Why NOT Perpetually Fund Education?
The Oregonian editors lament the latest round of cuts in education throughout the state of Oregon and puzzle over the absence of outrage among citizens who see their school systems eliminate staff, shorten the school year, and close schools.
But the editors hasten to add, lest anyone think they are crazy or something, “We’re not arguing that the federal government always and forever must prop up schools.”
Why not? Isn’t education a national priority? Didn’t we used to have politicians who bragged of being “the education president” or some hollow-sounding shit?
Let me invoke an old “lefty argument” — because that’s what some folks will call it, regardless of its merit — and point out the current state of our national defense spending. Total expenditures: Department of Defense + Iraq + Afghanistan + other (energy, more weapons, etc.) = between $880 billion and 1.3 trillion.
The Christian Science Monitor reports that Congress and the White House are beginning to think about maybe at some point to start cutting the defense budget as part of reducing the national budget deficit. I will believe it when I see it. However, the motivation reflects warped priorities. The article concludes that “a difficult switch from guns to butter – or guns to deficit reduction – is about to get under way.”
Emphasis mine. No butter, all deficit reduction. Anyone reading Krugman lately? The global austerity measures proposed at the G20 Summit this week are knee-jerk reactions to a deceitful narrative that places the blame for financial crisis on overspending, rather than on the investment and financial industry that sold everyone sophisticated instruments made of shit. As Krugman points out, we cut spending at the moment we need it most. History may show that spending — to help the unemployed, to create jobs, for research and development, to retrain workers — promotes economic recovery, but the economic conservatives who currently dominate the conversation are, like so many conservatives, pig ignorant about history. No surprise that the G20 Summit ended on a confused note.
We will go into stupid debt to finance wars we should not wage, but for education? Arts programs? School sports? Morning and after school day care? Modern facilities with decent heating during the winter? School supplies? Lab equipment? Field trips? Lunches that serve real food?
These deserve “always and forever” funding. Unless we suddenly lose the urge to procreate, we humans will continue to have new generations of students to edumacate. It’s that simple. Honest.
Eisenhower, love him or hate him, last president to really fund education and that’s because we had to beat the communists (aka the USSR) in the space race. So outside of when education is tied to our international policy I don’t think good federal funding will ever exist. Federal funding also raises the weird issue of nationalized education at which point whose version of education do you accept? Texas which has rewritten aspects of how the nation came to be? Kansas where evolution may not exist? Or Massachusetts where they teach kids to be gay? (That last one is just knee jerk conservative reaction but you see where I’m going)
I believe education is fundemental to a societies growth and it would be hard to find someone who would disagree with that but when people are wondering if they can afford to feed their families, utility bills and the like then issues like education begin to slip as a collective concern.
Texas already exerts too much influence over the curriculum, thanks to the “free market” of textbook publishing. Having a national debate over education standards that informs Congressional legislation is by no means optimal, nor less prone to regional disputes, but it at least has accountability. But I don’t argue that local interests should cede to national governance; rather, I think the federal government could provide the funding for basic needs of program funding, lunches, bricks and mortar. There are already strings attached, and there would be more, affecting the curriculum — that may prove advantageous for students denied a truthful historical and scientific education.
Education itself is a basic necessity that need not be put into competition with other basic needs. There are jobs there, better and more long lasting jobs than what unnecessary military bases could provide.