Underappreciated and Underpaid Heroes

The attitude I've kept most of my life about our society was that while I understood setbacks and outright failures happened, the curve of progress was generally upward. Of course, that was before I started reading some history and come to understand that for a multitude of reasons societies sometimes fail and collapse. Strangely enough, from what I can gather these failures are brought about not by decadence and abandonment of traditional family values, like evangelicals whine and rail about. But by a simple failure to adapt to new situations and prepare for the future.

Sure, societal decadence has a part in the collapse of nations and empires but I've come to believe it's more of a symptom than an actual cause. The best example of this indicator is when a leader has unqualified support from the supposed moral and religious pillars of society but has gone through two wives and was banging a porn star just after his third spouse had given birth. The actual details of that situation are far more sleazy and corrupt that I simply want to delve into, but you should get the point.

Just to be fair, I'll throw in President Bubba back in the 90's and him playing doctor with a young woman in the Oval Office with a cigar. While Bubba certainly didn't entertain the support of the self righteous preachers and moralistic proles, he should have had enough self respect for the office, and his eventual legacy to avoid such sophomoric activity. Bubba was a successful and competent administrator, but once you run for public office, especially on a national level, you have no right to any type of private life.

The fuzzy feeling I get about the mindset societies seem to have right before they begin a tailspin straight into dustbin of history is that they believe shit has gotten as good as its going to get, and that things will not change. This breeds a two-part selfish attitude among both the hoi polloi and the well off Elites. The hoi polloi start getting antsy about what they give to society. While not wealthy themselves, they look down upon on poorer groups feeling they are lazy and trying to take advantage to them. The Elites, well their attitude is that they have theirs, and will go to extremes to not only protect what they have but gather more.

What joins the two in an unconscious suicide pack is that neither segment gives a damn about the future. The hoi polloi have their entertaining distractions and convenient scapegoats while the Elites sit atop their ivory mountains convincing themselves that the rest of society should service their needs. This leads to the hoi polloi supporting taxpayer dollars being spent to pay for elaborate new stadiums for billionaires who hobby in professional sports team ownership but bitching about money being wasted fixing roads. The Elites on the other hand start separating themselves from the rest of society.

Nothing typifies this mutual suicide pack more than the abandonment of the American public school system in general and the horrendous treatment of teachers specifically. Both the hoi polloi and the Elites love to wrap themselves in Old Glory and get weepy when that God awful Lee Greenwood song is played for the one or two trillionth time. But when it comes to actually supporting the underpinning of the nation, an educated citizenry able to distinguish facts from partisan bullshit, they equally balk.

Now understand there are certainly well funded islands in the American public school system, these bastion overwhelmingly exist in white middle class suburbs. Think of these as isolated oases dotting a vast underfunded and criminally ignored desert full of schools dominated by Hispanic and African-American kids. Yeah, there are certainly a number of underfunded schools in white rural areas. But lets get serious here and admit we've instituted something along the lines of economic school segregation because far too many don't really see Hispanic and African-American kids as worthy of their attention or money

The recent uprising of underpaid teachers in West Virginia and other states has shed light on the nature of the public school system. Videos of school buildings looking like something from the latest dystopic movie along with books so worn and out of date Bubba is the current president have been recently shown on the nightly news. If anything exceeds my embarrassment at the thing currently living in the White House, it is the horrific nature of the negligence we are responsible for towards public schools.

Like I alluded to earlier, I've seen semi-literate rednecks get mad when anyone dares to suggest taxpayers shouldn't pay for new stadiums for billionaires. To these individuals their favorite professional sports teams have become something more like a tribal affiliation than just the enjoyment of watching the healthy competition. When it is suggested that overworked and over stressed teachers need a significant pay raise these same rednecks get upset, at best saying they picked that career and should live with the consequences of that choice.

At worst, I have personally heard these moronic mouth breathers whine about conspiracies that say public school teachers are secretly indoctrinating kids into beliefs as varied as communism or Islamic fundamentalism. Those types like to home school or send their kids to “Christian-based” academies.

Even worse is the attitude of the people on the Elite spectrum. Many hold the conflicting views that public school teachers are both incompetent fools who couldn't teach a fish to swim and diabolical agents out to brainwash their lily white offspring into accepting all manner of evil liberal ideas. I heard a former governor of New Jersey and a television business journalist with what had to be a massive steel rod rammed up is butt voice such views.

The answer to the problem of failing public schools the Elites cling to like a convert to a new religion is school choice. Like religious types all through history to them the best idea is to burn down the entire system and instead use taxpayer money to fund private institutions of various types. Now I'm clearly on the side of public schools and the embattled teachers that serve them, but I understand incompetence exists in all professions. The problem with the choice folks is that weak public schools are already underfunded, especially the ones they point to as examples supporting their narrow views.

If they get their way and have their taxpayer funded ticket punched instead of a constellation of for-profit private educational centers taking up the slack we'll get an expansion of the issues facing public schools. In other words public schools, the teachers, and even the kids who can't escape to alternatives get screwed even worse. They all are literally being setup to fail.

The short version of my point is that public school teachers are being screwed. They are criminally underpaid, working excessively long and stressful hours, while being hounded by lazy parents who just can't be bothered to take an interest in their kids education. It's no wonder the burnout rate for them is so high. Top it all off, far too many teachers have to work second and third jobs while having to buy the goddamn supplies they need for the kids with their own money. The actual list of atrocities and burdens teachers have to bare doesn't say anything good about the supposed land of the free and home of the brave.

There is one tiny silver lining that might exist in this nightmare. That some future Edward Gibbon might one day walk among the ruins of our taxpayers funded stadiums and chronicle our fall. Maybe allowing his society to avoid the trap we so eagerly and ignorantly walked into. Being snide here, but the reason I know about Gibbon is because of a great teacher.