Our Nation's Educational Crisis

Once we were a people of great determination who created a country driven by innovation. America has given the world many fantastic things in it's short history. We revolutionized world industry at the turn of the 19th century, we developed many scientific and medical technologies and procedures that most people take for granted every day. Once upon a time we even led the world in education, which was the foundation for all our advances since our nation's inception. Without our educational might we would never have risen to our status as a world power. So, taking all that into consideration, why is educational funding not one of the top if not THE top priority for our nation's elected officials? You've no doubt heard the phrase "the children are the future" but how often do we really consider the literal truthfulness of that statement? In today's America education is one of the most underfunded areas of our nation. Take a look at this federal budget breakdown from 2009 (of which defense spending accounted for approximately 45% of the TOTAL federal discretionary spending budget): 

 In that same year we gave 700 billion dollars of our taxes to criminal, corporate CEO's so that they could keep their fraudulent, failing businesses afloat. 700 billion, thats 654 billion less than we invested in the future of our very nation. While our government was cutting educational programs and closing schools nationwide, wall street executives collected multi-million dollar bonus checks. While our leaders have sought to eliminate the collective bargaining rights of our teachers, they have done nothing to close legal loopholes that allow the very unethical practices that led to our financial crisis in the first place. Where are our priorities at? Our teachers are essentially the gatekeepers of America's place in this world and yet they are of so little value to our government that we marginalize their pay, provide sub-standard benefits to them and then take away the one meager voice they have to defend themselves against the financial tyranny of a corporatist government. America is making a gradual and subversive move to privatize public education. In the near future your child may attend a school owned by a wealthy individual or company, the curriculum would be created by that individual or company and the staff would be chosen by that individual owner or company as well. To state it plainly, your child's education would be subject to the views and ideals of a single person who may not share your views and ideals. You can view an article about one such school already in existence in New York at the following link: http://nymag.com/news/features/29724/ . Stop the corporate ownership of our public systems! The time is now to rally behind our teachers and the unions that support them. The children that we shortchange on education today are the same ones that will care for us tomorrow...are you scared now?

  Don't start the revolution without me,

   --Vault Boy