I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Saturday, October 9, 2010

The Elite to Teachers: Sorry, Suckers!

thinker posts this in the comments:
Comments like Murdoch's really make my blood boil. I talk to apathetic high school kids EVERY DAY who tell me they can't be bothered with schoolwork because "what's the point? It won't do anything." There was a time when kids coming out of school could either get a job or go on to college depending on their ambitions. Now, even educated people can't find jobs (myself included), while the nation's wealth continues to funnel into fewer and fewer hands; and yet teachers are supposed to convince kids that education is important and something to be valued while POLITICIANS DEMEAN THIS EDUCATION AT EVERY TURN. Kids are not stupid, they see far more than many adults give them credit for.
It's a very good point.

Specifically, we have a subgroup of workers - teachers - who went to college, got their degrees, and prepared for a career that politicians and CEOs and the media all told them was vital and necessary.

Now, these people find their livelihoods on the chopping block, even though they did EXACTLY what they were told to do to succeed and make a good life for themselves.

"But don't you understand - we don't have any more money!" Well, the middle-class, which includes those very teachers, doesn't have the money, that's true. But all those elites - the same ones who keep claiming that education is the pathway to success - are rolling in it.

Again, let's cut the crap. I don't want to hear from Zuckerberg or Bloomberg or Winfrey or Christie or Gates or Murdoch about how our education system is causing people to fall behind while they sit on their giant piles of cash.

And, no, your little gifts and little TV shows and little op-eds and little rants against unions aren't real solutions. We need to tax you people at appropriate levels and start building up this country's human and material infrastructure once again.

It's really that simple.

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