ASSAULTS ON EDUCATION

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/21/2011)

A well-known assumption is that we live in a world with a global marketplace. Another is that we’ll need a highly educated workforce to compete in this global marketplace.

The Republican response to these two assumptions is to attack educational programs in the United States on the seeming theory that the best way to compete is through ignorance and stupidity. The attack is against teachers, schools, and universities. Generally, the attack is justified because of taxes. Of course, Republicans favor reducing taxes, never increasing them to support education even though the citizens of Arizona voted to raise their sales taxes by one cent to support education.

Reminiscent of the Know Nothing Party in the middle of the 19th century which feared the immigration of Germans, Irish, and Chinese; these modern Know Nothings are opposed to immigration, largely because they’re afraid of the influx of Hispanic and Asians. Along with opposition to immigration for fear that it is a threat to their “way of life,” they also want to cripple public education.

The Republican Party has not grown up, intellectually or morally. It seems like a gang of rebellious adolescents who don’t like the demands of responsibility.

A friend who is a Republican now identifies herself as an Independent so ashamed is she of the Republicans. She can’t quite leave her elitism by becoming an unwashed Democrat. No matter, the Democrats at least don’t favor immigrant bashing while destroying education as a means of winning the global economic fight.