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Back
to School, Neocon-Style
September
4, 2003
By Brad Odland
Neoconservative values promote privatization of public services
under the assumption that private enterprise can better manage
services in an environment of free-enterprise and competition.
Riding along with privatization is the promotion of Christian
religious morality and ethics through public policy. The Bush
administration has made significant efforts to set the stage
for the privatization of many public services, including education,
through programs like "No Child Left Behind" and the promotion
of "school choice vouchers." The result is that public schools
will ultimately be reduced to remedial education services
by shifting resources to private religious schools and eroding
the funding to public schools.
The methodology to which the neoconservatives will achieve
the goal is subtle, but the result is extremely harsh. It
involves the decline of public school infrastructure through
funding cuts and tax freezes. By cutting the funding and freezing
taxes at the local and state level (as is being done with
property taxes in Wisconsin) neocons are slowly strangling
education until privatization is the only option left.
Once public schools are crippled with inadequate funding
and crumbling infrastructure, school choice vouchers will
be the final nail in the coffin. Schools are deteriorating
to the point where learning is impossible because of dangerous
facilities and underfunding, and as the schools struggle they
will spiral into the neocon accountability trap. As test scores
decline and enrollment drops, students and teachers will flee
to the salvation of private schools, precipitating further
funding cuts until schools are "rescued" by private education
corporations or faith-based organizations.
Neocons will place the blame on poor performance and accountability,
not their mean spirited policy. Neocons are adapt at setting
the environment and parameters for failure and then shifting
blame from policy to individual performance. The neoconservative
ethic is to create an environment where failure is just a
step in the process towards privatization. They shift the
blame to superficial symptoms allowing public opinion to support
extreme policy.
An example would be a smokescreen of misinformation over
long periods of time resulting in the collective belief that
a school failed because students and teachers did not care
enough to learn to be successful, rather than admit that failure
was because of eroded funding, "brain drain" and
concentration of the poor in public schools. In other words
never have a neocon toss you a life jacket when you are drowning
- it will be an bright orange anvil with LIFE JACKET painted
on the side in large easy-to-read letters.
Public education is the "canary in the coal mine" in our
society. When our schools are in trouble it is an indicator
of much larger systemic problems. Without free quality education
our society will erode further into chaos and class warfare,
and we will return to a quality of life more like that found
in the late 19th century, a time when monopolies were allowed
to flourish and government was rife with corruption. Some
already compare the policies of the Bush administration to
that dark time in U.S. history.
A free and quality eduction is the most powerful tool to
enable people to escape the bonds of poverty - unfortunately
the Bush administration is making significant gains in eliminating
what hope is left for a quality life for most. Middle class
jobs continue to slip away to countries where wages are a
fraction of what is required here. These jobs, once commanding
middle class wages, have now become comparable to flipping
burgers.
Allowing public education to crumble creates an uneducated
workforce that will be satisfied with the abundant low-wage
service jobs a consumer economy generates. What ultimately
will be the result is that minorities and the poor will be
left to sit in the decayed schools, forced into a never-nding
cycle of poverty as private education costs soar and the school
voucher pays less and less of the tuition. One only needs
to look at health care to see the results of deregulation
and privatization. Millions are without adequate heath care.
Religion will drive education when the public abandons it.
Many of the successful private schools will be faith-based
and fundamentalist in doctrine. The country will begin funding
the mis-education of America as education becomes bible-based
rather than fact-based. Public funds will be used to educate
children in creationism as scientific fact. Books will be
restricted in these schools and history will be re-written
to paint a bible-colored picture of America.
Parents will be left with the choice of risking their child's
future in a public school that will surely fail to one where
the image of education is provided. Clean facilities, new
equipment, computers, sparkling sports facilities and uniforms
will replace the arts, literature, culture and freedom to
explore the great achievements in science.
To stop the spiral we need to recognize that schools are
funded through tax revenues. Taking away tax revenue and freezing
local municipalities to generate income will take away education
from our children; we need to stop punishing education using
the poor argument of uncontrolled spending by other government
bodies. Neocons use examples of a cow dung study costing $500,000
to promote tax cuts and spending cuts. They take tripe and
spin it into a policy argument.
Everyday neoconservative voices use the same empty arguments
for tax cuts over and over again - "Stop the uncontrolled
spending!" they scream and promote tax cuts as the solution
to all of our problems. The real problem is the neoconservative
values. Privatization equates to greed and faith based policy
creates isolation and conformity, and in the end public schools
will be run by another giant contractor with the eye on the
books and the bottom line rather than the education of our
children.
Brad Odland is a Database Administrator, musician and artist
in Waukesha, Wisconsin
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