Only a national movement to nationalize and fully fund our education system in the interests of the public can thwart this corporate scheme to privatize and take control of our public education system. Human advancement is a continuum of learning from the past to apply and learn more in the present to create the future. Education for all should be an obligation of, and provided by, any civilized society. Education is a human right that must be guaranteed to all and protected in the interests of all. This is why it must be a public right guaranteed by government.
In the U. S. today, this human right is under attack by an evolving corporate state because of the introduction of labor-replacing technology into the workplace. On the one hand, production with high technology means fewer educated workers are needed, and the capitalists will not educate a workforce they can no longer exploit and profit from. On the other hand, as high-tech production wipes out jobs, it wipes out markets, and the corporations insatiably lust for new markets to exploit for profit. So they are setting out to privatize and profit from our $750 billion-a-year public school system.
A Little History
The corporations have always shaped the education system to serve their needs. Sometimes their needs and those of the working class have coincided. When there was an expanding global economy based on electro-mechanical industry that employed masses of workers, the corporations needed an educated working class, and the government intervened as necessary to guarantee this. For example, after World War II, the US needed to rapidly educate an abundance of skilled workers, technicians and professionals to thoroughly exploit the full potential of its post-war economic expansion plans for a new global market. So in 1944 Congress passed the G.I. Bill of Rights, which provided tuition and a monthly living allowance, at federal expense, to send veterans to colleges and universities, a privilege then reserved for the rich.
Today, the corporations are again revamping the education system, but this time their needs and those of the workers clash, and can’t be reconciled. With corporate control of the economy, there are not enough jobs to go around, no matter how much education you have. Not only are fewer educated workers needed, but an educated worker who is unemployed and poor is now a threat to the corporations. The corporations’ goals today are to develop the education “market” as a profit source, limit education to the privileged few who can actually be employed, and keep the rest of us ignorant and oppressed.
The Next Step
Most kindergarten through 12th grade students in the U.S. attend free, public school systems supported by a combination of local and state funding, along with a very low level of federal funding. Because the largest portion of school revenues comes from local property taxes, public schools’ resources vary widely. Wealthy school districts get abundantly more funding than poorer ones.
We must not only save, but expand our public school system. The first step is to demand that the federal government provide the funding necessary to guarantee that every child’s individual educational needs are met, so they can reach their fullest potential. We need a social and political movement of righteously angry workers to not only nationalize our education system, but to also take over the corporations to guarantee all of our birthrights to free, quality education, healthcare, housing, food and all of the necessary essentials to live a thriving human life on our shared planet earth.
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