Reader Sharon Sanders posted this comment:

 

The intentional destruction of our economy and educational system has been perpetrated by libertarians, right-wing and religious extremists, as well as corporatists, who want every last penny for themselves and their doctrines through private prisons, charter schools, private armies, a biased corporate media– everything, while they ship our factories and jobs overseas. There can be no economy and no way out of poverty until America rises up and realizes what’s being done to them. There can be no economy without jobs. Now there are few jobs except low-paying ones where people must work two or three to make ends meet, forcing children to grow up without adult supervision and time to care for, help them, and love them. It’s all intentional.

These multinational corporations are determined that only the elite few shall be well-educated–after all, no one else can afford good college educations today. They want to profit from phony standards for schools, unaccountable charter schools, while they dismantle collective bargaining rights and pensions, not only from teachers, but from every workerr in this country and overseas. We will have no country ever again worth two cents until and unless these greedy corporatists are forced to keep their hands out of our schools, until we give each and every child the right to the best education possible with excellent thinking skills, challenges, necessary facts, real history, civics, building a base of knowledge and critical thinking for the future. I’m afraid these extremists have so overtaken our country, that there may be no turning back–but we must keep fighting. I taught at a time when creativity and thinking and knowledge were highly regarded and excellent public schools were respected.