A Purge on Education in the U.S. of A. (to William Cronan)

Is it Armageddon yet?

As you may know, if you read my blog,

(and if you read this blog, I thank you

for your patience!)

that is my current refrain.

washingtonexaminer

Every morning I wake up listening to the news on 

National Public Radio

(that nasty radio station that the U.S. Government recently voted

to cut funding from (see link above)

and every morning I hear another story

that makes me think,

before I even get out of bed:

"is it Armageddon yet?

I mean, really, 

what do we need to have happen before

we realize that it's time for us

to take responsibility for

the human race, as it sits at this

this challenging historical juncture

we currently are experiencing?

This morning the story was this:

guardian

This friendly looking gentleman,

a certain Professor William Cronan,

a historian at the University of Wisconsin,

was asked by the New York Times

to write an op-ed 

on the history of the State of Wisconsin's Collective Bargaining laws.

And he did.

A day or so later,

he launched a blog that he had been thinking

about for some time, called

Scholar as Citizen,

And there, he wrote an entry on,

to use his words,

"the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in influencing recent legislation in this state and across the country"

(please see the link above for his own

description of, again as he puts it,

"the strange circumstances in which [he] finds [him]self as a result."

Fundamentally, the State of Wisconsin

did not like was Dr. Cronan wrote,

and "request[ed] to view the contents of "Professor William Cronon's state email account from 1 January 2011 to present which reference any of the following terms: Republican, Scott Walker, recall, collective bargaining, AFSCME, WEAC, rally, union [and 12 prominent Republican state senators who supported Walker's bill]".  (this quote is from the Guardian article

from which I snagged the above picture.  Please follow the link above.)

Now, all in all,

I find this to be tremendously 

disturbing,

for a number of reasons:

First, of course, there is that good ol' constitutional right we supposedly have

in the U.S. of A. called Freedom of Speech.  Yes, the same Constitution

that grants us the right to own a small arsenal, also grants us the right

to speak openly.  Indeed, that is our first

Constitutional Right, followed closely by

the Right to Bear Arms. 

 This very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution is one of the many reasons

that for a long time historians and social critics called the United States of America

one of history's greatest social experiments.

My Second Reason for finding this Cronan case

to be absolutely disturbing is because of what it indicates

about the attitude towards Education and the Educated

in this great old United States of America.

Of course, Wisconsin's current place in national headlines began

when their governor, Scott Walker, managed to pass a legislation designed

to disrupt the collective bargaining power of unions for public employees, including teachers.

(This has been followed by the Republican governor of Ohio, John Kasich,

launching a similar attempt to "bust the unions,"

something that my family and friends in Ohio claim he never campaigned on.

The rationale for breaking the power of these unions

that serve public employees is that these individuals

are overpaid anyway, and hey we have to balance
those state budgets, which are,
pretty much like the United States government,
flirting with bankruptcy.

This attempt to dismantle the pay structure, which includes threatening the retirement
funds for thousands of individuals who have been sweating over our youth for decades
is being fueled by an anecdotal public claim that teachers don't do their jobs well,

and get their summers off, so why pay them 

so much????  After all, look at the state of American education!
It's the teachers' fault our youth are doing so badly, right?

Well, I'll tell ya what:

some of my best friends are teachers

in public systems,

and those people work their hearts out:

facing increasing learning disabilities and disruptions in the classroom,
working in often poorly funded facilities,
up early to prepare and greet students who often come
from emotionally challenging family situations,
up until late, late hours doing assessment paperwork,

struggling to get students to pass tests on material that the students

rather rapidly forget . . . the list goes on.   We don't need to take money and job security

away from most of these teachers, 

we need to make them all saints.

Education is the sole most important industry in the United States right now,

if we are to produce intelligent, creative and open-minded global citizens for tomorrow,

and we are yanking money away from it,

and belittling those who do it,
and those who question the system
and want to make it better.

Sadly, those students who were impacted by the

No Child Left Behind Legislation,

which is largely responsible for the current emphasis

on assessment in our country, are now arriving in

colleges and universities, which of course,

is where I teach, and have taught,

since 1985.

The students themselves realize

rather rapidly

that their high school education did not prepare them.

(I have a student right now working on that topic

for the researched argument he is required to write.

His colleagues all agree with him.)

So if High School doesn't prepare you for college today, what does it do?

I asked him today.

It teaches you to take tests,

was his response.  And, he added It's a zoo!  Too much
of a popularity contest.   His classmates
all nodded in agreement.

The United States of America has, historically, housed the finest Higher Education system

in the world.  This is why we have attracted scholars from all over the world.

This is also why, for a time, American scholars like myself got jobs in universities

in other countries.  It was our job to import that unique brand of

"critical thinking" that has become the hallmark of the American system for over the past

thirty to forty years.

Recognizing that honing the ability to think critically and creatively

produces new thoughts and advancements in every branch

of thinking, scholars have come to our shores, and now

we are exporting our education, at a profit to our 

institutions of higher education.

nyuabudhabi

It is precisely in the spirit of good ol' American

critical thinking that the good Dr. Cronan

developed his blog,

and it is precisely that practice 

that the State Government of Wisconsin

is threatening by demanding his e-mails.

As my fingers move on this keyboard, I worry

even for myself.  I know from my own current

experiences, (I have taught abroad, and I am currently teaching
both American college students

and Chinese students who are here for their first

year abroad) that the rest of the world is surpassing us,

quickly, in terms of general knowledge as well as

critical and creative thinking, not to mention

a mastery of the English language.)  And we,

meanwhile, are busy creating a system that 

distrusts Academics and Educators on all levels.

And our young people are suffering from it.

Well, I say,

God Bless you, Dr. Cronan;

fight for your right

for personal freedom.

I will support you unabashedly,

and pray that we can all wake up

right now, and see

we've gone too far.

We have to give up these old
worn out partisan battles
and set our priorities straight.

Right?

Or may it is Armageddon,
at least for the U.S.A.,
now.