Fighting for Our Classrooms, and for the Human Beings Inside Them
Fighting for Our Classrooms, and for the Human Beings Inside Themby Richard (RJ) Eskow
It seems as if same battle is being fought in every aspect of American society. On one side are the forces of egalitarianism, economic opportunity, and self-determination. On the other is a well-funded and entrenched elite bent on hijacking our media, our political process, and our institutions, for their selfish ends.
Sadly, the classrooms of this country haven’t been spared.
Means and Ends
The Wall Street crowd wants us to think of education in terms of means — which usually means finding ways to spend less — rather than ends. But when it comes to education, the “ends” are our children. And the means we choose for them, either consciously or through indifference, reveal who we really are as a people.
Perhaps that’s why a new ‘education declaration‘ has attracted signatories as diverse as author Dave Eggers; Prof. Robert Reich; education reformer Diane Ravitch; Larry Groce, host of NPR’s Mountain Stage; economist Lawrence Mishel; Prof. Theda Skocpol; and a number of other prominent political, academic, cultural, religious, and educational leaders. (You can sign it too.)
A quick disclaimer: I’m affiliated with the Institute for America’s Future, one of the sponsors of this initiative. I wasn’t involved with its preparation, but I’ve wanted to write about primary and secondary education for a long time. I’ve held off, partly because the moral truths have been restated so many times that they’ve become clichés.
You know the clichés I mean: Nothing’s more important than our children. Kids come first. It takes a village. “I