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Ron....
Thank you very much for taking my call today. "The difference between
a successful and effective business and a successful and effective
fraud is not measured in math proficiency scores. Ken Lay had a PhD.
in Economics (University of Houston) when he gave us Enron."
It appears to me that over the last 25 or so years, with a marked
increase in the last 7 years, there have been continual efforts to
undermine the legitimate functions of government which serve the
needs of citizens and to replace the government service model with a
business model which serves first to create profit for itself and
only secondarily to serve the public. "Government is broken",
"Government is inefficient", and "services provided by Government
cost too much" are the frequent criticisms of those who seek to
privatize government functions in order that a profit can be made.
This is particularly the case with public education.
Philosophically, that presents a number of issues that need to be considered:
1) Should the services of government be accountable to elected
officials and ultimately then to the citizens or should those
services be accountable to the unelected and unrepresentative will of
commercial interests?
I submit that in ceding accountability to commercial interests,
citizens will be at the mercy of a given investor/owner or
corporation and his/her/its bottom line. Citizens will see, as we
have in public education in Ohio, competition for funds for education
between traditional public education and for-profit corporations. The
second step inevitably becomes one in which for-profit schools are
exempted from some of the requirements and accountability laid on
public schools. For-profit schools will then be "competing" unfairly,
but they will be profitable. However, the profit redounds only to the
profiteers and not to the citizenry as a whole. The third step is to
hammer home a message that says that profitability is all that
matters and thus convince the citizens that public education is
failing because it "costs more" or "costs more than it should." The
result will be seen in an increased unwillingness of the community of
citizens to take on our societal responsibility and our
constitutional obligation to provide an education for our children.
2) Should education be organized according to a "manufacturing model"?
Currently the public educational system, under the guise of "No Child
Left Behind" seems to have been organized to take its "raw materials"
(students), run them through the "manufacturing process" (pre-school
through High School), and come out with a standardized finished
product (graduates). When public schools fail to produce a consistent
product as defined and measured by product testing, they are
penalized by shifting funds and/or "raw material" to other
manufacturing sites (schools) in much the same way that any industry
might shift production from one plant to another. Never mind that
public schools cannot control their "raw material". Never mind that
the educational process cannot shape and mold human minds in the way
that industry stamps out widgets. And never mind that we do not ask
ourselves whether or not identical widgets ought to be the product of
our public education system.
3) Is access to and affordability of education one of the
foundational pillars of a free and democratic society ?
I believe it is. A quality public education, available to all
regardless of an individual's ability to pay" marks the major
difference between the success of the American democracy and other
societies in our world. Democracy itself is not measured on the basis
of its efficiency, for surely we can agree that any dictatorship is
far more efficient. Rather we hold our governance to be best because
it is effective in offering to all its citizens access to the
educational tools that will allow each to follow his/her dreams. The
result has been, and ought be. a rich diversity that continues to
elevate and enliven us all. Our funding for public education should
not be viewed merely as a manufacturing expense, but rather as our
continuing investment in the future of America.
Ron, I am not an educator. I do not belong to the teachers union. And
I am not employed by public schools. I am simply a local Pastor who
is grateful for my public school education and passionate about our
communal responsibility to afford that same opportunity to all.
I would love to be a guest on your show to talk more about it, or to
participate as a panelist in any forum regarding public education and
its funding that you or others might arrange.
Thanks for listening.
C. David Morgan, Pastor
Calvary Presbyterian Church
Canton, Ohio |
