Charter Schools
I readily admit that I am not fully up to date on what is happening with the nation's publicly funded schools. I am not an educator, and I don't even have school age kids any more.
What I do know is that we all want the youth of America being properly educated. I also read my property tax statement, and I see the vast amounts of money that I am spending on educating these kids. I think many of us suspect that lots of disrespectful kids are making it through high school (and maybe even beyond) without being able to spell, punctuate, or capitalize sentences. Their math skills end at being able to balance a check book, they didn't learn a second language, and their knowledge of history is seriously lacking. Jay Leno likes to make fun about how incredibly ignorant and uninformed many Americans are.
These kids are being taught that the ideas of fundamentalist Christianity are more valid than Evolution and Charles Darwin's ideas. This politicization of the school curriculum by the right wing is nothing less than propaganda. A re-writing of history in lot of cases.
The demographic shift from America being a mostly Anglo society to one that is heavily Hispanic is generating challenges as well. It seems like some kids in America don't read well in either Spanish or English. Of course allowing these Hispanics to continue on and receive their diplomas without being able to properly function in the English language guarantees them a sentence of being permanently relegated as a second class citizen.
I am beginning to suspect that charter schools are an assault on democracy and public education. Taxpayers fund these schools, but they are run by private companies. So an important element of democratic control is lost. Even though smart people like President Obama support charter schools, this feels more and more like privatization. Bush and the deregulation fanatics wanted to privatize social security, and they have made great strides in privatizing the military through independent contractors.
The assault on democracy is right out there in the open, but not many people seem worried about it.
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