The End is Coming (and other cynical musings): All children left behind

May 24th 2007 – The United States Senate, controlled with a majority of Democrat party representatives, has proposed the “Head Start” program as an education reform. This would provide increased federal funding for schools (it is currently at only 9.1% of school budgets) and would create pedagogical programs for preschoolers down to the age of 2 years old. This amendment is widely expected not to pass due to the presidential veto.

The republicans have blocked such attempts to introduce institutional reforms for the strangest of reasons. The current educational infrastructure allows for a racial discrimination policy when hiring teachers and the proposed one would outlaw such prejudice. Their justification for keeping such a policy resides in the bullshit argument of “freedom of choice”, I would love to see an American school deny a job to a teacher on the basis that she is a woman. No? That’s not right you say? A hypocrite you are? Thought so. For those of you that try to find details on this bill or the justification for a discrimination policy will have a very hard time since it was available on cnn.com for only 12 hours. It has somehow disappeared along with its entry on Wikipedia.

Bush’s “No child left behind” law was the perfect façade to hide the policy but it has profoundly perverted the system altogether. Although federal funding only accounts for one tenth of school funding, the schools now have to compete for this by performing well on standardised testing. I am guessing that the noble goal behind this was to increase the overall achievement and intelligence of the nation but has turned into Capitalist Darwinism on a small scale. I explain myself. Schools are promised increased funding and bonuses if their exam average is high and penalties if it is low. Hiring better teachers, buying updates textbooks, decreasing class sizes and personalising education costs money and the students would not necessarily be the best at these “standardised” tests. Instead, classes have been reorganised to teach what will be on the test. Gym classes have been halved to be replaced by specific reading and math classes and school hours extended to cram more subject matter into a day. The bottom line is that the school gets a medal and their super students are the best in America to answer a single test. Whatever happened to being prepared for life? Discovering a prospected career or field of interest? Developing a healthy lifestyle which includes more than 90 minutes of physical activity every two weeks? Governmental involvement in the education system has been the worst idea to come out of the US since Michael Jackson. Furthermore, we now see that discrimination policies that should have been completely eradicated from schools in the sixties along with segregation laws are persisting through the current republican administration through sloppy intervention, not very right-wing of them.

Logically, when the first scholarly institutions opened in ancient Athens, it was supposed to be administered by the State. Unfortunately, the proposed public, obligatory and free school program of third century BC Greece was scrapped by economic realities. For lack of resources and expertise, the State decided to keep its funding to a minimal and exercise great moral authority through the evergetes (rich donators) whom were given responsibility over the institutions. This led to bribery and corruption so the easy solution was taken to privatise all schools except for a few urban ones. These last ones were directly funded and administered by the State and were free for all of those who could not afford the private ones. A complete separation of public and private interests eliminated shady dealings and conflicts of interest (Do I want what is better for the children or that big bag with a dollar sign on it that this guy is holding?).

A profound reform is necessary for the American education system and I unfortunately believe that neither of their major political parties has the foresight to solve it all. A universal antidiscrimination policy on the basis of sex, race, sexual orientation or religion would be a nice first step. If discrimination is what you crave, do it for the right reasons: competence, motivation, experience (before they join a union).