Republicans and Public Education

My wife, my mother and my father-in-law are all public school teachers. They have no greater love than seeing the lightbulb illuminate above a struggling student's head. Over the years, between the three, they have helped teach thousands of students how to make that lightbulb turn on. But, to hear right-wing radio talk show hosts talk about them you would think that they are communists who have the sole purpose of feeding union coffers and indoctrinating students into some nebulous "leftist society." Why does the Republican Party encourage these attacks on public school teachers?

The Republican Party has a single agenda. Cheap labor. While they mask their agenda behind gun rights, womb-to-heaven politics, gay marriage and other hotbutton issues, it all boils down to cheap labor. Even the "school choice" issue is about nothing more than cheap labor. The fastest way to cheap labor is to destroy workers' right groups and unions. Republicans have made it their goal to destroy any group which protects workers' and citizens' rights to fight against unjust or arbitrary treatment by employers. Their hatred for these groups and their power to stop employers from running roughshod over their employees is evidenced by their daily attacks and snide comments regarding every group from the Teamsters to the ACLU. In the middle are the teachers' unions.

To destroy the teachers' unions, it is necessary to denigrate and vilify the members of those unions. Sure, out of one side of their mouth they may be referring to the "noble profession of education" but more often than not they are egging on the right-wing talk show hosts to further attack and belittle teachers. Heck, when Rod Paige called the National Education Association a "terrorist organization" I had to wonder where my wife was hiding her bombs because I hadn't seen any around the house.

It is also helpful to their agenda to hamstring the budgets of public schools while additionally imposing ludicrous and unfunded mandates. This helps provide fodder for those who buy the demogoguery of these parrots of the Republican Party's agenda to see that the "out-of-control budgets" of schools continually show up on their often sleepy-eyed view of their communities. By forcing schools (such as here in Ohio) to continually beg their communities for enough funds to provide an education equal to the education previous generations received, Republicans have kept the brunt of the frustration and rage by taxpayers focused on the teachers themselves.

The end goal for Republicans is to destroy public education to the point where it would be unfeasible for it to continue. They have no desire to see public education succeed and have proven that time and again by repeatedly attacking those whose passion is to teach children. Once they have destroyed public education, then they can turn the education process into just another money-making venture where the richest get the best and the poorest get none or as little as possible. Until the day every voucher-receiving school must take any child and keep any child for no more than the price of the voucher, the idea that voucher schools can replace public schools is a pipe dream.

Once they have put schools in the hands of corporate schooling entities, the Republican Party is certain that the cheap labor costs those corporate entities will be able to force on teachers will mean more money for themselves and their powerbase. And, their reluctance to fix funding issues (such as by the cowardly Republicans in Ohio who have for 15 years ignored that our state's funding has been ruled unconstitutional by the Ohio State Supreme Court) only goes to prove that they would rather have teachers take the brunt of the rage at the statehouse's inaction.

Teachers don't teach for the money. Teachers teach for the love of children. And, most of them, given a child to educate, will reach that child and make them a smarter, more productive, more conscientious and more useful part of society than when they were brought to that teacher. Attacking them is the least useful activity one can partake in when it comes to education. Stand up against the Republican Party and its education shell game. Tell them that you won't stand for their continued attacks on teachers who give their daily best to children who are not theirs and are not often prepared by their parents to even be at school. Most importantly, tell them that if they want to mandate certain programs for their schools, they must fund them. Speak up on the web, in your local newspaper, by calling your representatives. Tell your friends and make a difference.

If you don't think you can make a difference, perhaps one friend at a time, then... that is why I'm way smarter than you.