Public School Leaders Should Be Liberals

If you want to be an astrophysicist and you believe the earth is flat and the sun orbits the earth I would strongly recommend you consider other career options.  Your beliefs and your profession are in direct conflict.  If you want to be a biologist and do not support the scientific theory of evolution I would strongly recommend that you consider other career options.  If you are an atheist and aspire to be a preacher, if you are a pacifist and aspire to sit on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, if you hate technology and aspire to be a computer technician, if you hate contact sports and aspire to coach football, if you are very concerned about our environment and global warming and aspire to be the CEO of an oil company, etc., etc., then I would strongly recommend you consider other career options. 

If you are a member of the board of a public school system, if you are a superintendent of schools, if you are a principal, if you are a teacher and you are conservative, then I strongly recommend you vacate your position or have an epiphany.  Your beliefs and your profession are in direct conflict.  Hopefully this piece will encourage epiphanies.

Public schools in the US are supported by tax payers for the purpose of providing education to all the kids in the community.  Not some of the kids.  All of the kids.  Not just the brightest kids.  All of the kids.  Not just kids without disabilities.  All of the kids.  Not just white kids.  All of the kids.  Any governmental operation that provides a universal service regardless of prerequisites is by definition a liberal operation.  Operations that are competitive or have entrance requirements tend to be conservative.

Even more, the employees of public education are paid by tax dollars.  The buildings and equipment of public schools are owned by the public.  In short, public education is a socialistic operation.  It is not free enterprise, it is not competitive.  It is equally applied to all and owned by all.  That in its simplest form is socialistic.  It is democratic socialism.

Conservatives do not support public schools.  They consistently reduce funding.  They consistently increase accountability.  They consistently attempt to channel tax payer dollars to private sector interests such as charter schools or by using vouchers to decrease public school funding and reward private schools.  It is hard to imagine a conservative agenda that is helpful to public schools.  Standardized testing is a conservative push.  High teacher accountability based on test scores is a conservative push.  Judging schools and school districts based on high stakes accountability tests is a conservative push.  Forbidding teacher unions is a conservative push.  Increased teacher certification standards is a conservative push.  Standardized lock-step curriculum is a conservative push.  Text book adoption and curriculum adoption that supports the conservative party line rather than uncensored knowledge is a conservative push.  In short, anything that decreases funding for public education while making the success of public education less likely is a conservative push.  Conservatives want to reduce taxes and decrease governmental services.  And few operations are as expensive as public schools. 

Liberals support public schools.  They consistently argue that without a basic education our democracy is at risk.  Without students who are critical thinkers, problem solvers, and innovators our future economy is at risk.  In the information age students do not need to know facts as much as they need skills to find facts and analyze facts.  That requires creative, innovative, motivated teachers.  Such teachers are hard pressed to survive in the rigid conservative schema of defined curriculum and high stakes testing.

Liberals want to increase funding of public schools.  Liberals want to eliminate all the private sector vampires attached to public schools that suck away tax payer dollars for private enterprises inclusive of charter schools and companies that generate standardized tests.  Liberals know that reducing class size is expensive, but will reap huge rewards. 

In short, if a school board member, a superintendent, a principal, a teacher supports the conservative agenda they are biting the hand that feeds them, they are working for a philosophy determined to reduce public education effectiveness so that more tax dollars flow to the pockets of private sector people.  Every time a teacher laments preparation for the high stakes testing he or she should recognize that is what conservatives want.  Every time a superintendent and school board must wrestle with the issue of increasing teacher salaries or providing support for increasing health care premiums or increasing the number of teachers to meet the needs of more kids they wrestle with the conservative impact on public schools.  All of these folks should be liberals.  If not, they are like the atheist in the pulpit.

How would you know if your school leadership is conservative or not?  There are simple tests.  Does your board and administration endorse positions at the state level that decreases school accountability and increases funding?  If not, they are conservative.  Does your board and administration promote competitive activities over providing quality education to all?  For instance, does staffing coaches take priority over staffing teachers?  If the coach to varsity player ratio is better than the teacher to kindergartner ratio they are conservative.  When election results in your area are posted is it clear that most of the teachers must have voted for the conservative candidate?  When national issues like gun safety and control arise does your school leadership land on the side of protecting students or protecting gun owners?  If they protect gun owners at the expense of students they are conservative.  Does your school leadership promote political involvement and activity of students and staff.  If not, they are conservative.  Does your school leadership feel like prayer should be implemented in school, that theories and discussions regarding critical issues should only have the conservative perspective presented, that teachers with liberal bumper stickers should be fired?  If so, they are conservative.

They shouldn’t be.  Those leaders should be liberals.  As long as tax dollars flow to employees of public schools and they in turn support policies that reduce the flow of tax dollars to public schools and policies that continue to hamstring effective instruction then public school people are working hard to undo the profession they have chosen. 

Public schools are a notion of a liberal democracy.  Many nations do not support educating all kids.  Many nations do not support providing more than one view of the world in their schools.  Many nations are simply concerned that the privileged few actually get an education.  That should not be true in America.  That should not be true in a democracy.  Until the leadership in public schools stands up and says that the agenda of the Secretary of Education for instance, is in fact un-American and anti-public schools we are at risk of the ability to maintain the notion that all men (sic) are created equal and have the right to the pursuit of happiness.

I repeat, if you are a member of the board of a public school system, if you are a superintendent of schools, if you are a principal, if you are a teacher and you are conservative, then I strongly recommend you vacate your position or have an epiphany.  Your beliefs and your profession are in direct conflict. 

Time to Repeal #2 and #3

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

The firearms discussion in this country is compounded by the 2^nd Amendment.  The notion that owning firearms is a constitutional right has made the waters very muddy and the supporters very adamant.  The National Rifle Association has taken center stage defending this notion, which is almost funny considering they are in no way a legal organization but are a trade organization promoting gun sales.  Their deep pockets have contributed to many, many political campaigns with the clear understanding that acceptance of NRA dollars assumes no support for gun regulations. 

I can think of no other trade organization in the US who is able to lay claim to a constitutional right other than the NRA.  The National Automobile Dealers Association, for instance, never entered the fray regarding seat belts, emission control, etc.  Each of those limits on the production of automobiles reduced sales and raised prices, but the NADA never squeaked.  The National Association of Home Builders never positioned themselves against new codes outlining safety in roofing, plumbing and electrical wiring.  But owning a car and owning a home are not constitutionally protected.  It is really amusing to realize that the right to shelter and transportation are probably more important in our society than the right to own firearms.  I’d add the right to not starve and the right to health care to that list.  But if we propose a review of limitation on the purchase and sale of firearms, somehow patriotism is at stake, our very form of government must be at risk.  Somebody somewhere is going to attack all these law-abiding gun owners and they must for the sake of freedom be prepared to fight for America.  And that of course is poppycock and balderdash.

Imagine car dealers lobbying and spending millions to support candidates that oppose seat belts, oppose tests for drivers’ licenses, speed limits, mandatory insurance, minimum ages.  Those dealers would appear totally backward and the antithesis of what is best for America.  As we have added more and more restrictions to owning and driving a car the number of deaths by car has dramatically dropped.  But if car salesmen somehow convinced every driver in America it was not only their right to own a car, it was their right to buy a car with no restrictions that would be unconstitutional.  Could car dealers make that argument?  Sure they could, if there was an amendment to the Constitution that gave every American a right to own a car.

So the problem is not the NRA.  They are doing what they are paid to do by gun manufacturers:  promote gun sales and resist limitations on gun sales.  Sadly they have pulled out the big hammer and claim that they do so as a constitutional right and have scared many gun owners into believing any limitation is somehow anti-American instead of anti-death by firearm.

We must eliminate the 2^nd Amendment if we are to have a rational discussion about limitations on the ownership and purchase of firearms.  I see no way around it.  There will always be those who have been convinced that the more guns the safer we are even though all the facts and all the science says otherwise.  Some gun owners led by the NRA have been convinced the earth is flat and the sun orbits the earth.  Until we take this totally archaic and anachronistic amendment out of our Constitution we will be stuck with this fear mongering.

While we are at it we may as well eliminate the 3^rd amendment as well.  Written the same time as the 2^nd for the same reasons.  To protect the militia and to protect citizens from the militia and from invading troops.  Neither amendment are needed today.  They both should go.  We spend an incredible amount of money in our budget each year maintaining a standing army, a navy, an air force, a national guard, a coast guard.  None of these folks must buy their own equipment or buy their own weapons.  We furnish them.  None of these folks are likely to show up at your door and demand that you house them and feed them.  We have huge bases and huge supply lines to take care of that.

Let’s repeal Amendments 2 and 3 and get on with the business of saving lives in this nation.  On the day after another mass shooting at a school, the 22^nd one this year, it must be time to say that the death of kids is more important than the right to own anything.  We must eliminate the argument that kid deaths are the price we pay to maintain the rights of some.  That, in my value structure, is sick thinking.

Wisdom

My millennial progeny and their spouses have more facts and knowledge at their finger-tips than I did when I was their age.  They are in their mid-thirties, born in the early 1980’s, raised with microwaves, color TV, central air, Walkmans and iPods, cell phones, desktop personal computers, etc.  When I was 35 if I wanted to gain new knowledge I needed books and libraries and hours.  They can Google a topic, scan it in minutes and claim to have knowledge.  And yet with all this readily available knowledge and technology there are key components of the human existence they have yet to master.  One of those components is wisdom.  They tend to think if they have knowledge, they have wisdom, but that is not true.  In fact I would argue that this greater ease of knowledge attainment has somehow postponed the process of individual accrual of wisdom.  Wisdom is individually earned and only over time.  Few in their 30’s have lived long enough to have any, and even worse, few in their thirties recognize wisdom when they see it. 

A large part of wisdom comes from not just surviving events but learning from them.  People who have never been married, never adjusted to in-laws, or never adjusted to the same roommate for decades cannot possibly have meaningful relationship wisdom.  People who have not parented and experienced that special love that transcends all other love cannot possibly have meaningful family wisdom.  People who have not lost parents, siblings, friends, and/or children cannot possibly have meaningful wisdom regarding death.  People who have not been a part of societal chaos, riots in the street, burning cars and broken windows, of armed men surrounding unarmed civilians, of being helpless in the face of the state cannot possibly have meaningful wisdom regarding the tension between order and freedom in society.

So wisdom can grow from knowledge and from experience, but it is more than that.  It is mental hooks on which to hang things.  It is an organized mind that is mindful of the past, the current and possible futures, mindful of what has worked and what has not, mindful of what is new and what is old, mindful that the very mental hooks they use are likely very different than the mental hooks of others.  Our mental framework, our view of the world is enriched by our knowledge and our experience.  But if our view is historically narrow or historically shallow then we shall not obtain wisdom despite our yearning for the universal adoption of our own framework.  For instance, wisdom knows there is no silver bullet that will kill social ills.  Wisdom knows that for a person to claim they have such a bullet identifies that person as someone who lacks not only wisdom, but knowledge of things past.  Our world view is bounded by the limits of our knowledge and our own experience and our own acquired wisdom.  It does not take long to sense the depth of the world view of some with less knowledge, less experience and less wisdom.  Parents sense this when their children are teenagers and suddenly know everything.  Others sense this when interacting with people whose world view is attained through the lens of fear, of loathing, of selfishness, of discrimination, of greed, or lust for power.

One might have a mental hook regarding economics.  Based on knowledge, experience and the past when someone proposes to give the wealthy tax cuts and a person who has this hook and has attained wisdom will view such a proposal very differently than someone without this hook, with knowledge and without wisdom.  Likewise if a person has a mental hook regarding religious beliefs they will be able to quickly detect fundamentalism from knowledge, beliefs grounded in reason and beliefs grounded in imagery.  The more hooks a person has the more they are able to deal with the abundance of information flowing each day.  The more wisdom they will have because they have hooks that can pick up new bits of knowledge and discard old tried and failed knowledge.

But there has become a much darker side to the lack of wisdom in our country.  The dark side is that there are some people who have no respect for wisdom.  Worse, they have no respect for knowledge.  They only respect attitude and opinion and only those attitudes and opinions that align with their own.  In no way is this wise.  In no way is this knowledgeable.  These folks fade quickly when confronted with knowledge, and have no clue when they are confronted by wisdom.  And yet, they remain steadfast supporters of attitude and opinion in the vacuum of no facts.

For instance, our knowledge informs us that everywhere restrictions on owning firearms have been implemented the number of deaths by firearms decreases.  Knowing this, a wise person would say we have too many deaths by firearms so let us tighten the restrictions on firearms.  But there is a segment of our population who have been convinced that more restrictions on owning firearms is somehow a threat to them and their rights, even though there is no evidence of that, no examples of that.  It is pure political rhetoric promoted by the folks who sell firearms and do not want to see sales drop.  There is no wisdom in this position and these folks will eventually find themselves on the wrong side of history.

The same is true of the knowledge and wisdom surrounding global warming and the human impact on that warming.  The same is true regarding the reduction in regulations mandating proper behavior and safety measures for the private sector.  The same is true for the protection of human and civil rights.  The same is true regarding immigrants.  The same is true regarding collaboration rather than isolation, shared leadership rather than me first.  On and on.  We simply can ill afford to abandon all our accrued knowledge and the wisdom it supports or we shall be forced to survive the pain and failure that previous generations experienced. 

We learned much from slavery, from the Civil War, from World War I and II, from both Korea and Viet Nam, from women’s rights, from minority rights, from gender rights, from worker’s rights, from pollution, from petroleum scarcities, from riots across the country, from Kent State and Columbine.  We are, however, at a point where all those learnings, all the wisdom that was accrued through those tragedies are being tossed out with the bath water.  We shall emerge either more wise, more democratic, more tolerant, more progressive and more inclusive, or we shall emerge as a backward, selfish nation intent on self-destruction and totally lacking moral or wise leadership.  Our heroes should be those who stand against injustice, who stand for the value of all human life and the planet we call home; our heroes should not be lying self-serving tyrants.

I vote for knowledge first, then wisdom as it has been accrued across the ages.

So, how do we promote wisdom?