Many parents might think it a bit farfetched to compare our public schools to schools in socialist or communist countries. However, if we look closer, we will see striking similarities between the two systems.
In the former socialist-communist Soviet Union, for example, the government owned all property and all the schools. In America, public schools are also government property, controlled by local government officials. In Soviet Russia, the government forced all parents to send their children to government-controlled schools. In America, compulsory-attendance laws in all fifty states force parents to send their children to public schools.
The Soviet rulers taxed all their subjects to pay for their schools. Here, all taxpayers pay compulsory school taxes to support public schools, whether or not the homeowner has children or thinks the schools are incompetent. In the Soviet Union, all teachers were government employees, and these officials controlled and managed the schools. In America, teachers, principals, administrators, and school janitors are also government employees, paid, trained, and pensioned through government taxes.
In the Soviet Union, most government employees could not be fired they had a "right" to their jobs. Public-school employees in America also believe they have an alleged right to their jobs, enforced through tenure laws. As we will see later, in America, it's almost impossible to fire tenured teachers. In communist Russia, competence and working hard didn't matter very much - the government paid most workers regardless of their performance on the job.
In America, public-school teachers' salaries depend on length of service competence is irrelevant. In communist Russia, the elite ruling class had estates in the countryside while peasants starved. Here, public-school authorities get fat salaries, pensions, and benefits while our children starve for a real education.
In communist Russia, government control of food supplies created eighty years of chronic famine. In America, one hundred and fifty years of public schools has created an educational famine. Millions of public-school children can barely read while the system wastes twelve years of our children's lives.
Still think the comparison to communist schools is too farfetched? Albert Shanker, former President of the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teacher's union, once said: "It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everyone's role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve. It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy."
Finally, schools in some communist countries like China seem to give a better, more disciplined education in the basics of reading, writing, and math than our public schools. International math and reading test-score comparisons often find American kids lagging far behind children from China.
But what values do Chinese communist schools teach their children? Here is another apt comparison between communist schools and our public schools. In both cases, either a central or local government controls the curriculum and the values it chooses to teach its students. The Chinese government can and does indoctrinate all school children with its communist ideology and loyalty to the communist leaders.
Similarly, in our public schools, left-leaning school authorities control the curriculum and the values they teach our children. In many public schools, values-clarification programs and distorted American history courses in many public schools now indoctrinate our children with anti-parent, anti-religion, and anti-American values. In both communist schools and our government-controlled public schools, parents cannot (with a few exceptions) stop school authorities from teaching harmful or immoral values to their children.
Question --- Do socialist, compulsory, government-controlled public schools belong in America, the land of the free?
Joel Turtel is the author of "Public Schools, Public Menace: How Public Schools Lie To Parents and Betray Our Children."
Website: http://www.mykidsdeservebetter.com,
Email: http://www.mykidsdeservebetter.com,
Phone: 718-447-7348.
Article Copyrighted ? 2005 by Joel Turtel.
NOTE: You may post this Article on another website only if you set up a hyperlink to Joel Turtel's email address and website URL, http://www.mykidsdeservebetter.com
With the recent threats from Bin Laden and Al Queda... Read More
The RSS is getting feedback from its 140 pracharaks or... Read More
Many times our government regulatory over embellish problems in the... Read More
I. WARS ARE BASIC CONFLICTS OVER LAND. II. BOUNDARIES. THE... Read More
The original vulgarity was bylined: ?The Constipation of America's Mid-East... Read More
The devastating loss in case of Elliot Spitzer for NY... Read More
Is it just me or are you concerned that illegal... Read More
How do you feel about Terminator Seeds from Monsanto? I... Read More
A Governmental commission, headed personally by the Prime Minister has... Read More
Using Harmonic Beams to Pre-Detonate Shoulder Launched Surface to Air... Read More
User BaseThe non-US and non-English Web segments have been boosted... Read More
A. THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPETITIONThe aims of competition (anti-trust) laws... Read More
We have brain drain issues in Silicon Valley, we have... Read More
There is a lot of debate about who made the... Read More
The US Dollar has been falling continuously in last year.... Read More
What ordinary people are saying about U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson... Read More
Throughout all recorded history on our lovely little planet, Earth's... Read More
We have heard a lot about the coming bird flu... Read More
I'm getting a little tired of being lectured by that... Read More
The civil war in Iraq seems to be much more... Read More
Veterans Affairs Employees using government credit cards on personal items?... Read More
A quick look back at NAFTA; how did we do?Stabilizing... Read More
Recently on C-SPAN, there were two gentlemen debating free trade... Read More
Entrepreneurs can clean up the environment if we would let... Read More
We know we can cloak a giant airship from those... Read More
scheduled maid service Mundelein ..Perhaps we should have printers with ink which has metallic... Read More
After the dance the piper must be paid. To help... Read More
"Similar to Medieval Inquisitions, judges have been given the authority,... Read More
Contrary to the Hobbesian prediction of anarchy (freedom) and brutish... Read More
This is the beginning of the end for the man... Read More
In order to win the presidency in America, candidates must... Read More
Lecture given at the Netherlands Economic Institute (NEI) on 18/4/2001Human... Read More
Currently the US Army is having trouble recruiting. These problems... Read More
This is no time for the Black community to sue... Read More
Elliot Spitzer, recently said he wanted to drive a stake... Read More
(1) Each person is to have an equal right to... Read More
Washington DC council member David Catania actually suggested that the... Read More
Earlier this month, I heard President George W. Bush and... Read More
Recently the Los Angeles Transit workers are on Strike and... Read More
The United States is losing its industrial capacity quite rapidly.... Read More
Wealth Distribution is often discussed at length in periodicals such... Read More
Utah introduced a bill designed to limit the use of... Read More
Government budgets represent between 25% and 50% of he Gross... Read More
If slavery has not worked well, then cloning if it... Read More
Having been to every city in the country over the... Read More
I propose a special Projection Device code-named: "TIPED". This system... Read More
In the most rewarding new industries, there is often a... Read More
Without the flow of fuel our very mobile society comes... Read More
The debate to raise minimum wage in California is totally... Read More
Tulipmania - this is the name coined for the first... Read More
Political |