Dane Roberts speaks of "the impossibility of standardizing our public schools" and believes "the state shouldn't assume the task of defining how or what each kid should learn." Roberts imagines an ideal world in which "principals could choose teachers who match their educational beliefs. And teachers [could] focus on what is too often forgotten: teaching kids."
How can anyone believe teachers have forgotten that it's all about teaching kids? How is it good that principals could discriminate against teachers whose "educational beliefs" they disagree with?
I don't want a teacher fired for believing the world is only 4,000 years old. Nor do I want a school packed with such believers.
Throughout hundreds of years of public education, many countries have not had so much trouble standardizing public schools. The trouble has grown in the last 30 years, coincidental with rise of the Radical Right.
If the state has no business at all in education (the ultimate extension of this line of reasoning), who does? The church? Or, the parents, most of whom hope their children will achieve more education than they could. Many caring parents participate in elections of local school boards; many know their kid's teachers and principals. How are they not represented in this process?
How does anyone reasonably conclude the Market can do no wrong? What have they been teaching you?
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One of the many things that has helped the United States to become a great nation is public education. That and a progressive tax system, especially estate taxes, have helped delay the growth of an American Aristocracy. In schools we meet people and ideas we will never meet at home or even in our own neighborhood or church. The melting pot of America is its public schools. Undermining that system undermines everything. Public education serves the public good.
peace,
mjh
Mark Justice Hinton
instructor for
UNM Continuing Education
since 1988
