Editor,
Social liberalism is sustaining and encouraging public education, rather than running amok as John Bauer states in Monday's Daily Lobo. His diatribe enthusiastically paints broad political canvasses with a few tiny brushstrokes and lambastes the privileged halls of academia while ignoring the poor and unfortunate.
Bauer laments the erosion of literacy in the Unites States, quoting Holocaust denier Joseph Sobran's comparison of 1900s elite academy education with the worst product of poor public schools in 2005. Removing this uneven contrast, national illiteracy in the same time period dropped from 10.7 percent to 0.3 percent. In particular, African-American illiteracy dropped from 44.5 percent to 0.7 percent. The face of this statistic indicates a large, government-supported increase in our ability to read and function in the United States.
However, tagging along with this increase in education is a much larger need to synthesize written information to succeed than a century ago. This pressing challenge certainly prompted George Bush Sr.'s progressive goal of having all Americans literate by 2000, a seemingly liberal goal from a conservative leader.
What are the individual's versus the government's responsibilities in education? Level of education clearly tracks with economic well-being in the United States, and it is in the best interest of both individuals and the national government to educate our people.
Bauer and I agree that it is an individual's responsibility to take the opportunities that are given them to obtain a high level of education. Where we differ is in the ways the government should ensure that at least minimal opportunities are available to all Americans.
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A major role of government in education should be to help those who cannot reasonably help themselves.
In particular, I see a clear state and national government role to break the vicious cycle - low income leading to a poor tax base leading to poor schools leading to poor education leading to low income - which afflicts areas of the country. Once the opportunity for quality education is ensured, and the need for education publicized to individuals, it is their responsibility - and their parents' - to rise to the challenge.
Moving on to those who are able to attend higher education, Bauer's rejection of social egalitarianism and the belief that modern society "denies even the quest for ultimate truths" is astonishing. How can you advocate that higher education should not support the study of many fields and ways of thought and then blame universities for not allowing students the opportunities to search for truth? Show me which non-quantitative fields and ideas are valid to be studied and you will show me a system and nation that stifle the creativity, ingenuity and intellectual freedom that has made Americans successful in the world.
People must choose between ideological teaching that accepts one view of one world, and critical teaching that allows students to make up their own mind. Clearly, Bauer has chosen.
Buckner Creel
GPSA president
