Our education system is not overrun with bad teachers.  We do not have a bad teacher crisis.  Our problems stem from the fact that we are still running an industrial age education system, but we are no longer in the industrial age.  The rest of the world, that is far surpassing us, has geared their education to the technical age.  They understand a need for highly educated scientist and engineers.  We produce mostly high school drop outs, service sector folks, and all the money is made in the financial markets. 

This teacher bashing is just another way for the rich and powerful to keep the focus off of them.  Our failures in society stem from the inability of our supposed "leaders" to do any actual leading.  We stopped electing people with intelligence, compassion, broad worldviews, and a forward thinking philosophy.  Instead we have a bunch of greedy self important worthless figureheads, who couldn't solve a problem if their life depended on it. 

The progressives have lost their hope, and have stopped voting.  After the Democrats sold out to the very same corporate interest as the Republicans, there stopped being any real change.  Now we just have two parties that are essentially the same.  So all of our crises remain in crisis, and they continue to try and keep us fighting amongst each other.

The reason are country is in shambles, and a great deal many of us are struggling even when we have jobs has nothing absolutley nothing to do with teachers unions.  The top education system in the western world is 100% unionized.  Stop blaming the teachers and look to where the real culprits are.  All the people, who still have tons of money, even though we had a supposed financial crisis.   They are cutting jobs and cutting essential programs, yet corporations and Wall Street are doing great. 

Before the 1980s, working and middle class Americans were well compensated for their work, and they had pretty decent benefits.  The country was actually doing quite well.  Then over the course of these last three decades, things began to change.  The middle class began to shrink, and poverty began to rise.  Good paying jobs began to disappear to be replaced with minimum wage jobs.  The countries wealth began to concentrate back at the top similar to the pre-depression era known as the Guilded Age.  We began to see quite the dehumanization of the poor, and now teachers are being demonized. 

Divide and conquer is the tact of oppressors.  It would do us all some good if everyone would just read up on their history, and not the version of history that comes from people with an agenda.  Like conservatives and libertarian "historians", who completely brush over just how crappy things were before FDR, and just how great they were for the people.  That is what this is all about.  It is about the people.  Those of us who make the country run.  The ones who fight the wars, police the streets, put out the fires, teach the kids, make the sales, build the products, cook the food, grow the food, stock the store shelves, and all the other tasks required to keep the economy running so that others can enjoy the profits.  

We need to be looking at the bigger picture, and paying attention to the rampant corruption across the country.  Politicians, judges, and regulatory agents are all being bought and paid for by the wealthy elite.  When that happens there is no real freedom for us, and no real democracy.  That is the way the county operated all the way up until around the time of the New Deal.  That is when the government really started protecting the people.  When the politicians began undoing the framework of our economic security, that is when it all began to fall apart. 

Sometimes the wealthy and powerful get greedy, and they attempt of control the masses.  This is one of those times, and we need to stop falling for it.  We need to band together.  The financial regulations, that stabilized the economy and prevented the devastating boom and bust cycles, need to be returned.  We need jobs with livable wages, and we need a competitive education system.  Most importantly, we need to kick corporate interest out of politics, and off of regulatory commissions. 
What we do not need is more privatization and deregulation.  If we continue down this path, things will only get worse, as they have been for the last three decades.

Where Have All The Good Men Gone?

There are so many problems, and yet no one is addressing them.  Beyond just our immediate economic issues, which are about to be made worse from rising gas prices that will drive up food prices, there are huge global issues that we need to consider.  We need leadership that is willing to step up, and start us back on the path of success.  Even China is working towards energy independence.  They know that we need to get to the point where we can run the world on renewable energy.  

All of our politicians are nothing more than self-absorbed narcissist.  They aren't doing anything that is good for the people or good for the world.  Gone are the days when we had forward thinking men who would step up to the challenge of moving America closer and closer to perfection.  The world is changing and we can either change with it or we can be left behind.  There is something almost magical that happens with people when they receive a liberal education.  Access to worldly knowledge makes you a better human being.  The more people we educate the better we make society.  If we add other securities such as gainful employment, living wages, affordable food and housing, health care, and other safety nets, then we can truly move closer to a peaceful world.   This is something FDR knew. 

From FDR's 1944 State of the Union Address:

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights -- among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty. We have come to a clearer realization of the fact, however, that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry, people who are out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a Second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all -- regardless of station, or race, or creed. Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries, or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of farmers to raise and sell their products at a return which will give them and their families a decent living;

The right of every business man, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, and sickness, and accident and unemployment;

And finally, the right to a good education.

Another interesting tidbit of American history is that I think coincides with this: in the Federalist Paper No. 84, Hamilton actually argues against putting the Bill of Rights into the Constitution.  He felt that it would be interpreted as the only rights that people have.  It seems perhaps they should have heeded his warning.  Today, a large portion of the society would like to take us backward to the "Guilded Age" in which only the wealthy had a chance at success.  A time of lax regulations and no organized labor.   

The progressive vision is lost from American politics.  No one is looking into the future, or preparing for the inevitable.  Our society has become a man eat man world with little concern for the ramifications of our actions.  We have lost our compassion and humanity.  Instead of working towards creating systems that reach the most amount of people, we blame the have-nots for their lot in life.  Without really looking at the bigger picture.  We value money over compassion for our fellow man.  I hope that in the wake of this crisis that tomorrow's leaders will step up, and bring some humanity back to governance.