I worked at the local Univ & we toured the campus & I shared w/ him admissions criteria & student aid to help cover the cost (I worked in the Fin Aid Office)…he was gobsmacked by how much college cost in the US. He also said not everyone is able to attend “college” in his country. My take on US education is that “higher ed” can mean many things….liberal arts degree; or other 4-yr degree (majors)…should also include trade schools and apprenticeships & those should qualify for assistance too. I wish civics and critical thinking were taught in high schools nationwide as a starter!
and back in the dark ages of the 1970s 80s and 90s when students were deeply interested in Government and Politics and history. I recall those years vividly before my retirement from public schools.
I go back even further, to those 'prehistoric' days of the 50's and early 60's when the glow of winning WWII was still alive and a lot of our current controversies were still largely unknown or underground and out of common sight. But we also learned freely and thoughtfully and imagined that the purpose of education seemed simply 'to know and to understand.'
We got a certain amount in high school civics, but nto enough, of course. The coolest thing to us, as students, was that the civics teacher spent his summers working with & for the grape harvesters, and Chavez.
In the first few decades of the previous century, it was considered "modern" to combine three academic disciplines - history, geography and civics - into one which assumed over time the name 'social studies'.
Although purportedly well-intentioned, this action gave short shrift to any one of the three disciplines with the apparent result that students learned a very little about any of them, and nothing in depth.
If anything, this practice has continued and grown since then. No wonder that students today think of geography as being able to use a map, know slim outlines of some major events in American history, and really have no clue about the complexities of our government at all its various levels, or about the critical articles of our Constitution.
When I was in education, and taught a few classes, I did teach critical thinking. For a few years i also taught government. Education now is about standardized tests unfortunately, so teachers are stuck in many instances teaching for the test. They are also burdened with too large classes and the wing nuts wanting to control curriculum and what books are in the library. The there is the discipline issue which is also out of hand in many instances. This week someone on Facebook was lamenting the loss of local control to the state here in Oregon. I did point out to him the problems of getting a budget passed every year and I didn't even mention the Catholic school next to ours and the very Catholic community which always did not support public schools. Then there were the people up the canyon who remembered something that had happened many years earlier that they didn't like. I, for one, couldn't tell a kid from up the canyon as opposed to one from one who wasn't. To me they were all kids. Any problem student that the Catholic school had soon came to us and were known as Regis Rejects. We were also responsible for any of their special needs students which in those days included PG students. One Regis parent wanted us to send her daughter to the Salem school district so nobody would see her and which cost us money. One of things I did mention was saving money through deferred maintenance and if it did happen, it went to the lowest bidder. For years we had buckets sitting around to catch water from the leaky roof when it rained. And we didn't need to invest in computers either according to one citizen on the budget committee. Sigh. Then the voters passed measure five which affected local property taxes and that's when the state took over most of the funding.
What you have outlined is true throughout our country, that the level of education in reality is based on money (its availability), tax levels and sources, religious viewpoints and politics. The result is the uninformed electorate that hobbles our democracy and gives us fools for representatives in Congress.
Thank you for your service to educating kids under intolerable conditions. To teach is a gift. To learn anything under this current insane system is a miracle.
Thank you. I have been retired for years and now when I look at how things are, I am very glad. We have as good friends a married couple who are still at it. It is insane, but he has figured out a way past the testing. She, I think, does ESL as she is Ecuadorian and he speaks Spanish as well. They are in a heavily Hispanic district. Still, they have many problems to contend with. They thought they had hired a great super and then he turned out to be horrible. They narrowly avoided a strike. I had one ex-student who was a special ed teacher and I imagine a good one and she finally quit because she ended up too many times in the ER and the district wouldn't do anything. The legislature this year has a nice pot of money to work with even after the kicker, so it will be interesting to see what they do with it. The kicker has to do with estimates of income tax revenues and if the estimate is too small and the state brings in more, a percentage goes back to taxpayers.
All around the world they gut the teaching of history and humanities. Nothing humanly good about them -- even teachers let themselves lose contact with students for the reign of these monsters -- which computers mostly all grade anyway.
In many countries now students cease reading any book from beginning to end. Why? Because it's easier for the standardized testers to turn all life into nothing more than random fragments -- for the ease of arranging context-free, short-term-knowledge questions of, by, and for the tests.
Minae Mizumura speaks of this in "The Fall of Language in the Age of English" (Columbia U. Press, 2016).
Diane Ravitch chronicles the debased, neutered, homogenized language all poisoning schools now for the sake of these behemoth leveling, dehumanizing tests -- in "The Language Police," (2003).
All the teachers I know hate these tests and have nothing good to say about them. In the good days when some teachers wrote tests that didn't require much thinking, their student aides graded them and they sat on their duffs in the teacher's room. At one point our administration decided it was a good idea to have a finals week, so this sitting in the teacher's room could be extended. My students wrote papers which took me some time to grade. In my government classes, they designed their own final from a bunch of options I gave them. They could even come up with something of their own if I approved it. Each choice had a certain number of points assigned to it and they could choose enough to equal 100. Some of them chose enough options to go over a 100. I sat down with each one of them to work out their choices. Sometimes in certain exams, I went for the usual kinds of questions, but always included one that had nothing to do with the subject....like all I want for Christmas.....one of them answered the Elgin Marbles. I hoped to help them relax and maybe laugh.
I was alway sorry about the concept of Presidents Day. When I was in school the Great Emancipator and Founder of our Nation birthdays were celebrated on their birth dates separately. HCR reminds us what we have given up! Now all we hear about is White Sales. It would be very telling in our current nation if we tried to reinstate Lincoln’s birthday today. I seriously doubt it would pass.
I totally agree about civics in high school and a requirement for graduation. This country has been dumbed down and don't understand the basics of the US Government (how handy for the large corporations currently in power)
This was so before, Louis, even without legislation. Our English classes taught through literature and if a parent didn't want the student to read a certain book, i had the student in the library reading something else. This was an education to us in some cases including the student whose family loved to sue people. God provides, you know.
And THIS is one of the precious subjects we could be spending our time on if we were not distracted by the MAGA Circus Clowns and the Russian Bear and the Witch Doctors of the Middle East.
And yet, American Exceptionalism has been the tragic flaw of our nation. We are so full of ourselves, that we fail to look at the successes of our neighbors. Our arrogance is foolish beyond words. It is infuriating.
And it applies to all manner of subjects - education, of course. But healthcare, retirement planning, housing, weapons control, environmental protection, energy production, taxation and democracy itself. SHAME!
American exceptionalism never lies in who we are at any given moment, but in the promise at the heart of our founding - the first nation on earth to define itself at its inception as a place in which we have been given the chance to find within ourselves the courage, the honesty, the understanding, the tolerance, the compassion, the wisdom, the humor, the hope, and the sheer common sense to rule ourselves from the ground up. As one who taught American history for over 40 years, I have measured our exceptionalism at any given moment by the level of those qualities present in our social and political conversations. Right now, they are sorely lacking.
And yet, Bill, our exceptionalism is one of our great strengths, at least when we are not blinded by it. Despite our horribly unequal distribution of wealth, it is still easier for people to rise from the class into which they were born than almost anywhere else. We accept new Americans, and for the most part welcome them, more than any other nation. For all of its shortcomings, the civil rights movement has been the greatest effort to erase race prejudice on Earth. We’re not in the promised land, but most of us are trying—when we do not get too tired—to move at least a few steps along the path.
"And yet, Bill, our exceptionalism is one of our great strengths, at least when we are not blinded by it."
Yes—except that we *are* blinded by it. Poisonously so. And Putin, et. al. know it. And they love stooges like Carlson and Trump. They know the United States body politic is weak, and its politicians even weaker. They're fully exploiting it while we just play on like the band on the deck of the Titanic.
Trump claims he'll fix that—because he's (literally) been sent by God, and only he (He?) can do the job. It's just. So. Breathtakingly. Nauseating.
You put me in mind of Churchill relating a statement by a prime minister of Greece during WWI: "England always starts off by losing battles, and ends up winning wars;" We--the US--aren't doing so bad. We are very much the world's leading power, the country to which others want to go for business or education or to live. We have a terrific president--the best is the past 75 years. The people are alert and engaged in their political future. Is that true of all? Of course not. But it is never true of all, never has been and never will be. There are a lot of irredeemably stupid, corrupt and foolish people. T'was ever thus.
"And yet, American Exceptionalism has been the tragic flaw of our nation. We are so full of ourselves, that we fail to look at the successes of our neighbors. Our arrogance is foolish beyond words. It is infuriating."
^ This. All day. Every day.
I've decried that very plague on my own FB page for years (which is largely preaching to the choir) as well as on forums and other places where I'm not keyboarding away in my own little ecosystem. Sadly, many of the responses are along the lines of "Why don't you move to Russia; you'll probably like it much better there."
These idiots, quite useful to our detractors, fail to see the logical fallacy in their responses, and they fail to see that if I really didn't give a damn, I wouldn't bother posting anything in the first place. It's breathtakingly frustrating. We have since about the early 80s (timed nicely with Reagan and his government-bad-unbridled-capitalism-GOOD! sales pitch) continued to dumb everything down so badly in this country in the interest of hawking product and keeping politicians in power; Wall Street and Madison Avenue have worked rather successfully to teach everyone that they *deserve* everything—and Wall Street is none to happy to finance it for them at rates they don't care about as long as they can squeeze in the payments.
This has metastasized into a grotesque intellectual incuriosity and an arrogance based not on solid principles but on mere entitlement. "I want what I want when I want it." And I'm not talking about the entitlements that Republicans want to kill. I'm talking about the toxic kind that actually makes us weak—and it seems the weaker we actually get, the louder the politicians have to scream from their pulpits, their bejeweled US flag lapel pins blinding us from the light used to highlight the three dozen US flags behind them, that the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen. Utterly nauseating.
It pains me to think about how, if someone like Trump seizes the reigns and successfully enough takes a jack-hammer to whatever he can, this country could slip into something like the kind of regime so beautifully exemplified in the TV series Man in the High Castle or, perhaps less Nazi-esque but equally scary, The Handmaid's Tale.
Why? Because we have an influential percentage of the population and far-right-wing legislators that literally hate liberals and liberal concepts, think in sophomoric, binary terms, and would be OK with constrained rights if it "solved" some of their pesky problems. That irony should not be lost on anyone.
The far-right can't stand the idea of a broader humanitarianism unless it fits its very narrow, very uninformed worldview. To them, the world is almost 100% transactional, and that's one of the reasons they love Trump—rather unarguably the country's biggest mountebank and a man who stands on no principle other than to serve himself and the cronies who will protect his vulnerabilities from attack. Empathy be damned. "I got mine, suckas. You get yours!"
I strongly believe the man would have run on a blue ticket in 2016 had it meant the better chance of winning. His fully metastasized narcissism and boundless fear of being a loser (writ large: going to jail for the rest of his life) leaves him room for precious few morals; he abuses the weak and the meek, and he does it with relish. He's an utterly miserable human being that a scary percentage of this country's population thinks has been delivered from God. Literally.
And yet, he's ultimately just a symptom of a much larger and long-festering problem. We have only ourselves to blame.
Totally agree with you Bill. I would dearly love to live in an America that could embrace such reforms that are so critically needed but fear it will not come to pass as we are a people of deeply divided values. Someone in this chain mentioned vote your values. If we did that, and we had a clear consensus amongst our fellow Americans for the changes we yearn for we would have to sort ourselves into another country apart from the many millions whose values are vastly different.
Especially your last 2 sentences. As a former professor in a public university, I saw how very hard most students had to work, struggle & juggle to afford the so-called “ affordable “ ( compared to private colleges) tuition.
Degree inflation really took hold in the 1960s, when men were trying to avoid going to 'Nam. It started a truly vicious circle of students needing teachers needing students and so on. Instead of encouraging youth to find what they're interested in, what they're good at, we insist from an early age that a college degree is essential, at the expense of people loving learning for its own sake rather than just to pass exams and get a job. One of the biggest shocks of my life was reading the introduction to The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers by Will and Ariel Durant. They wrote it for working class people with a high school education. Now I wonder how many college students or grads could read it.
Interesting about the Durants. My partner, turning 80, was given his father's worn copy of that book recently, and his father had an eighth grade education.
All four of his children graduated from college (one with a doctorate), as did his grandchildren and his seven great grandchildren, except maybe one who didn't finish.
Progwoman, I love to hear success stories ! Especially about people who weren't handed everything and had to work hard to accomplish their goals.
There's way too much entitlement, exemplified by a man who was given everything and expects to use his entitlement to do whatever he wants without consequences.
Here's to all the hard-working men and women who raised
themselves up and made a better life for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Thank you. I have been saddened to observe many courses removed from required to non existent courses within our High Schools
Although I appreciate technology and the easy access to communicate with family and friends....I also find it has made us mentally lazy. It has often spread cruelty between children and youth.
Cruelty, rudeness, multiple venues /distractions also remove our children as well as adults from the focus we need to discipline our minds....to direct our hearts towards good.
We should find a way to educate ourselves and our children in a realistic, commonsense, organized framework. Children need to see a working framework of security, love, respect, shared responsibilities in order to deal with the craziness of this world. A healthy, functioning family is a buffer to each of us.
Some families are fortunate to have grandparents, aunts and uncles or friends who are also neighbors to fill in when needed. but this is rare.
I am concerned for our citizens, our families, our hardworking teachers. I am concerned that many of our worship facilities are about worshiping a person rather than about serving and encouraging...lifting up humanity when needs are obvious: our drug crisis is everywhere!!!
And to another issue: we have a human problem, NOT a border problem....the employment of decent persons who will not use those in need for evil organizations. This is an eternal issue as long as this planet exists: wars, poverty, natural disasters are NOT going away....the need for better and appropriate education...a family's ability to earn decent wages as well as to have time to be with their children who need their love, encouragement and care....to see a parent's example of how to handle struggles together as a family....not leaving them alone when they need someone to talk to.
What I see more and more is the absence of functioning families. After a few months of birth, children are sent away to preschool, afterschool care or to return to a home with no one for hours until a hardworking mom or dad arrives from work.
A good sound education .... a healthy nation ....takes involvement from each of us. What we have or do not have is the product of OUR choices.
Speaking of Will Durant, here is a quote from Will and Ariel Durant's "The Age of Reason Begins":
"Is Christianity dying? Is the religion that gave morals, courage and art to Western civilization suffering slow decay through the spread of knowledge, the widening of astronomical, geographical and historical horizons, the realization of evil in history and the soul, the decline of faith in an afterlife and of trust in the benevolent guidance of the world? If this is so, it is the basic event of modern times, for the soul of a cvilization is its religion, and it dies with its faith."
All religion is, unfortunately, a two-edged sword in human hands. It has always been at once a blessing, a hope, a salvation, and a terrible weapon easily and all too effectively used by those who see it as a path to power and control.
I will suggest that the purpose of religion includes cultivating the individual's innate potential to let divine love shine through us and into the community and world around us.
It seems clear that traditional religion is "molting" all over the world during this transition between the Ages of Pisces and Aquarius.
Religion, or what will come to take its place, includes reverence, awe and wonder.
Well, it is not as a result of "the realization of evil in history and the soul". General knowledge or sense of that has been around a long long time. It is not even limited to homo sapiens. And it is a core article of faith in the Judeo-Christian tradition, memorialized the the Book of Genesis. So the answer is no with respect to that particular. To the contrary, were it so, it would be due to a general loss of that understanding..
...Personally, I reason back to faith from the knowledge that sin is real. The Devil, Sir, is abroad in the Land.
Tyler P. Harwell, I think you'll agree that the quote is thought-provoking. I hope you'll agree that the part about "the realization of evil in history and the soul" is telescoping or encapsulating a larger train of thought (which might or might not be viable). I'll suggest that, in the U.S.A. before the Great Depression, there was a cultural sense that we were in the process of building the "Promised Land" right here and now.
And I'll suggest that the phenomenon of Hitler with its descent of Germany into madness is part of what the Durants were pointing to in that quote.
Barbara; you are so right. Critical thinking and ethics are a big hole in our ed system, even in some of the top private schools, it is only taught as "integrated" into the regular curriculum. We need to have more explicit mention and treatment of the subjects in school and in teacher education. There are even big holes at PhD and Masters levels (such as teaching only one school of ethics or critical thinking frameworks). Even McKinsey and BCG consultants have big holes in their approach to ethics
Barbara I have heard doctors say they should have taken shop. Most are better prepared with some of everything and decades ago sadly our school system in Southwest Virginia severely cutback the courses.
I can vouch for the value of the shop business. It was a very enjoyable and educational part of my schooling, even in an 'elite' preparatory school in the fifties and early sixties. And I taught at another such school right up until my retirement in 2016 in which all the boys took woodworking as well as more traditional school art. Indeed, one of the graduation requirements was that each boy produced a carved wooden plaque of their own design, all of which were put on permanent display on various school walls going back to our founding in 1919.
Before the college I attended (and was employed by for 40 yrs) phased out its Industrial Arts (later called Industrial Tech) program, I took auto shop, woodworking & welding (a hilarious mishap in the welding class one day!); my college also, at the time, had Home Economics & took classes there…especially liked the Tailoring class. Learned many useful skills along with courses in history, art history, English, Philosophy & world religions, psych & sociology courses (not a lot of sciences tho cuz I’m math-deficient!)….oh, and dance classes too. Guess that’s why I tell folks I was on the 10-yr No Degree Program (stopped taking formal classes just a few requirements shy of attaining my degree).
I agree about the high cost, and I admit I spent nearly twenty years (half my professional career) teaching at what most call (and those on the right would disdain as) an 'elite' independent elementary school which was hardly a bargain, yet I also recall one of my favorite posters from way back:
"If you think education is expensive, you ought to try ignorance."
And we are paying a terrible price for ignorance just now.
Yet I'm also reminded of that famously ugly ex-sculptor who gave his life for the freedom to ask hard questions and seek honest and thoughtful answers refused to accept payment for teaching in the Athenian Agora. And I know he would never have agreed that the prime purpose of education in a democracy is to get a good job.
It is a conundrum which the current brouhaha over American public and private education is doing very little to solve.
Yeah, from what I've heard, in Europe (say Germany) you are put on an educational track. You can't just become a physicist if you aren't on that track in high school.
Not quite true Matt, but close snd changing. Today in Germany/Europe, the tracks are still there, but they are permeable to cross-overs at all levels, which many take advantage of. The biggest barrier is social class (to which I include academic class) University educated generally send their kids to University, Trade educated send their kids to trade school...although, as I said this is changing...in both directions interestingly enough.
Here in Switzerland we have a very permeable track system. The husband of a friend started out as an electrician, then became an engineer and finally received an MBA. This story is not exceptional. Also, the apprenticeship system is excellent and, thanks to robust trade unions,
all trained workers receive a living wage. Most untrained workers (cleaners, kitchen personnel, etc.) do, too. Both my kids attended Swiss universities for a nominal fee, saving me, a single mother, many a sleepless night. The Swiss see all money spent on education as an investment in the future and the wellbeing of its people.
Matt, my youngest niece took her first year of university in Germany after graduating from an International High School (her Mom, the FedEx pilot, was stationed in Bonn for four years). She dated a German boy who had been tracked to the trades, and worked his tail off to get admitted to University. His family was a trades family, and he really wanted more formal education.
The problem is MAGA Republicans don't believe in higher education - they think it's a form of propagating anti-American socialism driven by "elites." The only higher education one needs, in their mind, is a Christian-based education.
Someone might break it to them that Jesus was a bit of a liberal, before the term came into use. If a man have two coats, he should give one to the man who has no coat.
Oh, the Pearl-clutching and fainting by those who listen to the prosperity-gospel version of the King James Version of the ancient scribe’s version of what could be found and reported at the time. Lost in translation might explain a lot, and deliberate editing by greedy men might explain even more.
I think there could be a case of mistaken identity. Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus Christ may be two different people. The former was written about in the four gospels. He wouldn’t have called himself Christ, as that was a Greek word. The latter was the one at the root of religious wars, bigotry, the prosperity gospel, etc.
MisTBlu - "I say that Jesus was the first socialist, if not communist."
??
Communism: a political theory advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned, and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.
In a Communist system, individual people do not own land, factories, or machinery. Instead, the government or the whole community owns these things.
I used the word communist in the broader sense of communitarianism: from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs. Eg, people needed wine, Jesus had the ability to make it out of water.
Christian Nationalists should see the recent movie, "The Book of Clarence" ( the fictional twin brother of the Apostle Thomas), in which all the actors (except the imperialist Romans) are Black.
They also don’t believe in taxation. Back when higher education was considerably more affordable in the USA the highest marginal tax rate prior to Reagan was 50% before that it was 70% and in the 1960s was as high as 90%. That’s how the States like California and the USA were able to afford the once robust higher education of the era. Then the 1% didn’t want to pay their share and and got people like Reagan elected.
And many people who have no children in school don’t want to have to pay for schools. Such a short sighted position, of course. A good education system affects everyone and everything.
If white voters could have been sure that no government program (for education or anything else) would benefit black people, Reagan would never have been president. Maybe not even governor. The 1% needed (and still needs) the votes of a significant majority of white voters to win elections. One percent ain’t near enough.
I don’t think propaganda is the right word for ginning up votes by appealing to the desperation of white Americans to retain their systemic advantages. It’s more like a campaign promise. Republicans have been delivering on this promise for at least 50 years. Their voters know that and they return the favor in loyalty at the ballot box and now, with Trump, in the streets with weapons, including new, weapons like doxxing and swatting.
Getting down to brass tacks, at some point maybe we have analyzed and described the whole situation of Republican'ism enough to satisfy our forever curiosities and move on to strategies and tactics and actions. They must be defeated where we defeat them - at the ballot box, all of them at all levels, to reestablish sanity and equality in all areas of government; hoping for throwing off the bully effect so that the moderate Republicans who exist in the shadows at the moment can recreate the better politics of
common sense where we all converse and engage with the behavior of adults.
After that and included might be an ongoing analysis of how to improve the degraded structures and forms that have pulled us down for the last 40 years, education being absolutely primary
which Biden's teams are already on. Accessibility and affordability to education at all levels is obviously needed along with keeping politics out of the classroom except as a neutral study subject, and so in.
I think rather that they fear education, since a good one would consistently expose the many weaknesses of their agenda, especially their narrow definition of what constitutes a 'real American', and a capitalism in which the fewest regulations, the lowest taxes, and the least union power best enable the unrestricted growth of the economy, which has proven to be false over and over again. The irony of this position is that the two groups who support this point of view are the wealthy themselves, of course, and a vast number of those whose lives and economic prosperity are constantly put in jeopardy by the lack of regulation or concern of those who prioritize financial gain over safety or a more widespread economic prosperity.
I'm neither a socialist nor a Marxist (and I actually know the definition of both words, and the economic and social histories that have driven the growth of both ideas, another reason Republicans fear education), but I can read a history book and I know that for all capitalism's clear ability to drive economic growth, what is likely to happen in a society when it is unregulated.
Very well said, James. As I note in Cindy Hill's comment below, there is an effort, right now, to change the k-12 curriculum (and through college) in Florida to reflect the conservative view of history and ideology. It is truly Orwellian, seeking to replace the Truth with Untruth. (They, of course, view the curriculum taught over the last 3/4 century as being Untruth.)
I think MAGA- Republicans and others with the notion that might makes right see education (higher education and robust public education) as a threat. Keeping ppl uneducated helps control them and helps force the will of more powerful on them ( enslave them.)
What you say is true. At the same time, there is an effort by MAGA Republicans to replace what they believe is a "liberal" curriculum in kindergarten through college with a "conservative" curriculum that flips America's history on its head. I actually know someone who is at the forefront of this effort. We are truly engaged in the Orwellian battle of Truth v. Untruth.
The irony, nay the shock, is how many Republicans in high office have elite educations, both undergraduate and graduate. That so many have law degrees from Harvard makes me think that Harvard may not be the end-all-to-be-all that their reputation would have them be. I'll never forget how hypocritical it was when Rick Santorum belittled Obama's focus on college by saying, "what a snob." Not only did Santorum graduate from a fine university, he had two post-graduate degrees!
It’s ironic that many MAGA leaders such as Cruz Hawley DeSantis and even Trump himself capitalized on Ivy League educations but want their voters to remain barely knowledgeable as they are more malleable when ignorant. Sad cycle that ultimately has or will prove disastrous to the MAGA rabble.
Seeing the condition of American Medicine I would add free medical school for qualified students also. In France doctors become doctors to help patients and are “just like everybody else” except they are well trained in taking care of patients. If you can find Tony Judt’s “Ill Fares the Land,” you will get a picture of what we might be if we learned from others. Exceptionalism may be the end of US.
Virginia, remember the TV sitcom Northern Exposure? In it a recently graduated medical doctor was posted to a low income rural area in Alaska to work for X number of years that would “forgive” his federal loan educational debt. With tweaks, there is a lot to be said about such an approach….helping current med school grads & enticing participation by those seeking a medical/healthcare degree (and I would include nursing degrees in this too).
Then I bought the DVD's. After upcoming move, I'll dig them out. Everybody needs a little break from political chaos. Need to watch my cabinet full of DVDs instead of paying for streaming.
I think access to medicine in the US is the problem. I have insurance and lately I've been blown away by my doctors. Although they didn't bother to talk through the fact that I should save nasal septum surgery for summer when there are no concerts (I play tuba)!
Uh, that requires listening and knowing your patients. My long time PCP retired just as the epidemic was "ending" (i.e. return to unregulated gatherings, etc.). She's a couple years older than me, so I understand why she went (I think she was 65 or 66). On our last in-person visit (coincidentally the last real physical I've had), she bemoaned the fact that after their (formerly) physician-owned and managed clinic decided to go with a corporation (United Health Care, three lies in one) she was pressured to spend her 30 minutes of "alloted patient time" burning 3 warts off of 3 different kids rather than helping an elderly female patient figure out a medication issue that she was having.
Living in a rural county our local family practice has been a revolving door of PA’s and doctors. Finally have someone local who I hope will stay but many visits feel canned and impersonal. And yes, they’ve been absorbed into a major medical group.
Unfortunately “higher”education does not always mean quality education. As a former member of the Teacher Corp, a long forgotten effort by President Johnson, to take quality education into less privileged areas,I can say with deep sorrow that that effort resulted in devastating results to education as a whole. The idea that no child should be left behind resulted in taking no one ahead . While information became more accessible , the means to determine how information is meaningful was left behind. I certainly would hope that higher education would be accessible to all, but I do not think the expression has the same meaning it had before the Civil Rights movement of the sixties. We gained much in that movement. It now is critical that we participate in an intellectual movement in which we redefine the ideals that informed it.
I'm not sure that I agree. Stopping at a high school degree you are limited in your job options. Going on to college you gain more career options. I think higher education, beyond high school, should be expanded and made more affordable. And "college" can be replaced by trade schools, community college.
If career options were the goal of education, we could be in any country on earth. In a democracy, however, the highest goal has to be an educated citizenry, fully aware of the nature and reasons for our founding and clear about both the best and the worst things we've done as a people.
Was going to disagree until your last sentence. In fact, I think that we need to push the trades candy that kind of training while not neglecting basics required for a functioning democracy.
Something seemed to happen in the late ‘70s and grew bigger in the ‘80s on, and it had to do with not only a lack of regard, but flat out non- participation in school. It was considered, cool to goof off, and this seemed to get even more attention because of all the movies starring gorgeous teens acting like a bunch of loser idiots in class.
One plot after another seemed to center around students who either acted high or they seemed to care more about their makeup, clothes, or being mean to the point of emotional brutality to other kids was much more rewarding and worth while than learning.
Very few of us really like school. I know I was grateful to get out. Then, I became one of the many who had to work and also get even more education, and then, I saw that it may never end—I’d always be learning something new, not only to get ahead, but for my own enjoyment. That’s a realization that may have something to do with acquiring knowledge on my terms, now.
My point is, kids were not only rebelling but they were being taught by something much more interesting and glamorous: beautiful people and big bright screens with snappy dialog.
Now, we need to rethink our educational system; It’s high time. We need a new paradigm and structure and a new direction in education in order for all that we have to learn in these times to be not only be relevant, but interesting and seem worthwhile to a young person. So many of these ‘80s kids are now grown and not only hate education but are afraid of it. It seems downright nonsensical considering how complicated and technical our world is becoming, but we are watching people act as though a good education and the ability to critically think through a problem is an optional, now.
But education is not the problem with these people. They have been allowed to live in a delusion of Confederate greatness and glory that is a total myth and false, perpetuated by the greatest domestic terrorist group of all time, Daughters of the Confederacy. All I can think of is to continually confront these lies, take down their statues. A hint this might work can be seen in the great uproar DeSantis and his GOP losers are making about trying to preserve this Confederate iconography that rewrites history. LOL the great irony of it all is that often these Confederate Generals were completely incompetent! But hey, why let truth get in the way of a good lie, as Trump personifies.
I went to college at a state university in the early 1960s. I was fortunate that my parents could afford to pay for my education. I lived in a dorm and we had 3 meals a day in the dorms cafeteria, except Sunday dinner when we were on our own. My parents paid $600 per semester. That included tuition, books, and room and board in the dorm and a small amount of spending money. What happened that made education so expensive now? Is it the same reason that K thru 12 public schools have been starved to make way for privatization and for profit schools? It’s very sad.
State support for state universities has been steadily falling (thanks, Republicans) while at the same time, administrative spending has grown. When my husband started teaching at our flagship state university in 1990, the organization was very flat. Now it’s hierarchical like any corporation. Universities have to pay for it somehow, and the how is tuition instead of state support.
That being said, Ohio State still seems fairly affordable to me. In-state tuition is about $12,500.
In the late 70’s, the state of Wisconsin funded 45% of the state university system. Today, with numerous tax cuts over the past decades under Republican leadership, the state now funds just 15% of the university system’s budget, resulting in high tuition costs and the subsequent extraordinarily high student loans.
Matt, in California in the 1960's and 1970's we had free or very affordable Community Colleges and State owned colleges and universities. During Reagan's governorship he did his best to destroy this, so that only the wealthiest among us would receive a complete education. He finished the job when he became President by taking the middle class to enrich the already wealthy.
First we must improve the public schools pre-K-12 and ensure that we distribute funds equally amongst all schools. No matter how the funds are raised, into one bucket and shared equally. You have a right to send your child to a private school, but that doesn't remove your responsibility as a citizen to fund the public schools. Separation of church and state must be restored.
Be interesting to imagine how much we could do in making good public education available to all with the money we now spend on political campaigns, Super Bowl ads, wars we fought without understanding what was really going on, and so on.
Matt this from yesterday's Guardian proves your point. In spite of evidence EPA approved paraquat. Germany has great environmental, food and drug regulation so why not copy where appropriate.
"The EPA’s decision is the latest salvo in a decades-long battle over the use of paraquat, which is a highly effective weed killer. Elsewhere, Syngenta, which produces the substance, has lost – nearly 60 countries have banned paraquat. A state-owned Chinese company bought Syngenta in 2017, but China still prohibits the product, as do the UK and EU.
One way they do it is by not spending such a huge percentage of their GDP on defense spending. Sure, taxation is higher in Europe, and that definitely matters, but we have traded health care and education for military spending.
Matt, as I see it, whatever a person decides to do after high school, college, trade school, job, whatever, we, the American community, must give that person the tools to be a citizen of this world, with the capacity to take information offered and assess its value - and we have to do that every year from kindergarten on, as long as they are in an American school system. We must either eliminate home and religious schooling, or mightily reform them, so neither parents nor religious instructors are enabled, either through taxpayer funding or some bastardized concept of "parents' rights" or "freedom of religion" protected by law, to turn out clones incapable of evaluating information. We must invest in children while they are still children, and equally throughout the US, to eliminate "deprived", or "underprivileged" schools; we must change our mode of funding schools from local property-tax-based to federal income-tax-based. Apologies for the run-on sentences.
Matt, it is so simple, just follow the first article of the Ground law of The Netherlands: All people are equal for the law, unless the law decides differently.
I agree that higher education should be more affordable, but I don't think it's the only solution. Unfortunately, I know people with college degrees who I thought were very bright who support Trump! It's the fear factor that Fox News and other media have drummed into them.
Their taxes go toward such benefits and they are high, at least I think that is a factual statement. I personally would pay higher taxes if it benefitted us in similar ways,
Matt, so well put. Thank you. I was born in 1948 and at that time I was fortunate enough to be able to go through six years of college with scholarships, grants, jobs and loans which I was able to pay off within the first year of my first full time “ permanent “ job. That education gave me opportunities that that I would not have had otherwise. I thank public education for that. I think education is wise investment that our government can make. Of course if the government would just get out of my way I would be more successful- and taller and better looking and ….
We need to be aware that real democracy depends on eliminating laissez-faire capitalism. There must be limits and guidelines to commerce. That capitalism is still a form of slavery needs to be acknowledged. I think Lincoln was trying to convey that knowledge in the quote that HCR related.
Natalie; It is generally the higher Tax paid. That's the easy answer. A more complex view would give you all the numbers; difficult as best (for USvs.DE): Marginal Max Tax rate (US-37%; DE-45%+Solidarity-5.5%+ Church Tax-8%+Media Tax etc); VAT (US-0%, States raise Sales Tax, DE-19%); Corporate Tax rate (US -35%; DE-15%);
That said there are Tax deductions that Germans can take which lower taxes a little, and other tax reduction methods.
But it is generally true that rich European country citizens pay more tax, from which "free" higher education is subsidized.
'Carter G. Woodson was a scholar whose dedication to celebrating the historic contributions of Black people led to the establishment of Black History Month, marked every February since 1976. Woodson fervently believed that Black people should be proud of their heritage and all Americans should understand the largely overlooked achievements of Black Americans.'
'Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.'
___Carter G. Woodson
'EARLY YEARS AND EDUCATION'
'Woodson overcame early obstacles to become a prominent historian and author of several notable books on Black Americans. Born in 1875 to illiterate parents who were former slaves, Woodson's schooling was erratic. He helped out on the family farm when he was a young boy and as a teen worked in the coal mines of West Virginia to help support his father's meager income. Hungry for education, he was largely self-taught and had mastered common school subjects by the age of 17. Entering high school at the age of 20, Woodson completed his diploma in less than two years.'
'Woodson worked as a teacher and a school principal before obtaining a bachelor's degree in literature from Berea College in Kentucky. After graduating from college, he became a school supervisor in the Philippines and later traveled throughout Europe and Asia. In addition to earning a master's degree from the University of Chicago, he became the second Black American, after W.E.B. Du Bois, to obtain a Ph.D. degree from Harvard University. He joined the faculty of Howard University, eventually serving as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.'
'This crusade is much more important than the anti- lynching movement, because there would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom'.
___Carter G. Woodson
'BLACK HISTORY IGNORED'
'After being barred from attending American Historical Association conferences despite being a dues-paying member, Woodson believed that the white-dominated historical profession had little interest in Black history. He saw African-American contributions' "overlooked, ignored, and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks and the teachers who use them."
'BLACK HISTORY MONTH'
'Woodson's devotion to showcasing the contributions of Black Americans bore fruit in 1926 when he launched Negro History Week in the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Woodson's concept was later expanded into Black History Month.' (NAACP.org)
''If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.'
___Carter G. Woodson
26 Fascinating Black History Month Facts for Students
Natalie, Thank you for your comment that exquisitely embodies a fundamental truth—that there is no safe deposit for a free society rooted in each person having a voice in the processes that guide and regulate her or his life but with an acutely informed and engaged electorate.
What Lincoln argued against, that there are superiors and inferiors in our society and that the superiors should rule, is with us today still. They've reframed it somewhat, alleging that there are "makers" and "takers" and that government should favor the makers with huge concessions, including taxing their wealth and income minimally, or not at all. This has led to a $34 trillion debt that the wealthy have sucked out of the economy. The problem that we have to deal with is that so many among the working class fall for the wedge issues promulgated by the extreme Right: abortion, women's rights, immigration, etc. So, they vote Republican politicians into office and they do the bidding of those who funded that propaganda campaign.
The solution? A massive, consistent, ubiquitous education campaign to expose these manipulating oligarchs.
Age is an issue, no question about it. But, the big issue is Trump's intent to destroy democracy here in the U.S. and give a carte blanche to Putin to continue with his brutal military attacks on Russia's neighbors. My take is that Putin is blackmailing Trump with photos and videos from Trump's escapades with young Russian women in Moscow hotel rooms.
I feel confident that Biden could and would defeat Trump, if in fact the traitor gets to stay on the Republican ticket. Still, I favor Newsom as the Dem candidate. Age is a factor. RBG should have retired earlier. Same for Feinstein and others now in the Senate.
p.s. Here's an insider claim that the "Republican establishment" is so dead-set on continuing aid to Ukraine that they will knowingly sabotage Trump's candidacy:
I will skip over the issue of our differing assessments of what Putin is up to.
An issue that is now coming into sharper focus is: Can Ukraine prevail, even if with our support, and will it cost more than it's worth?
A related question: If the only to avoid Ukraine's collapse is to escalate with direct NATO involvement, do we have a realistic chance of winning a war that could go nuclear?
Our choice this election is between democracy and an authoritarian government. Between the protections of the Constitution and a wouldbe dictator who will exact "revenge" on the "vermin" who oppose him. The choice should be incredibly easy, but, for many Americans, it is not. Talk or write to everyone and make sure they understand the stakes in this election. I believe this is the greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War.
You have captured many of the arguments quite well. There are other justifications for voting as an enlightened, knowledgeable, objective, and mature person including the protection of our planet, MOTHER Earth, freedom to worship as we please, and the like. But, I truly like what you have written. I would add to the need to vote, the need to pray and hope.
I, like my fellow/sister Americans–regardless of our respective skin color, background, or zipcode–value my hard-won freedoms: to vote, to have the opportunity to be educated, to thrive by earning a fair return on my labor, to decide if, when or how to start or grow a family, and to love whom I love.
Our freedoms simply cannot exist if we forfeit the values expressed by Lincoln, the democratic values reliant on a government of, by and for the people.
Those are the values and freedoms Biden defends (here and beyond our doors)–and those are the values and freedoms Tr*mp and every MAGA Republican wants to attack and take away, all to ensure minority rule for a racist, sexist, nativist and LGBTQ-hating wealthy, well connected few.
That’s the choice before us this year, from the Presidency, down through Congress, and across state legislatures. Vote, and vote your values–because when WE vote, we win.
We need to get higher education more affordable here in the US. As far as I understand, higher education even is mostly free in Europe. I'm not sure how they do it, but would like to know. Currently it takes tremendous wealth in the US to send your kiddo to college.
I'm a huge proponent of countries emulating other countries in areas they have success. But sadly we all go our own ways.
Matt, other countries with “free” higher ed don’t exactly open the doors to all who wish to pursue an education. In some countries students are “tracked” into (by grades, performance, testing and inclination) higher ed (ie; “college”) or to apprenticeships/trades. In the early ‘90’s my then husband and I hosted a former Soviet small businessman who came to study the process/techniques of a similar business my ex was owner of. Delightful fellow, he stayed with us for about a month. I worked at the local Univ & we toured the campus & I shared w/ him admissions criteria & student aid to help cover the cost (I worked in the Fin Aid Office)…he was gobsmacked by how much college cost in the US. He also said not everyone is able to attend “college” in his country. My take on US education is that “higher ed” can mean many things….liberal arts degree; or other 4-yr degree (majors)…should also include trade schools and apprenticeships & those should qualify for assistance too. I wish civics and critical thinking were taught in high schools nationwide as a starter!
“ I wish civics and critical thinking were taught in high schools nationwide as a starter!”
Hear! Hear!
Oh. Wait. Sorry. It’s 2024: Here here!
It was when I was in high school.
and back in the dark ages of the 1970s 80s and 90s when students were deeply interested in Government and Politics and history. I recall those years vividly before my retirement from public schools.
I go back even further, to those 'prehistoric' days of the 50's and early 60's when the glow of winning WWII was still alive and a lot of our current controversies were still largely unknown or underground and out of common sight. But we also learned freely and thoughtfully and imagined that the purpose of education seemed simply 'to know and to understand.'
We got a certain amount in high school civics, but nto enough, of course. The coolest thing to us, as students, was that the civics teacher spent his summers working with & for the grape harvesters, and Chavez.
In the first few decades of the previous century, it was considered "modern" to combine three academic disciplines - history, geography and civics - into one which assumed over time the name 'social studies'.
Although purportedly well-intentioned, this action gave short shrift to any one of the three disciplines with the apparent result that students learned a very little about any of them, and nothing in depth.
If anything, this practice has continued and grown since then. No wonder that students today think of geography as being able to use a map, know slim outlines of some major events in American history, and really have no clue about the complexities of our government at all its various levels, or about the critical articles of our Constitution.
Jocelyn, how lucky you were to have that civics teacher!
When I was in education, and taught a few classes, I did teach critical thinking. For a few years i also taught government. Education now is about standardized tests unfortunately, so teachers are stuck in many instances teaching for the test. They are also burdened with too large classes and the wing nuts wanting to control curriculum and what books are in the library. The there is the discipline issue which is also out of hand in many instances. This week someone on Facebook was lamenting the loss of local control to the state here in Oregon. I did point out to him the problems of getting a budget passed every year and I didn't even mention the Catholic school next to ours and the very Catholic community which always did not support public schools. Then there were the people up the canyon who remembered something that had happened many years earlier that they didn't like. I, for one, couldn't tell a kid from up the canyon as opposed to one from one who wasn't. To me they were all kids. Any problem student that the Catholic school had soon came to us and were known as Regis Rejects. We were also responsible for any of their special needs students which in those days included PG students. One Regis parent wanted us to send her daughter to the Salem school district so nobody would see her and which cost us money. One of things I did mention was saving money through deferred maintenance and if it did happen, it went to the lowest bidder. For years we had buckets sitting around to catch water from the leaky roof when it rained. And we didn't need to invest in computers either according to one citizen on the budget committee. Sigh. Then the voters passed measure five which affected local property taxes and that's when the state took over most of the funding.
What you have outlined is true throughout our country, that the level of education in reality is based on money (its availability), tax levels and sources, religious viewpoints and politics. The result is the uninformed electorate that hobbles our democracy and gives us fools for representatives in Congress.
Thank you for your service to educating kids under intolerable conditions. To teach is a gift. To learn anything under this current insane system is a miracle.
Thank you. I have been retired for years and now when I look at how things are, I am very glad. We have as good friends a married couple who are still at it. It is insane, but he has figured out a way past the testing. She, I think, does ESL as she is Ecuadorian and he speaks Spanish as well. They are in a heavily Hispanic district. Still, they have many problems to contend with. They thought they had hired a great super and then he turned out to be horrible. They narrowly avoided a strike. I had one ex-student who was a special ed teacher and I imagine a good one and she finally quit because she ended up too many times in the ER and the district wouldn't do anything. The legislature this year has a nice pot of money to work with even after the kicker, so it will be interesting to see what they do with it. The kicker has to do with estimates of income tax revenues and if the estimate is too small and the state brings in more, a percentage goes back to taxpayers.
So charming, Michele, these standardized tests.
All around the world they gut the teaching of history and humanities. Nothing humanly good about them -- even teachers let themselves lose contact with students for the reign of these monsters -- which computers mostly all grade anyway.
In many countries now students cease reading any book from beginning to end. Why? Because it's easier for the standardized testers to turn all life into nothing more than random fragments -- for the ease of arranging context-free, short-term-knowledge questions of, by, and for the tests.
Minae Mizumura speaks of this in "The Fall of Language in the Age of English" (Columbia U. Press, 2016).
Diane Ravitch chronicles the debased, neutered, homogenized language all poisoning schools now for the sake of these behemoth leveling, dehumanizing tests -- in "The Language Police," (2003).
All the teachers I know hate these tests and have nothing good to say about them. In the good days when some teachers wrote tests that didn't require much thinking, their student aides graded them and they sat on their duffs in the teacher's room. At one point our administration decided it was a good idea to have a finals week, so this sitting in the teacher's room could be extended. My students wrote papers which took me some time to grade. In my government classes, they designed their own final from a bunch of options I gave them. They could even come up with something of their own if I approved it. Each choice had a certain number of points assigned to it and they could choose enough to equal 100. Some of them chose enough options to go over a 100. I sat down with each one of them to work out their choices. Sometimes in certain exams, I went for the usual kinds of questions, but always included one that had nothing to do with the subject....like all I want for Christmas.....one of them answered the Elgin Marbles. I hoped to help them relax and maybe laugh.
I was alway sorry about the concept of Presidents Day. When I was in school the Great Emancipator and Founder of our Nation birthdays were celebrated on their birth dates separately. HCR reminds us what we have given up! Now all we hear about is White Sales. It would be very telling in our current nation if we tried to reinstate Lincoln’s birthday today. I seriously doubt it would pass.
I totally agree about civics in high school and a requirement for graduation. This country has been dumbed down and don't understand the basics of the US Government (how handy for the large corporations currently in power)
A 30 minute civics lesson is nullified by daily derogatory comments from the elders at come!
Now there are states’ legislating ‘parental rights’ which allow the parent to decide which lesson their child hears!
This was so before, Louis, even without legislation. Our English classes taught through literature and if a parent didn't want the student to read a certain book, i had the student in the library reading something else. This was an education to us in some cases including the student whose family loved to sue people. God provides, you know.
And THIS is one of the precious subjects we could be spending our time on if we were not distracted by the MAGA Circus Clowns and the Russian Bear and the Witch Doctors of the Middle East.
And yet, American Exceptionalism has been the tragic flaw of our nation. We are so full of ourselves, that we fail to look at the successes of our neighbors. Our arrogance is foolish beyond words. It is infuriating.
And it applies to all manner of subjects - education, of course. But healthcare, retirement planning, housing, weapons control, environmental protection, energy production, taxation and democracy itself. SHAME!
American exceptionalism never lies in who we are at any given moment, but in the promise at the heart of our founding - the first nation on earth to define itself at its inception as a place in which we have been given the chance to find within ourselves the courage, the honesty, the understanding, the tolerance, the compassion, the wisdom, the humor, the hope, and the sheer common sense to rule ourselves from the ground up. As one who taught American history for over 40 years, I have measured our exceptionalism at any given moment by the level of those qualities present in our social and political conversations. Right now, they are sorely lacking.
And yet, Bill, our exceptionalism is one of our great strengths, at least when we are not blinded by it. Despite our horribly unequal distribution of wealth, it is still easier for people to rise from the class into which they were born than almost anywhere else. We accept new Americans, and for the most part welcome them, more than any other nation. For all of its shortcomings, the civil rights movement has been the greatest effort to erase race prejudice on Earth. We’re not in the promised land, but most of us are trying—when we do not get too tired—to move at least a few steps along the path.
"And yet, Bill, our exceptionalism is one of our great strengths, at least when we are not blinded by it."
Yes—except that we *are* blinded by it. Poisonously so. And Putin, et. al. know it. And they love stooges like Carlson and Trump. They know the United States body politic is weak, and its politicians even weaker. They're fully exploiting it while we just play on like the band on the deck of the Titanic.
Trump claims he'll fix that—because he's (literally) been sent by God, and only he (He?) can do the job. It's just. So. Breathtakingly. Nauseating.
You put me in mind of Churchill relating a statement by a prime minister of Greece during WWI: "England always starts off by losing battles, and ends up winning wars;" We--the US--aren't doing so bad. We are very much the world's leading power, the country to which others want to go for business or education or to live. We have a terrific president--the best is the past 75 years. The people are alert and engaged in their political future. Is that true of all? Of course not. But it is never true of all, never has been and never will be. There are a lot of irredeemably stupid, corrupt and foolish people. T'was ever thus.
"And yet, American Exceptionalism has been the tragic flaw of our nation. We are so full of ourselves, that we fail to look at the successes of our neighbors. Our arrogance is foolish beyond words. It is infuriating."
^ This. All day. Every day.
I've decried that very plague on my own FB page for years (which is largely preaching to the choir) as well as on forums and other places where I'm not keyboarding away in my own little ecosystem. Sadly, many of the responses are along the lines of "Why don't you move to Russia; you'll probably like it much better there."
These idiots, quite useful to our detractors, fail to see the logical fallacy in their responses, and they fail to see that if I really didn't give a damn, I wouldn't bother posting anything in the first place. It's breathtakingly frustrating. We have since about the early 80s (timed nicely with Reagan and his government-bad-unbridled-capitalism-GOOD! sales pitch) continued to dumb everything down so badly in this country in the interest of hawking product and keeping politicians in power; Wall Street and Madison Avenue have worked rather successfully to teach everyone that they *deserve* everything—and Wall Street is none to happy to finance it for them at rates they don't care about as long as they can squeeze in the payments.
This has metastasized into a grotesque intellectual incuriosity and an arrogance based not on solid principles but on mere entitlement. "I want what I want when I want it." And I'm not talking about the entitlements that Republicans want to kill. I'm talking about the toxic kind that actually makes us weak—and it seems the weaker we actually get, the louder the politicians have to scream from their pulpits, their bejeweled US flag lapel pins blinding us from the light used to highlight the three dozen US flags behind them, that the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen. Utterly nauseating.
It pains me to think about how, if someone like Trump seizes the reigns and successfully enough takes a jack-hammer to whatever he can, this country could slip into something like the kind of regime so beautifully exemplified in the TV series Man in the High Castle or, perhaps less Nazi-esque but equally scary, The Handmaid's Tale.
Why? Because we have an influential percentage of the population and far-right-wing legislators that literally hate liberals and liberal concepts, think in sophomoric, binary terms, and would be OK with constrained rights if it "solved" some of their pesky problems. That irony should not be lost on anyone.
The far-right can't stand the idea of a broader humanitarianism unless it fits its very narrow, very uninformed worldview. To them, the world is almost 100% transactional, and that's one of the reasons they love Trump—rather unarguably the country's biggest mountebank and a man who stands on no principle other than to serve himself and the cronies who will protect his vulnerabilities from attack. Empathy be damned. "I got mine, suckas. You get yours!"
I strongly believe the man would have run on a blue ticket in 2016 had it meant the better chance of winning. His fully metastasized narcissism and boundless fear of being a loser (writ large: going to jail for the rest of his life) leaves him room for precious few morals; he abuses the weak and the meek, and he does it with relish. He's an utterly miserable human being that a scary percentage of this country's population thinks has been delivered from God. Literally.
And yet, he's ultimately just a symptom of a much larger and long-festering problem. We have only ourselves to blame.
Well said, Craig. Love the “mountebank” moniker for TFFG!
Totally agree with you Bill. I would dearly love to live in an America that could embrace such reforms that are so critically needed but fear it will not come to pass as we are a people of deeply divided values. Someone in this chain mentioned vote your values. If we did that, and we had a clear consensus amongst our fellow Americans for the changes we yearn for we would have to sort ourselves into another country apart from the many millions whose values are vastly different.
Especially your last 2 sentences. As a former professor in a public university, I saw how very hard most students had to work, struggle & juggle to afford the so-called “ affordable “ ( compared to private colleges) tuition.
Degree inflation really took hold in the 1960s, when men were trying to avoid going to 'Nam. It started a truly vicious circle of students needing teachers needing students and so on. Instead of encouraging youth to find what they're interested in, what they're good at, we insist from an early age that a college degree is essential, at the expense of people loving learning for its own sake rather than just to pass exams and get a job. One of the biggest shocks of my life was reading the introduction to The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers by Will and Ariel Durant. They wrote it for working class people with a high school education. Now I wonder how many college students or grads could read it.
Interesting about the Durants. My partner, turning 80, was given his father's worn copy of that book recently, and his father had an eighth grade education.
All four of his children graduated from college (one with a doctorate), as did his grandchildren and his seven great grandchildren, except maybe one who didn't finish.
Progwoman, I love to hear success stories ! Especially about people who weren't handed everything and had to work hard to accomplish their goals.
There's way too much entitlement, exemplified by a man who was given everything and expects to use his entitlement to do whatever he wants without consequences.
Here's to all the hard-working men and women who raised
themselves up and made a better life for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Pam,
Thank you. I have been saddened to observe many courses removed from required to non existent courses within our High Schools
Although I appreciate technology and the easy access to communicate with family and friends....I also find it has made us mentally lazy. It has often spread cruelty between children and youth.
Cruelty, rudeness, multiple venues /distractions also remove our children as well as adults from the focus we need to discipline our minds....to direct our hearts towards good.
We should find a way to educate ourselves and our children in a realistic, commonsense, organized framework. Children need to see a working framework of security, love, respect, shared responsibilities in order to deal with the craziness of this world. A healthy, functioning family is a buffer to each of us.
Some families are fortunate to have grandparents, aunts and uncles or friends who are also neighbors to fill in when needed. but this is rare.
I am concerned for our citizens, our families, our hardworking teachers. I am concerned that many of our worship facilities are about worshiping a person rather than about serving and encouraging...lifting up humanity when needs are obvious: our drug crisis is everywhere!!!
And to another issue: we have a human problem, NOT a border problem....the employment of decent persons who will not use those in need for evil organizations. This is an eternal issue as long as this planet exists: wars, poverty, natural disasters are NOT going away....the need for better and appropriate education...a family's ability to earn decent wages as well as to have time to be with their children who need their love, encouragement and care....to see a parent's example of how to handle struggles together as a family....not leaving them alone when they need someone to talk to.
What I see more and more is the absence of functioning families. After a few months of birth, children are sent away to preschool, afterschool care or to return to a home with no one for hours until a hardworking mom or dad arrives from work.
A good sound education .... a healthy nation ....takes involvement from each of us. What we have or do not have is the product of OUR choices.
We can do better. It is our responsibility!!!
Yes!
Speaking of Will Durant, here is a quote from Will and Ariel Durant's "The Age of Reason Begins":
"Is Christianity dying? Is the religion that gave morals, courage and art to Western civilization suffering slow decay through the spread of knowledge, the widening of astronomical, geographical and historical horizons, the realization of evil in history and the soul, the decline of faith in an afterlife and of trust in the benevolent guidance of the world? If this is so, it is the basic event of modern times, for the soul of a cvilization is its religion, and it dies with its faith."
All religion is, unfortunately, a two-edged sword in human hands. It has always been at once a blessing, a hope, a salvation, and a terrible weapon easily and all too effectively used by those who see it as a path to power and control.
I will suggest that the purpose of religion includes cultivating the individual's innate potential to let divine love shine through us and into the community and world around us.
It seems clear that traditional religion is "molting" all over the world during this transition between the Ages of Pisces and Aquarius.
Religion, or what will come to take its place, includes reverence, awe and wonder.
Well now I see where the bullshitnin everything you write comes from
Well, it is not as a result of "the realization of evil in history and the soul". General knowledge or sense of that has been around a long long time. It is not even limited to homo sapiens. And it is a core article of faith in the Judeo-Christian tradition, memorialized the the Book of Genesis. So the answer is no with respect to that particular. To the contrary, were it so, it would be due to a general loss of that understanding..
...Personally, I reason back to faith from the knowledge that sin is real. The Devil, Sir, is abroad in the Land.
Tyler P. Harwell, I think you'll agree that the quote is thought-provoking. I hope you'll agree that the part about "the realization of evil in history and the soul" is telescoping or encapsulating a larger train of thought (which might or might not be viable). I'll suggest that, in the U.S.A. before the Great Depression, there was a cultural sense that we were in the process of building the "Promised Land" right here and now.
And I'll suggest that the phenomenon of Hitler with its descent of Germany into madness is part of what the Durants were pointing to in that quote.
Please do not feed the troll.
Barbara; you are so right. Critical thinking and ethics are a big hole in our ed system, even in some of the top private schools, it is only taught as "integrated" into the regular curriculum. We need to have more explicit mention and treatment of the subjects in school and in teacher education. There are even big holes at PhD and Masters levels (such as teaching only one school of ethics or critical thinking frameworks). Even McKinsey and BCG consultants have big holes in their approach to ethics
Big holes are everywhere, even Elon has some big enough for Jupiter to slip through…
Bruce, I recommend any state jury instruction on "deductive reasoning".
Thanks Bryan, and I recommend to you
Pyramid Principle, The: Logic in Writing and Thinking
English edition | by Barbara Minto | 16 Mar 2021
Barbara I have heard doctors say they should have taken shop. Most are better prepared with some of everything and decades ago sadly our school system in Southwest Virginia severely cutback the courses.
I can vouch for the value of the shop business. It was a very enjoyable and educational part of my schooling, even in an 'elite' preparatory school in the fifties and early sixties. And I taught at another such school right up until my retirement in 2016 in which all the boys took woodworking as well as more traditional school art. Indeed, one of the graduation requirements was that each boy produced a carved wooden plaque of their own design, all of which were put on permanent display on various school walls going back to our founding in 1919.
Before the college I attended (and was employed by for 40 yrs) phased out its Industrial Arts (later called Industrial Tech) program, I took auto shop, woodworking & welding (a hilarious mishap in the welding class one day!); my college also, at the time, had Home Economics & took classes there…especially liked the Tailoring class. Learned many useful skills along with courses in history, art history, English, Philosophy & world religions, psych & sociology courses (not a lot of sciences tho cuz I’m math-deficient!)….oh, and dance classes too. Guess that’s why I tell folks I was on the 10-yr No Degree Program (stopped taking formal classes just a few requirements shy of attaining my degree).
I agree about the high cost, and I admit I spent nearly twenty years (half my professional career) teaching at what most call (and those on the right would disdain as) an 'elite' independent elementary school which was hardly a bargain, yet I also recall one of my favorite posters from way back:
"If you think education is expensive, you ought to try ignorance."
And we are paying a terrible price for ignorance just now.
Yet I'm also reminded of that famously ugly ex-sculptor who gave his life for the freedom to ask hard questions and seek honest and thoughtful answers refused to accept payment for teaching in the Athenian Agora. And I know he would never have agreed that the prime purpose of education in a democracy is to get a good job.
It is a conundrum which the current brouhaha over American public and private education is doing very little to solve.
James, I remember that poster too.
Critical thinking, yes! Then civics, history, all subjects could be perceived at a deeper, more applicable way!
Yeah, from what I've heard, in Europe (say Germany) you are put on an educational track. You can't just become a physicist if you aren't on that track in high school.
Not quite true Matt, but close snd changing. Today in Germany/Europe, the tracks are still there, but they are permeable to cross-overs at all levels, which many take advantage of. The biggest barrier is social class (to which I include academic class) University educated generally send their kids to University, Trade educated send their kids to trade school...although, as I said this is changing...in both directions interestingly enough.
Here in Switzerland we have a very permeable track system. The husband of a friend started out as an electrician, then became an engineer and finally received an MBA. This story is not exceptional. Also, the apprenticeship system is excellent and, thanks to robust trade unions,
all trained workers receive a living wage. Most untrained workers (cleaners, kitchen personnel, etc.) do, too. Both my kids attended Swiss universities for a nominal fee, saving me, a single mother, many a sleepless night. The Swiss see all money spent on education as an investment in the future and the wellbeing of its people.
Oh glory, how do the rich survive…
This not true of France, where I’ve lived, and hasn’t been true of the UK for many decades though it was when I lived there as a child in the 60s.
Matt, my youngest niece took her first year of university in Germany after graduating from an International High School (her Mom, the FedEx pilot, was stationed in Bonn for four years). She dated a German boy who had been tracked to the trades, and worked his tail off to get admitted to University. His family was a trades family, and he really wanted more formal education.
You can, but it’s hard. They mostly get it right.
The problem is MAGA Republicans don't believe in higher education - they think it's a form of propagating anti-American socialism driven by "elites." The only higher education one needs, in their mind, is a Christian-based education.
Someone might break it to them that Jesus was a bit of a liberal, before the term came into use. If a man have two coats, he should give one to the man who has no coat.
I say that Jesus was the first socialist, if not communist.
Oh, the Pearl-clutching and fainting by those who listen to the prosperity-gospel version of the King James Version of the ancient scribe’s version of what could be found and reported at the time. Lost in translation might explain a lot, and deliberate editing by greedy men might explain even more.
I don't think it was lost or mistranslated as much as it was intentionally modified.
I think there could be a case of mistaken identity. Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus Christ may be two different people. The former was written about in the four gospels. He wouldn’t have called himself Christ, as that was a Greek word. The latter was the one at the root of religious wars, bigotry, the prosperity gospel, etc.
MisTBlu - "I say that Jesus was the first socialist, if not communist."
??
Communism: a political theory advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned, and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.
In a Communist system, individual people do not own land, factories, or machinery. Instead, the government or the whole community owns these things.
I used the word communist in the broader sense of communitarianism: from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs. Eg, people needed wine, Jesus had the ability to make it out of water.
Jesus was also a person of color NOT a white man😱
Do these Christian nationalists realize this? I think not.
He would have been the first, though, to disdain the whole idea of skin color as a measure of anything.
Christian Nationalists should see the recent movie, "The Book of Clarence" ( the fictional twin brother of the Apostle Thomas), in which all the actors (except the imperialist Romans) are Black.
They also don’t believe in taxation. Back when higher education was considerably more affordable in the USA the highest marginal tax rate prior to Reagan was 50% before that it was 70% and in the 1960s was as high as 90%. That’s how the States like California and the USA were able to afford the once robust higher education of the era. Then the 1% didn’t want to pay their share and and got people like Reagan elected.
And many people who have no children in school don’t want to have to pay for schools. Such a short sighted position, of course. A good education system affects everyone and everything.
If white voters could have been sure that no government program (for education or anything else) would benefit black people, Reagan would never have been president. Maybe not even governor. The 1% needed (and still needs) the votes of a significant majority of white voters to win elections. One percent ain’t near enough.
Propaganda works. Ronnie and Rupert knew that well. Or at least Ronnie’s backers did.
I don’t think propaganda is the right word for ginning up votes by appealing to the desperation of white Americans to retain their systemic advantages. It’s more like a campaign promise. Republicans have been delivering on this promise for at least 50 years. Their voters know that and they return the favor in loyalty at the ballot box and now, with Trump, in the streets with weapons, including new, weapons like doxxing and swatting.
Getting down to brass tacks, at some point maybe we have analyzed and described the whole situation of Republican'ism enough to satisfy our forever curiosities and move on to strategies and tactics and actions. They must be defeated where we defeat them - at the ballot box, all of them at all levels, to reestablish sanity and equality in all areas of government; hoping for throwing off the bully effect so that the moderate Republicans who exist in the shadows at the moment can recreate the better politics of
common sense where we all converse and engage with the behavior of adults.
After that and included might be an ongoing analysis of how to improve the degraded structures and forms that have pulled us down for the last 40 years, education being absolutely primary
which Biden's teams are already on. Accessibility and affordability to education at all levels is obviously needed along with keeping politics out of the classroom except as a neutral study subject, and so in.
Looks like it all hands on deck situation 😁
I agree completely. And we can all do our part! Hoping my postcards to NY voters help Tom Suozzi (D) win infamous George Soro’s seat🤞
I think rather that they fear education, since a good one would consistently expose the many weaknesses of their agenda, especially their narrow definition of what constitutes a 'real American', and a capitalism in which the fewest regulations, the lowest taxes, and the least union power best enable the unrestricted growth of the economy, which has proven to be false over and over again. The irony of this position is that the two groups who support this point of view are the wealthy themselves, of course, and a vast number of those whose lives and economic prosperity are constantly put in jeopardy by the lack of regulation or concern of those who prioritize financial gain over safety or a more widespread economic prosperity.
I'm neither a socialist nor a Marxist (and I actually know the definition of both words, and the economic and social histories that have driven the growth of both ideas, another reason Republicans fear education), but I can read a history book and I know that for all capitalism's clear ability to drive economic growth, what is likely to happen in a society when it is unregulated.
Very well said, James. As I note in Cindy Hill's comment below, there is an effort, right now, to change the k-12 curriculum (and through college) in Florida to reflect the conservative view of history and ideology. It is truly Orwellian, seeking to replace the Truth with Untruth. (They, of course, view the curriculum taught over the last 3/4 century as being Untruth.)
Fear, distrust, and all too often disdain of the essential messiness of democracy often drives the worst in political conservatism.
I think MAGA- Republicans and others with the notion that might makes right see education (higher education and robust public education) as a threat. Keeping ppl uneducated helps control them and helps force the will of more powerful on them ( enslave them.)
What you say is true. At the same time, there is an effort by MAGA Republicans to replace what they believe is a "liberal" curriculum in kindergarten through college with a "conservative" curriculum that flips America's history on its head. I actually know someone who is at the forefront of this effort. We are truly engaged in the Orwellian battle of Truth v. Untruth.
Prager U comes to mind.
The irony, nay the shock, is how many Republicans in high office have elite educations, both undergraduate and graduate. That so many have law degrees from Harvard makes me think that Harvard may not be the end-all-to-be-all that their reputation would have them be. I'll never forget how hypocritical it was when Rick Santorum belittled Obama's focus on college by saying, "what a snob." Not only did Santorum graduate from a fine university, he had two post-graduate degrees!
It’s ironic that many MAGA leaders such as Cruz Hawley DeSantis and even Trump himself capitalized on Ivy League educations but want their voters to remain barely knowledgeable as they are more malleable when ignorant. Sad cycle that ultimately has or will prove disastrous to the MAGA rabble.
Seeing the condition of American Medicine I would add free medical school for qualified students also. In France doctors become doctors to help patients and are “just like everybody else” except they are well trained in taking care of patients. If you can find Tony Judt’s “Ill Fares the Land,” you will get a picture of what we might be if we learned from others. Exceptionalism may be the end of US.
Virginia, remember the TV sitcom Northern Exposure? In it a recently graduated medical doctor was posted to a low income rural area in Alaska to work for X number of years that would “forgive” his federal loan educational debt. With tweaks, there is a lot to be said about such an approach….helping current med school grads & enticing participation by those seeking a medical/healthcare degree (and I would include nursing degrees in this too).
Loved that show. Where are reruns?
on Netflix
I rarely go there. Of course, I have the DVD's. Just forgot how much I loved that show. Hate that I am laser-focused on kicking chump to the curb.
Loved that show! We taped them all.
Then I bought the DVD's. After upcoming move, I'll dig them out. Everybody needs a little break from political chaos. Need to watch my cabinet full of DVDs instead of paying for streaming.
Speaking of great TV, I've just been reveling in my biannual binge of The West Wing.
I think access to medicine in the US is the problem. I have insurance and lately I've been blown away by my doctors. Although they didn't bother to talk through the fact that I should save nasal septum surgery for summer when there are no concerts (I play tuba)!
Uh, that requires listening and knowing your patients. My long time PCP retired just as the epidemic was "ending" (i.e. return to unregulated gatherings, etc.). She's a couple years older than me, so I understand why she went (I think she was 65 or 66). On our last in-person visit (coincidentally the last real physical I've had), she bemoaned the fact that after their (formerly) physician-owned and managed clinic decided to go with a corporation (United Health Care, three lies in one) she was pressured to spend her 30 minutes of "alloted patient time" burning 3 warts off of 3 different kids rather than helping an elderly female patient figure out a medication issue that she was having.
Living in a rural county our local family practice has been a revolving door of PA’s and doctors. Finally have someone local who I hope will stay but many visits feel canned and impersonal. And yes, they’ve been absorbed into a major medical group.
Unfortunately “higher”education does not always mean quality education. As a former member of the Teacher Corp, a long forgotten effort by President Johnson, to take quality education into less privileged areas,I can say with deep sorrow that that effort resulted in devastating results to education as a whole. The idea that no child should be left behind resulted in taking no one ahead . While information became more accessible , the means to determine how information is meaningful was left behind. I certainly would hope that higher education would be accessible to all, but I do not think the expression has the same meaning it had before the Civil Rights movement of the sixties. We gained much in that movement. It now is critical that we participate in an intellectual movement in which we redefine the ideals that informed it.
I'm not sure that I agree. Stopping at a high school degree you are limited in your job options. Going on to college you gain more career options. I think higher education, beyond high school, should be expanded and made more affordable. And "college" can be replaced by trade schools, community college.
If career options were the goal of education, we could be in any country on earth. In a democracy, however, the highest goal has to be an educated citizenry, fully aware of the nature and reasons for our founding and clear about both the best and the worst things we've done as a people.
Was going to disagree until your last sentence. In fact, I think that we need to push the trades candy that kind of training while not neglecting basics required for a functioning democracy.
No child left behind = all children static and trained rather than educated.
That was a useless program.
Something seemed to happen in the late ‘70s and grew bigger in the ‘80s on, and it had to do with not only a lack of regard, but flat out non- participation in school. It was considered, cool to goof off, and this seemed to get even more attention because of all the movies starring gorgeous teens acting like a bunch of loser idiots in class.
One plot after another seemed to center around students who either acted high or they seemed to care more about their makeup, clothes, or being mean to the point of emotional brutality to other kids was much more rewarding and worth while than learning.
Very few of us really like school. I know I was grateful to get out. Then, I became one of the many who had to work and also get even more education, and then, I saw that it may never end—I’d always be learning something new, not only to get ahead, but for my own enjoyment. That’s a realization that may have something to do with acquiring knowledge on my terms, now.
My point is, kids were not only rebelling but they were being taught by something much more interesting and glamorous: beautiful people and big bright screens with snappy dialog.
Now, we need to rethink our educational system; It’s high time. We need a new paradigm and structure and a new direction in education in order for all that we have to learn in these times to be not only be relevant, but interesting and seem worthwhile to a young person. So many of these ‘80s kids are now grown and not only hate education but are afraid of it. It seems downright nonsensical considering how complicated and technical our world is becoming, but we are watching people act as though a good education and the ability to critically think through a problem is an optional, now.
Matt, I love your free tuition idea! It would be cheap to do! Estimate in July 2019 was that it would cost the Federal Government $79B a year. Peanuts when you consider that extending the Trump tax cuts will add $3.5T to the debt! Cost: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/tuition-free-college.html?unlocked_article_code=1.U00.z_TQ.MRU4uNdrs6DQ&smid=url-share
Trump tax cuts cost: https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/extending-trump-tax-cuts-would-add-35-trillion-to-the-deficit-according-to-cbo
But education is not the problem with these people. They have been allowed to live in a delusion of Confederate greatness and glory that is a total myth and false, perpetuated by the greatest domestic terrorist group of all time, Daughters of the Confederacy. All I can think of is to continually confront these lies, take down their statues. A hint this might work can be seen in the great uproar DeSantis and his GOP losers are making about trying to preserve this Confederate iconography that rewrites history. LOL the great irony of it all is that often these Confederate Generals were completely incompetent! But hey, why let truth get in the way of a good lie, as Trump personifies.
With every breath he takes…
The continuing effort of DeSantis and the MAGA legislature to eliminate local rule and give all to developers.
I went to college at a state university in the early 1960s. I was fortunate that my parents could afford to pay for my education. I lived in a dorm and we had 3 meals a day in the dorms cafeteria, except Sunday dinner when we were on our own. My parents paid $600 per semester. That included tuition, books, and room and board in the dorm and a small amount of spending money. What happened that made education so expensive now? Is it the same reason that K thru 12 public schools have been starved to make way for privatization and for profit schools? It’s very sad.
State support for state universities has been steadily falling (thanks, Republicans) while at the same time, administrative spending has grown. When my husband started teaching at our flagship state university in 1990, the organization was very flat. Now it’s hierarchical like any corporation. Universities have to pay for it somehow, and the how is tuition instead of state support.
That being said, Ohio State still seems fairly affordable to me. In-state tuition is about $12,500.
In the late 70’s, the state of Wisconsin funded 45% of the state university system. Today, with numerous tax cuts over the past decades under Republican leadership, the state now funds just 15% of the university system’s budget, resulting in high tuition costs and the subsequent extraordinarily high student loans.
I think the proportions are the same in Ohio as well.
Matt, in California in the 1960's and 1970's we had free or very affordable Community Colleges and State owned colleges and universities. During Reagan's governorship he did his best to destroy this, so that only the wealthiest among us would receive a complete education. He finished the job when he became President by taking the middle class to enrich the already wealthy.
Taxation and the budget tells you who and what a nation values.
First we must improve the public schools pre-K-12 and ensure that we distribute funds equally amongst all schools. No matter how the funds are raised, into one bucket and shared equally. You have a right to send your child to a private school, but that doesn't remove your responsibility as a citizen to fund the public schools. Separation of church and state must be restored.
Like yesterday.
Be interesting to imagine how much we could do in making good public education available to all with the money we now spend on political campaigns, Super Bowl ads, wars we fought without understanding what was really going on, and so on.
Matt this from yesterday's Guardian proves your point. In spite of evidence EPA approved paraquat. Germany has great environmental, food and drug regulation so why not copy where appropriate.
"The EPA’s decision is the latest salvo in a decades-long battle over the use of paraquat, which is a highly effective weed killer. Elsewhere, Syngenta, which produces the substance, has lost – nearly 60 countries have banned paraquat. A state-owned Chinese company bought Syngenta in 2017, but China still prohibits the product, as do the UK and EU.
One way they do it is by not spending such a huge percentage of their GDP on defense spending. Sure, taxation is higher in Europe, and that definitely matters, but we have traded health care and education for military spending.
Matt, as I see it, whatever a person decides to do after high school, college, trade school, job, whatever, we, the American community, must give that person the tools to be a citizen of this world, with the capacity to take information offered and assess its value - and we have to do that every year from kindergarten on, as long as they are in an American school system. We must either eliminate home and religious schooling, or mightily reform them, so neither parents nor religious instructors are enabled, either through taxpayer funding or some bastardized concept of "parents' rights" or "freedom of religion" protected by law, to turn out clones incapable of evaluating information. We must invest in children while they are still children, and equally throughout the US, to eliminate "deprived", or "underprivileged" schools; we must change our mode of funding schools from local property-tax-based to federal income-tax-based. Apologies for the run-on sentences.
Matt, it is so simple, just follow the first article of the Ground law of The Netherlands: All people are equal for the law, unless the law decides differently.
You do not have that in 'merica.
I agree that higher education should be more affordable, but I don't think it's the only solution. Unfortunately, I know people with college degrees who I thought were very bright who support Trump! It's the fear factor that Fox News and other media have drummed into them.
These countries support higher education with taxes. These countries all have a far higher tax rate than we do.
Their taxes go toward such benefits and they are high, at least I think that is a factual statement. I personally would pay higher taxes if it benefitted us in similar ways,
Matt, so well put. Thank you. I was born in 1948 and at that time I was fortunate enough to be able to go through six years of college with scholarships, grants, jobs and loans which I was able to pay off within the first year of my first full time “ permanent “ job. That education gave me opportunities that that I would not have had otherwise. I thank public education for that. I think education is wise investment that our government can make. Of course if the government would just get out of my way I would be more successful- and taller and better looking and ….
We need to be aware that real democracy depends on eliminating laissez-faire capitalism. There must be limits and guidelines to commerce. That capitalism is still a form of slavery needs to be acknowledged. I think Lincoln was trying to convey that knowledge in the quote that HCR related.
Why unions are important!
Well said, Natalie.
Thanks Doug!
Natalie; It is generally the higher Tax paid. That's the easy answer. A more complex view would give you all the numbers; difficult as best (for USvs.DE): Marginal Max Tax rate (US-37%; DE-45%+Solidarity-5.5%+ Church Tax-8%+Media Tax etc); VAT (US-0%, States raise Sales Tax, DE-19%); Corporate Tax rate (US -35%; DE-15%);
That said there are Tax deductions that Germans can take which lower taxes a little, and other tax reduction methods.
But it is generally true that rich European country citizens pay more tax, from which "free" higher education is subsidized.
'Carter G. Woodson was a scholar whose dedication to celebrating the historic contributions of Black people led to the establishment of Black History Month, marked every February since 1976. Woodson fervently believed that Black people should be proud of their heritage and all Americans should understand the largely overlooked achievements of Black Americans.'
'Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.'
___Carter G. Woodson
'EARLY YEARS AND EDUCATION'
'Woodson overcame early obstacles to become a prominent historian and author of several notable books on Black Americans. Born in 1875 to illiterate parents who were former slaves, Woodson's schooling was erratic. He helped out on the family farm when he was a young boy and as a teen worked in the coal mines of West Virginia to help support his father's meager income. Hungry for education, he was largely self-taught and had mastered common school subjects by the age of 17. Entering high school at the age of 20, Woodson completed his diploma in less than two years.'
'Woodson worked as a teacher and a school principal before obtaining a bachelor's degree in literature from Berea College in Kentucky. After graduating from college, he became a school supervisor in the Philippines and later traveled throughout Europe and Asia. In addition to earning a master's degree from the University of Chicago, he became the second Black American, after W.E.B. Du Bois, to obtain a Ph.D. degree from Harvard University. He joined the faculty of Howard University, eventually serving as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.'
'This crusade is much more important than the anti- lynching movement, because there would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom'.
___Carter G. Woodson
'BLACK HISTORY IGNORED'
'After being barred from attending American Historical Association conferences despite being a dues-paying member, Woodson believed that the white-dominated historical profession had little interest in Black history. He saw African-American contributions' "overlooked, ignored, and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks and the teachers who use them."
'BLACK HISTORY MONTH'
'Woodson's devotion to showcasing the contributions of Black Americans bore fruit in 1926 when he launched Negro History Week in the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Woodson's concept was later expanded into Black History Month.' (NAACP.org)
https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/civil-rights-leaders/carter-g-woodson
''If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.'
___Carter G. Woodson
26 Fascinating Black History Month Facts for Students
Perfect for any time of year!
https://www.weareteachers.com/black-history-month-facts/
Natalie, Thank you for your comment that exquisitely embodies a fundamental truth—that there is no safe deposit for a free society rooted in each person having a voice in the processes that guide and regulate her or his life but with an acutely informed and engaged electorate.
Speak up. Speak out. Vote. Pray.
Beautifully written and expressed, Natalie; I’m sure that President Lincoln would like it, too.
What Lincoln argued against, that there are superiors and inferiors in our society and that the superiors should rule, is with us today still. They've reframed it somewhat, alleging that there are "makers" and "takers" and that government should favor the makers with huge concessions, including taxing their wealth and income minimally, or not at all. This has led to a $34 trillion debt that the wealthy have sucked out of the economy. The problem that we have to deal with is that so many among the working class fall for the wedge issues promulgated by the extreme Right: abortion, women's rights, immigration, etc. So, they vote Republican politicians into office and they do the bidding of those who funded that propaganda campaign.
The solution? A massive, consistent, ubiquitous education campaign to expose these manipulating oligarchs.
Wedge issues are a bipartisan problem. The way I see it, at the top, both the Demublicans and the Republicrats are controlled by the Money Power.
Most Americans think both Trump and Biden are too old to be President:
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240212/over-80-of-us-citizens-deem-biden-too-old-for-another-presidential-term---poll-1116738410.html
Age is an issue, no question about it. But, the big issue is Trump's intent to destroy democracy here in the U.S. and give a carte blanche to Putin to continue with his brutal military attacks on Russia's neighbors. My take is that Putin is blackmailing Trump with photos and videos from Trump's escapades with young Russian women in Moscow hotel rooms.
p.p.s. Newsom is getting into position as the Democratic establishment gets ready to throw Biden under the bus:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13070637/gavin-newsom-las-vegas-biden.html
The only way Trump could win is if Biden is his opponent.
I feel confident that Biden could and would defeat Trump, if in fact the traitor gets to stay on the Republican ticket. Still, I favor Newsom as the Dem candidate. Age is a factor. RBG should have retired earlier. Same for Feinstein and others now in the Senate.
It wouldn't surprise me if Nikki Haley ends up the Republican nominee, as Trump's endless legal woes stop firing up his base and become tiresome.
Newsom versus Haley: What would the issues be?
p.s. Here's an insider claim that the "Republican establishment" is so dead-set on continuing aid to Ukraine that they will knowingly sabotage Trump's candidacy:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/how-congress-is-pursuing-endless-war-in-ukraine-and-trying-to-stop-a-trump-election/
I will skip over the issue of our differing assessments of what Putin is up to.
An issue that is now coming into sharper focus is: Can Ukraine prevail, even if with our support, and will it cost more than it's worth?
A related question: If the only to avoid Ukraine's collapse is to escalate with direct NATO involvement, do we have a realistic chance of winning a war that could go nuclear?
Our choice this election is between democracy and an authoritarian government. Between the protections of the Constitution and a wouldbe dictator who will exact "revenge" on the "vermin" who oppose him. The choice should be incredibly easy, but, for many Americans, it is not. Talk or write to everyone and make sure they understand the stakes in this election. I believe this is the greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War.
And doesn’t it just irritate you every time they brag they are the party of Lincoln?
Thank you for your comments. I too feel this.
You have captured many of the arguments quite well. There are other justifications for voting as an enlightened, knowledgeable, objective, and mature person including the protection of our planet, MOTHER Earth, freedom to worship as we please, and the like. But, I truly like what you have written. I would add to the need to vote, the need to pray and hope.
Natalie Burdick, you are channeling Abraham Lincoln as he might speak today!
Let’s ALL vote and persuade others to do so. When we ALL vote, democracy wins.
❣️💙❣️💙❣️💙
Thank you Natalie.