'These results are sobering': US high-school seniors' reading and math scores plummet

[ancianita]

33. Oligarchs have always known that if they are to control this country and rule, they must do the following:

1. Defund
2. Deform (called "reform" in education or other institutions)
3. Stigmatize (education professionals and/or govt experts as the root cause for the above, to distract from oligarchs' extraction of education funding for themselves)
4. Privatize (no more public services or teaching for working class children)

The above formula can apply to any institution, but for now, used in the context of public education instituted as a public good.

1.
No study in the last century has yet to disprove baseline educational studies that show the top two predictors of student achievement:
First -- the socioeconomic status of students’ parents.
Second -- the Teacher.

Oligarchs know this.

Do Americans want to kick teachers out as soon as their kids complain? Do they tend to forget the American work ethic that claims that the highest achievements come with focused, systematic study, effort, and yes, sometimes some sacrifice by the family?

Did the rich reveal to Americans that they don't consider any amount of money too much to spend on THEIR kids?
Did they reveal that they pay their teachers top dollar? Know why their schools are so expensive? Because they know

You. Get. What. You. Pay. For.

No? Know why they don't tell you? They don't want competition for the mediocre snowflakes they have -- the Trumps, Mercers or techbro billionaires of the world.

2.
Human development is THE single greatest asset to any country. All our NATO and other Western allies know this. Their schools show it.

3.
America once broadly had the arts, vocational training, civics, home economics, full range of gymnastics and sports, computer labs and after school arts and sciences projects in our schools.

Why? Because our parents and rich leaders had the matching opinion that American future generations were worth it!

When did they part ways? That’s a history lesson.
Read Jonathan Kozol’s “Shame of The Nation” for the full story. And yes, that the rich abandoned the institution of public education has been going on for a long time. All the way back to the US Constitution writers who omitted education as a fundamental right.

4.
But some Americans still have that full-on education system.
Know who they are?
America’s private preparatory schools!
The kids of the rich!
https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-private-high-schools/

For decades, the rich have lied to Americans about the worth of public education.
They've been scapegoating all the country's schools and teachers now, smearing all public schools and eroding public trust in public education by using shocking headlines about one teacher, or one school.

5.
In policy, investment and public discourse, we must fight oligarch messaging and care about this country's greatest asset -- the American people -- the way teachers do.

Do not be suckered into oligarchs' negative headline messaging about your fellow citizens who are the nation's teaching professionals.
Teaching professionals, tenured or not, give the highest return on public investment at 7:1.
That is, $7 dollars of systematic educational expertise value available the nation for every $1 spent to produce college graduates whose lifetime earnings are over $1 million more than that of high school grads;
just one example -- oligarchs make sure that public education is defunded, but still demand an educated medical population;
all Americans deserve the same, not just "good enough" and more privatized, profitable palliative pain treatment.

Oligarchs have applied market values to the last standing Jeffersonian, democratizing institution of human development for this country.
Oligarchs know that literacy is the foundation of civilization, and through decades they have made sure that soon, in America, only they have it.

Solidarity from a member of AFT Local #1.