Who Is Teaching Your Children? And What Is Being Taught?

Sure, professional athletes have a certain celebrity appeal, but can they really convince Americans to embrace a product that a growing number have already written off as a shit sandwich? But to really win hearts and minds … Hey! How about using the public schools to recruit their captive audience of students to the cause, and then set the kids loose to proselytize their families on the glories of Obamacare? That should work wonders.
. . .
So public school teachers get paid taxpayer dollars to preach Obamacare to their co-workers and the students, so the kids will then go home and sing the glories of the health scheme to the same taxpayers who are funding the whole process. Everybody wins!

If this experiment in using the public schools as a medium for spreading the good news works out as school officials and health insurance exchange managers hope, expect more in the future.

Los Angeles Public Schools Train Students as Obamacare Missionaries

Who taught as children the police and other public officials who abuse our rights?

How much is the decline of civic education responsible for the recent abuses of state power in the US – attacking politically incorrect “enemies”,NSA and secret courts, officials lying under oath to the American people and lying regularly, condemning success, killing of American citizens by drones, police misconduct, journalists who support state power, racial discrimination, restricting judicial discretion in sentencing, stop and frisk, free lunchitis, increasing regulation of all aspects of life, stifling free speech, the growing police-industrial complex, legislators passing laws without reading them or letting citizens see them first, SWAT wrong door raids, Fast and Furious, Obamagate, War on Drugs, increasing crony capitalism, attempts to disarm citizens, Benghazi, highest incarceration rate in the world, the militarization of police, and wars waged without congressional authorization.

Who is teaching, and what is being taught to, the children who are growing up to abuse state power?

Are our children being taught about the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights?

Are our children being taught that they are all victims, rather than individuals responsible for their decisions and their actions?

Are our children being taught self esteem without any kind of meaningful achievement?

Are our children being taught that we live in a republic and that their adult responsibilities include guarding the freedom we take for granted?

How much is the socialization that occurs in schools, rewarding sitting quietly and compliant behavior, responsible for the docility of citizens in the face of state abuses of power and liberty?

And what incentives do public school teachers, almost all of whom are members of public employee unions, have to teach children to think critically and question state power (much less to read, write and able to do basic math)?

What do children who have seen and heard teachers denigrate the Founding Fathers as a bunch of privileged old white men grow up thinking about the Constitution?

People who say that parents sending their children to public schools are guilty of parental malpractice are starting to sound like realists, not extremists.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
Cassius, in Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare

And it’s not like most teachers attend institutions of excellence:

[A] new study run by the National Council on Teacher Quality has called U.S. colleges of education an “industry of mediocrity” that churns out ill-prepared and under-qualified teachers.
. . .
And meanwhile, teachers unions ensure that these incompetently prepared people are given lifetime tenure and protected evaluations. So not only are future educators prepared poorly for their jobs, but most receive job protection within one to seven years, consistently avoiding an evaluation that would allow parents to judge their effectiveness.

It’s a real nice system we have.

Massive Fail: Teaching Instruction An “Industry Of Mediocrity”

Enriching wealthy professors and college administrators on the backs of poor students who have been lied to that they “must all go to college”.

While household debt comes in many forms, only student debt grew during the Great Recession. Federal policy has encouraged this habit. In the two years following the financial crisis, spending on student loans grew 19 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

Though students and families are borrowing more to cope with the ever-growing cost of college, the loans that they are taking out may actually be a cause, as well as a result, of the problem. Many studies suggest that colleges are capturing part of this increase in federal loan funds and using it to pay for high-cost expenditures—such as research labs, student amenities, and administrators—that are then passed on to students in the form of higher tuition and fees. Since colleges are guaranteed funding for students who demonstrate need, they are insulated from the consequences of raising prices.
. . .
Federal expenditures and household borrowing patterns are symptomatic of a larger disease: the unimpeded growth of college tuition, which calls for greater borrowing.

The story of student loans is counterintuitive: students are forced to take out more loans precisely because the government makes more loans available.
. . .
By insulating colleges from competitive pressure, student loans distort the incentives of colleges and universities. The problem of growing student loan debt cannot be addressed without rethinking our federal loan program.

Repairing America’s Unhealthy Relationship with Student Debt

Ozymandias.

Forward!

Unfortunately, it seems that the future Aldous Huxley predicted in 1932, in Brave New World, is arriving early. Mockery, truculence, and minimalist living are best, then enjoy the decline. However, we do need a Revolving Door Tax (RDT), learn what Members of Congress pay in taxes, and prosecute politicians and staff and their “family and friends” who profit from insider trading.