"B, 7."
"You sunk my junior high school!"
"HA HA HA HA HA!!!"
Any time there's even the slimmest hint that a ballot box curtain may part somewhere, anywhere in the near future, the proverbial woodwork produces "Education Republicans" in swarms. They are a subspecies of the "compassionate conservative" who expounds so awkwardly on the humanistic values that most of us don't need explicated, because they come naturally. The Education Republicans coo soothingly: they understand your myriad frustrations with fractious school-boards and smarty-pants administrators and teachers who just don't understand your child's uniqueness and your embarassing resentment of having to pay taxes to support an educational system that seems more rickety with each passing year. And in their supercilious, "yeah I did a line, but relax, baby, I just took an Ambien, so we're all good here" tones, reminiscent of those favored by Tom Friedman when he's trying to sell you the notion that the good folks of Uttar Pradesh just adore eating the dirt off of the first world's heels, they assure you that they have all the answers: school vouchers. Charter schools. Rigorous standardized testing.
And none can pull this act off more smoothly than California Republicans -- it comes as second nature to them. You see the earnestness in the dewey eyes of the freshly-hatched-from-the-think-tank Gubernatorial intern: The schools are failing! We just want to help -- we want to secure the nation's future!
No, really.
On November 8th, the waxwork T-100 and his flying monkeys submit for your approval, my fellow Californians, Proposition 74, which increases the probationary period for public school teachers from two to five years, and modifies (i.e., makes easier) the process by which school boards can dismiss a teacher.
Sounds right nice, don't it? A sound, well-reasoned finger-wagging at shiftless, incompetent teachers, because we know it's all their fault; it's a paternalistic, clench-jawed "Harrumph" in legislative form, one some might see as way overdue.
Well pardon me if I find the prospect about as appealing as Paul Winfield posthumous scat porn.
How can anyone see this for anything other than what it is? I mean, would you try to cure a case of the clap by having bareback sex in the hope of contracting HIV?
Any time Republicans propose to solve problems with a public institution or social service it's always a Trojan horse: an ostensibly helpful incremental step, which in reality is nothing more than another nail in the coffin of said agency or service. Except when they're more blatantly destructive, as in their outrageous overreaching on Social Security.
The end game, however, is always the same: obliterate those programs and let the public that relies on them ride the waves of an unfettered free market economy: a warm, bouyant, sweetwater ocean teeming with lollipops and unicorns and puppies and singing fucking flowers and dividends for all.
Prop. 74 is clearly just another well-disguised step towards this aim. Make teaching that much more unattractive to college graduates. Continue to destabilize the system. And when the whole mess -- construction paper purchased on the teachers' own scarce dimes, mimeographed standardized tests that do fuck-all to actually teach students how to think, and Reagan-brand ketchup packets -- comes crashing down, wipe away a tear, mutter that it was a good try, and now it's back to the textile mills with you, my little underage pretties.
Feel free to read the fine print here. But please, after this chimera-and-pony show is finished (one way or another) on November 9th, keep in mind one question: Just where the heck did all those Education Republicans go, anyway?
November 8 Part II: Fraught For Teacher
10.21.2005
Ore : 9:15 PM
Ore : 9:15 PM
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Comments for November 8 Part II: Fraught For Teacher
Wow. What PP said.
- Posted at 2:31 AM | By
You're right. The end game of the oxymoronic "Education Republicans" is the demise of the public school. Then they can freely force feed creationism, bigotry and religion to students in the hopes of turning out a new generation of wingnuts.
- Posted at 4:10 AM | By
I think that's all true
AND the priests didn't damage enough of them over the LAST 20 years to swell the ranks of the military for THIS generation.
although, clearly, someone damaged some members of the military at some point in their youth.
since liberal humanism is the devil, and mindless rote lockstep conformity is the other option, which mindset is better for obedient service??
Onward Christian Soldier!
(p.s. teh, i will now stop compalining about the word verification, as spambots have infested my attic)
AND the priests didn't damage enough of them over the LAST 20 years to swell the ranks of the military for THIS generation.
although, clearly, someone damaged some members of the military at some point in their youth.
since liberal humanism is the devil, and mindless rote lockstep conformity is the other option, which mindset is better for obedient service??
Onward Christian Soldier!
(p.s. teh, i will now stop compalining about the word verification, as spambots have infested my attic)
Triple "Bravo!" teh l4m3, with a "Hear, Hear!" twist. I am studying to be a teacher, and it rankles me to no end that these cornpone fascists are steadily moving our nation's never-much-better-than-shaky public educational system back into the primordial ooze.
After the Gray Davis recall, I resisted the urge to classify Californians as the national litmus test for all right-wing appeals to selfishness and collective myopia, but I guess they're on the verge of outdoing themselves with this one.
Thanks for posting this. If this keeps up, I may have to foment a bloody revolution at the same time I earn my teaching certification. Either that, or teach history in Canada.
p.s.: Dude, you are one crazy m.f. I'm gonna add you to my blogroll from oblivion.
After the Gray Davis recall, I resisted the urge to classify Californians as the national litmus test for all right-wing appeals to selfishness and collective myopia, but I guess they're on the verge of outdoing themselves with this one.
Thanks for posting this. If this keeps up, I may have to foment a bloody revolution at the same time I earn my teaching certification. Either that, or teach history in Canada.
p.s.: Dude, you are one crazy m.f. I'm gonna add you to my blogroll from oblivion.
- Posted at 4:41 AM | By
Sam Holloway
That's fine -- still six more to go! I'll get to them all before the 8th (in between Charlie Day-in-underwear posts, that is).
And remember: ALL'S Y'ALLS BETTAH GET YO MONKEY ASSES 2 THA VOTING BOOTH NOVEMBER 8. PEACE OUT.
And remember: ALL'S Y'ALLS BETTAH GET YO MONKEY ASSES 2 THA VOTING BOOTH NOVEMBER 8. PEACE OUT.
"about as appealing as Paul Winfield posthumous scat porn"
Now that's appealing. My monkey butt will indeed be in that voting booth. What incentive is there to teach? Soon, teachers will be fired on the grounds that they didn't spend enough of their own money on materials, or that their students aren't being taught properly even though their textbooks were printed in 1979, and they can't give individual attention to the little ones because there's 45 students per class. Nice. Real nice.
Ah-nold hates teachers. He doesn't like it when smart people tell him what to do. After all, he's stupid, and he's the governor, so who are they to talk?
Now that's appealing. My monkey butt will indeed be in that voting booth. What incentive is there to teach? Soon, teachers will be fired on the grounds that they didn't spend enough of their own money on materials, or that their students aren't being taught properly even though their textbooks were printed in 1979, and they can't give individual attention to the little ones because there's 45 students per class. Nice. Real nice.
Ah-nold hates teachers. He doesn't like it when smart people tell him what to do. After all, he's stupid, and he's the governor, so who are they to talk?
- Posted at 1:19 PM | By
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