No More Mr. Nice Guy!

Not reading is fundamentalist

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

--Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816

I always knew that the US has the worst educational system in the developed world, but I read some statistics in today's Repulsive that were really shocking.

Schoolchildren are not expected to be able to read until third grade - that's eight years old! And even this low standard is only met by 31% of children nationally, and fewer than a quarter in Arizona, the Mississippi of the Desert.

In Europe, such a statistic would lead to governments collapsing and education ministers resigning in disgrace. I thank my lucky stars that I grew up in a country that has an outstanding public educational system (Ireland). The more I learn about the US system, the more I realize that it is nothing but a glorified conveyor belt for moving children through the system and keeping them off the streets for a few years.

It was only a few years ago that I realized, to my astonishment, that most schoolchildren do not have to pass any kind of exam to graduate from high school - they just get an automatic diploma as a reward for being a warm body and showing up. Here in Arizona, there is endless hand-wringing over the abysmal results of the AIMS test, a recent experiment to test whether children have in fact learned anything during their years in school. Shocked by the realization that most of them haven't, Arizona pols are seeking to rectify the problem by dumbing down the test. Brilliant!

Most astonishing of all is the relentless attack by the religious extreme right on public education and science education. Creationism rears its ugly head over and over again, however often it is slapped down in the courts and exposed as a crock by scientists. And school vouchers are an ill-disguised attack on public education itself, and an attempt to have the taxpayer fund religious schools which can cherry-pick schoolchildren and teach all kinds of stark raving religious lunacy without oversight.

Of course it's not so astonishing when you consider the real agenda of the extreme right. They don't want an educated citizenry. They don't want people who can think for themselves. They don't want anyone who is ambitious and aspires to rise above his station. What they want is unthinking masses of slobus vulgaris americanus who can be manipulated with empty soundbites and mindless jingoism and religiosity. They want peons who will be happy to work for a minimum wage with no benefits, and can be fobbed off with pie in the sky when they die.

And the scary thing is: it's working. While millionaires are becoming billionaires thanks to Junior's endless handouts, wages and standards of living are at best stagnant, and for most people, declining significantly. And of course they are losing health insurance, leaving them one accident or illness away from living on the street. Simply stated, they are working harder than ever and getting paid less. An educated populace would never stand for this wholesale theft.

The Junior junta is turning the United States into a third world cesspit. And Merkins are too ignorant to do anything about it. Happy Indentured Servitude Day...