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Leave My Child Behind, Please Exclusive to STR "Let
me tell you how it will be Yeah,
I'm the taxman" In
typical political, “for the children” fashion, our illustrious
Commander-In-Chief gave us the “No
Child Left Behind Act.” The
sales pitch is that it brings market competition to education.
Honestly, you’d think the blood suckers in Washington would, at
some point, be shamed into honoring their sworn allegiance to the
Constitution after being caught with their pants down, literally and
figuratively, over and over and over again.
The
law of
unintended consequences aside, common sense tells us that if you set
out to create something, the first thing you get is the very
opposite. For instance, if
you were determined to become a patient person, you’d be certain to
find yourself in trying circumstances.
If you want to save time, you must first spend time in creating a
system that works for you. If
you want to make money, you have to spend it. Maybe
we should assume, for argument’s sake, that creatures in government do
have good intentions. Let’s
look at the record: “Don't
ask me what I want it for Yeah,
I'm the taxman” Education
and schooling are very, very different things.
The parent-child relationship is normal, useful and truly
educational. It is obvious
to a serious observer that young children don’t learn through
information as adults do who have sought out such things.
Children watch us eat, drink and walk, and imitate what they see.
They hear us speak and mimic it.
They’re not punished if they mispronounce words.
Parents find it cute and adopt the use of the child’s humorous
mispronunciations, and children correct themselves despite it.
Children observe caring adults without duress, imitate and
experiment through their own senses with the vital element of curiosity.
This is a learning environment.
No
bureaucracy can begin to meet the needs of a human child.
Children are not little computers to be programmed by anyone.
They are living, breathing, intelligent wellsprings of curiosity
that require nurturing. William
Hazlitt says: “Anyone who has passed through the regular gradations of
classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself
as having had a very narrow escape.”
Like Rosemary’s baby, the only thing the Washington Leviathan
succeeds in producing with the NCLBA is yet another flesh eating
bureaucracy. Do we stand
idly by while the Department of Education devours our young? Government
schools are more like prisons than education centers.
I can’t imagine anything more out of place in schooling than
humor or curiosity. They are
punitive, petty, artificial, dangerous and destructive to a child’s
basic love of learning. With
a stroke of its mandatory attendance pen, the government village is the
new mommy. Should school
shootings surprise us? I
think we can expect more of it. “If
you drive a car, I'll tax the street, Schools
have a purpose, but education is not one of them.
One purpose is offering lifetime career opportunities to a group
of good voters – teachers. Beyond
the schoolyard fence, teachers would not ordinarily have a market for
their “skills,” even if they didn’t rank among the lowest GPA’s
of college graduates. John
Taylor Gatto, a 25-year veteran of education, said that if what
teachers do is so useful, they should leave the taxpayer-funded
government monopoly, hang out a shingle that says “Teacher,” and see
how many customers they get. The
main purpose of the existence of government schools is to train young
people to tolerate boredom, repeat other people’s answers to rote
questions, spy on their parents, absorb “groupthink,” follow orders
and most of all, to become good citizens and, through peer pressure, to
conform. This is
what’s wrong with government schools, and NCLBA does nothing to
rectify any of it. Even if
it were possible to fix anything so intrinsically flawed, in good ‘ole
government slight-of-hand manipulation, NCLBA was never intended to
right any real wrongs. Reality
of the nature of government schools is once again ignored and Americans
are spoon fed yet another federal program that is somehow, through the
force of taxation and additional regulation and bureaucracy, supposed to
help disadvantaged children. “Should
five per cent appear too small I
doubt anyone reading this would buy a house because it had pretty, new
curtains in the windows, without looking past them to see that inside it
was rotted out and adjust their offer accordingly. The masses, though,
have proven they will buy anything that is stamped “For The
Children.” NCLBA is for
the children, all right. Once
teachers successfully desensitize unsuspecting children into following
orders without thinking, they are ready to be used for the ultimate
state purpose – cannon fodder. Military
recruiters won’t have to wonder how to find them, thanks to NCLBA.
Military recruiters are given access to college campuses and to
the names and address of our children.
All hail the Military Industrial Complex and the unholy union
between our government and defense contractors.
(Pardon me, it’s not nice to mention this administration’s
uncut umbilical cord to Halliburton.) It
is common knowledge that “grunts”
in the military are primarily comprised of the children of poor people
with few options, not the children of the Bush, Cheney, Kerry or Gore
clans. That reminds me of an
old movie, “Our Man Flint,” in which James Coburn is head of ring of
thieves. He is the best
pickpocket of the group and he is successful because as soon as he nabs
a wallet, he passes it off to a cohort so that he’s always
“clean.” I remember the
line, it goes: “Harry
doesn’t carry.” The
children of powerful bureaucrats don’t, either.
But then, they don’t attend public schools.
In fact, public school teachers are more likely than average
Americans to send their children to private schools and legislators are
far more likely to do so. They
can afford it with their snouts in the public trough. If
I believed in hell, certainly it would be the place that spawns
legislation like the NCLBA. But
then, most legislation from the past 200 years should go to hell.
Government tries to control what you eat and drink.
It regulates your healthcare, transportation and education.
It controls what you are allowed to think, say, write or wear.
It infringes your rights to bear arms and to be secure in your
person and property – sacred things that were intentionally, albeit
unsuccessfully, initially placed beyond their reach.
It does not hesitate to help itself to your money, your home and
your life. Do you think it
would hesitate to help itself to your child?
It already has. NCLBA
brings market competition to education like silence is brought to the
lambs. “Now
my advice for those who die Lyrics
from “Taxman” written by George Harrison
discuss this column in the forum Retta Fontana is an atheist, anarchist, baker, potter, parenting teacher and a student of forex.
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