We have bigger fish to fry here at home

Our children are our future. It sounds like a political sound bite, but it is also pretty much basic to America’s survival, and success.

In national discourse, the friction between our American idea of public education (which is an American idea) and private education (which is a world idea) keeps coming up for good reason. The ideas are all over the place, and almost all are well intentioned, or so it seems. The friction about the subject confuses many of us, and often is a tactic used by those with their objective. The usual dribble from mainstream media about this subject applies to inner city schools, which I take as a code word for Negroes; and it is that the public school systems in the inner city schools are to be defended. Along this line isn’t it amazing that somehow the Democrats seem to be the reactionaries, and the Republicans seem to be the liberals… on this political and educational subject.

America’s institutions include “free” public education up to the 12th grade, in today’s terms. Of course nothing is free. Our taxes pay for public education, and local school boards have much to say about how this money is raised and spent. In big cities and their suburbs, this is not minor stuff. Gwinnett County in suburban Atlanta has an over $1.4 billion dollar budget and 150,000 students. Online school calendars are in English, Spanish, Korean, and Vietnamese.

Our public schools are spread throughout this wonderful country, both rural and city, big and small. They are almost always funded by mostly local taxes, managed by local boards, and supervised by parents seeking the best for their kids. This is good! Along the way these public schools are often jobs programs for the favored in places of limited jobs. This is also normal, and considered good. The system can’t lose since more than enough well qualified teachers apply, and why shouldn’t local born teachers get the nod? And if the “standardized scores” show that the whole system to be benefiting the kids, then a good job is being done. But then, there are smaller pockets of public education systems that are failing our kids. The public school system is not perfect throughout our country.

My personal observation about public education is tainted by my time in the Marines. As a recruiter in Kentucky at the time I was there (mid 70’s), there were counties where only 5% of those who entered first grade graduated from high school, and there were more kids entering first grade than recorded births five years before (a reflection of unrecorded births in the hollows I used to say). Then came my time teaching (and recruiting) at Atlanta University for three years (81-84), a private college consortium, almost all Negro. I am also tainted by having kids and grandkids go to both private (secular and religious) and public schools (K-12) during my lifetime experience. I am also tainted as a Georgia Tech grad. I know statistics and other such math, and how to both construct “polls” and “interpret” them. Bottom line, I don’t believe much of what I hear from polls and studies unless I can read the fine print, and have the time to do so. Last, I am tainted by a really depressing American statistic…at best only one out of three young Americans today are qualified to be a private in the Marine Corps or the rest of the military. Two out of three are mentally, morally, or physically, just not qualified. So when I read today about how hard it is to recruit, which is true, keep in mind the available “pool” is restricted, and we Americans have been making less babies, so it is a tough time to grow the “military gunfighter” population. Just run the numbers in your mind.

Of course “private” schools come up in any fair discussion of educating our children. Mostly they are portrayed in the mainstream media as part of “white flight” from integrating Negroes into the formerly all white public schools, both urban and rural, depending on where one lives. Of course this idea is time (period) dependent. But fast forward to today. Nothing has changed about we adults wanting the best for our kids, to include education and the gained upward mobility for our kids. No race or culture has the upper ground on this issue. What is amazing is the outcome. Some private and public schools are better than others, and it is usually local in the judgment of where to send your kids and where to live based on school districts. There is no lock that suggests private schools in rural S.C. are better, for example, though I think they usually are. But compared to much of the rest of the Nation's public and private schools, they may be lacking in my humble opinion. Bottom line, schools for our kids have as much to do with parents and leadership, compared to whether they are privately funded, or publicly funded.

Let me pile on about public education and local control in a rural S.C. county as a way of saying some public schools are shabby. The State actually had to come in to one school system and take over the incompetence displayed by the locals, mostly Negroes. Since when does a public school system hire a teacher to teach French that doesn’t know a word of French? That is pretty bad. And the kids suffer, of course.

Let’s revert to inner city public schools in Kansas City, Missouri. Is it any different from rural South Carolina in the American goal of public education? Is the friction one of ideals, one of standards, or one of political correctness. I know, or at least think I hear, the normal Negro politician’s objection against kid’s education standards if it makes them look bad. But how about the kids? Education is the American way of upward mobility, and any politician denigrating education and standards for his political goals is “in the way”.

There are the normal, and correct, objections to the mostly city urban public (Negro) schools not being a place to send ones kids. This especially applies when there are private alternatives, even up to $16,000+ a year for a first grader. This article is not about convincing parents to send their kids to public school. This article is about educating the other kids in public schools in order to provide them upward mobility, and advancing our nation in the world.

There is so much written and broadcast about school vouchers that I could almost choke on it. The politics and arguments on both sides are all out there for any citizen to digest. I don’t care what the politicians, and teachers unions are saying. How about the mission of educating kids, and our national interest in making sure this happens?

School vouchers are not something new. The idea is old. The State of Maine has been using school vouchers since 1873 in getting very many of their kids educated. So for this citizen, why would a politician restrict local parents using their “bag of tricks” in advancing their kids upward mobility, and our national interest? It seems like it is about them, and not our kids, and our national interest.

The politics of public education vs. private education is interesting, at best. Add in the teachers having a national union about them, and not the kids, and things are even more complicated, especially given the amount of money this union gives to the Democratic Party. And again, it seems like the two National Parties have diverged. The now Republican Party seems like liberals, and the Democratic Party seems like reactionaries, at least on this political issue. To this citizen it seems like they and the teachers union are just fighting about power, and themselves, although the Democrats are worse. Just where do the kids, and our national interests come in. Whether it is private or public education, I don’t really care. Just make it happen. Mission first.