Re: Campaign Against Public Schools
Ken Goodman (kgoodman who-is-at u.arizona.edu)
Thu, 13 May 1999 20:46:53 -0700
In most of the world, particularly the third world, education is
stratified. Anybody with any means sends their kids to private schools
often ethnic or religious. The working poor send their kids to public
schools- essentially pauper schools. And the not working poor either
have no schools or schools so minimal as to be little more than nothing.
All this is being made worse by the IMF and World Bank. So even in
countries like Argentina (with a fairly long history of public
education) conditions are set which limit more and more public support
of education. That drives kids out of schools at the lowest economic
levels and drives those attending private schools into less costly and
more marginal schools. It's clear that vouchers, charter schools and the
whole package of attacks on public education are designed to move
American education into this privatized system in which kids only get
the education their parents are able and willing to pay for.
I despair at the elitists who don't see this and are ready to end
universal public education on the premise that it isn't very good
anyway. Public education is as good as we make it- and the alternative
is unacceptable.
Ken Goodman
Kenneth S. Goodman, Professor, Language, Reading & Culture
504 College of Education, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
fax 520 7456895 phone 520 6217868
These are mean times- and in the mean time
We need to Learn to Live Under Water