As the years have passed and corporate power has supersized, I have found it increasingly annoying that education is always regarded within the paradigm of job training. Even back in the 70's students who were studying philosophy or art had to endure the question, "What are you going to do with THAT?" Although a case can be made that cognitive skills and aesthetic sensibilities do have value in the workplace, I resent that every human quality and propensity must be ultimately graded according to its marketability.
The capitalists, of course, revel in this attitude. Their labor gets trained at public expense. Voters regard investments in eduction=job-training as contributions to the public good, enabling the masses to better pursue the American dream. Education-for-its-own-sake is regarded as a purview of the elite, a luxury. But in our society, the opposite is actually true.
I don't know this for a fact, but it was told to me by someone whose word I respect: Public education was instituted by our forefathers in order to ensure an informed electorate. When you think about it, why else would they have mandated that youngsters be taken off the farms and out of the shops? Except to support a thriving democracy. And now it seems that the GOP and its corporate mentors would like nothing better than to dumb down the electorate by underfunding education and turning journalism into infotainment.
Recently Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, after a display of unnecessary rudeness, responded to a question about his defunding of public education by complaining that he pays $38,000/year in property taxes to support public education even though his children go to parochial schools. This was a typical example of the Republican RED HEN DELUSION (see Memelings) in this case pushing the I-don't-have-kids-in-public-schools-so-why-should-I-chip-in? button.
Here's my response to that: So, you've never been treated by a doctor who went to public schools at some point? You've never driven over a bridge that is still standing because an engineer who went to public schools had a great math teacher? I'll bet your helicopter pilot didn't go to prep school and then Harvard. I know your party is pissed because a public school educated citizenry saw through Republican schemes to bring down Clinton and re-elected him, but grow up and stop being the school yard bully.
The opinion of someone who went to both parochial and public schools in New Jersey: Chris Christie, you are a short-sighted arrogant ass.
