In an ideas piece in Politico this morning, the author Nia-Malika Henderson speculates that the Obama education proposals will get broad support. She concludes her article with this quotation from Republican strategist Rich Galen:
“Even if you are a little dicey on it as a Republican because you are worried about government overreach with education, you have to think long and hard about the fact that you voted against kids’ education.”
With apologies to Mr. Galen, his response is Pavlovian: We have been programmed for decades to think throwing money at government (“public”) schooling somehow improves our kids’ education. That education has only gotten worse and worse over those decades.
Now along comes the Obama-led takeover / makeover of America into European-like socialism. The worst of the education piece is it further makes certain an underclass will be formed by the schools — now one that is dependent on and defined by the federal government.
Some thoughts on ending the underclass Obamaschool would perpetuate, and how handschooling is a potent protection of the right and ability of individual kids to learn:
Handschooling will — at last — break each individual child’s learning free to go beyond the control of education establishments. Sound scary? Nothing scares me more about the future than limiting yet another young generation to the analog, tradition-dominated, doling out of a bit of this knowledge and a bit of that knowledge by some remote priesthood (pedagogical, secular, ideological, political, — yes and/or religious too).
We should all be very afraid of education policy reigning from far away. The range of control and chaos these distant pedagogues cause is wide. There is the sort that pumps gushes of money into celebrating mediocrity which perpetuates an underclass the nanny standard setters can count on to keep them in power. There are tyrannies that nurture hatred and spawn fanaticism in the young, even to the horror of blowing people up. Settling for inferior, and even destructive, education for other people’s children is all too easy when those children are in other people’s neighborhoods and towns and beyond.
While we nurture our children up close, we should strive for equal opportunity to learn for each child. Serendipitously, wonderfully — in the 21st century there is a brand new way to do just that! Handschooling has almost suddenly opened the way for every youngster across the world to learn from a global commons of that is known by humankind.
Rich Galen says:
I wasn’t speaking about the appropriateness of the policy, I was speaking about the politics of the policy. I’m correct on this.
23rd February 2010 at 8:29 am
Judy Breck says:
Apologies again if I incorrectly implied your approval of anything happening with Obamaschool.
Certainly, and sadly, you are correct on the politics. On education Obama has so far called the bluff of Republicans and conservatives of just about every stripe. He is plunging ahead taking over the schools and perpetuating a supportive underclass while, as you put it so well, his potential opposition is thinking “long and hard about the fact that you voted against kids’ education.”
I am what once was called and “old pol” — ten years older than you are. One of the major purposes of Handschooling.com (which I have just started) is help folks think nimbly and carefully about what can reverse government education and individualize learning.
Thanks for your comment! Judy
23rd February 2010 at 8:58 am