HispanicVista Columnists
Defending Public Schools
- By Roberto Miranda
- Special to HispanicVista.com
Public education was once widely regarded as one of the great institutions of this nation. Wisconsin's system of public education was once celebrated as the envy of the country, providing many models for other states to replicate in order to teach the generation of the future.
Indeed, open to all children, public schools has for many years embedded itself into those national ideals of equality and opportunity, and has served as a vital resource for the preservation of American democracy as well as being the epicenter of our community's social and academic life. To be sure, our public school facilities have provided our children with opportunities to play sports and after-school rooms for adult education. Such activities have allowed many people to obtain a diploma in order to go on to become leading figures in our society – in business, politics, the arts, and other fields.
With that said, it becomes alarming, indeed, disturbing to see the reactionary actions being conducted by the political right-wing of our state's Republican Party as it moves to continue to destroy a system rooted in the very democratic ideals this party professes to up-hold.
The growing opposition to public education has occurred as a result of a broader ideologically and politically motivated assault by radical elements of the Republican Party. These right-wing radicals view public education as political ideological demagoguery of the political left, infested with communistic and socialistic ideals rather than the democratic common-schools idea that it truly is.
For the political right-wing, the marketing propaganda to destroy public education is about advancing an individualistic free market-based school system that favors the strong and rich, while ignoring the disadvantaged and poor. Indeed, the right-wing’s campaign has nothing to do with helping the taxpayer, or improving education, but has everything to do with helping the political right achieve an ideological victory.
As our nation's state governors ponder thier next plan of action to protect public education from the assault of ill-informed and radicalized elements of the political right-wing in control of Republican state legislatures across this nation, the public must become aware of the harm this continued assault on our public schools will mean to the future of those same ideals of liberty and freedom we celebrate and reaffirm every 4th of July.
Indeed, the extremists’ right-wing elements of the Republican Party has systematically worked to undermine the public’s confidence and respect for public education since Ronald Reagan entered into office in the early 1980s.
With studies such as "A Nation at Risk" and "America's Competitive Challenge" these extremists have taken very real and serious concerns and used them to destroy public trust in our system of public education rather than move the public towards supporting it. Using language as “choice” to move this campaign, the political right-wing has taken to overt campaigns to launch initiatives designed to achieve their real goal – privatizing schools and eliminating as much of the public education system as possible.
Are there problems? Sure there are. Like corporations all across this nation, problems with logistics, administration, support services, fiscal issues and many other variables present challenges to the public schools.
However, the alternatives that the political right-wing propose are not in the best interest of the public nor will they achieve the ends of instilling the democratic foundations this nation has grown fond of. Indeed, vouchers will more than likely lead the nation down the path of eliminating our resolve to maintain a separation of church and state, and as a result, place our system of education in the control of politically zealous religious institutions and corporations only interested in teaching ideological victory or profit. To be sure, the history of corporations in this country, past and present, has shown that a corporate-managed for-profit school system will never serve the public interest in the manner our public schools have done.
Is there a way to fend off the attacks of the political right-wing?
Not without our help. The public must rise to the challenge. Privatization activists are advancing educational systems that strip our nation of multi-cultural educational programs that help to advance the diversity of our heritage. They seek to implement programs that assimilate us into a society of neo-con political operatives devoid of social diversity, liberty and freedoms. These actions place our democratic principals at risk.
To defeat these anti-democracy forces we must be strategic, focused, disciplined, and committed to long-term efforts to protect public schools from the privateers, profiteers and religious zealots. We must bring together our collective resources - financial, intellectual, and ideological - in order to recreate an infrastructure of organizations that show the power of our collective voices.
The first step is to contact your state legislatures and beseech them to hold the line. They must stand strong for public education; any waiver sends a signal to the political right-wing that they are holding the upper-hand.
In addition, the defenders of public education must not yield either.
The political attack organized by the right-wing on public education is aimed not only at our public schools; it is also part of the broader political campaign which is to devalue progressive values, principals and ideals.
We must and can defeat this bankrupt political campaign. We need only bring into the arena our collective belief that this nation's principals were not borne out of the notion to help one individual stand on the backs of the many.
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Miranda, a frequent contributor to HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com), is a national award-winning columnist, Latino community activist and columnist for the Milwaukee Spanish Journal. Email at: rmiranda@wi.rr.com