when we treat our kids like used cars...

for literary (i use that word exceedingly tongue in cheek, o my beloved non-existent readers who keep stopping by this little grease-stain on the world wide web) fare in a lighter vein, i recommend my last two posts. this post is, in short, a political rant.

florida is trying to push a bill through the senate right now that recommends teachers be paid on a "commission" based on state aptitude test scores.

my immediate reaction to this news is: teachers are now being lowered to the status of used car dealer. regularly, in this country i call home and love so much and would die to defend, the government drops money into huge multinational conglomerates and defense contracts, and our children, and those individuals who have chosen the often thankless and difficult job of elevating our children, sometimes against their own will and that of their parents, to their full potential get shoved roughly down across a table and, quite frankly, violently raped up the ass.

i would ask anyone that will listen: which is more important? bombs or books? how do we continue as a great nation if our most precious natural resource is being treated like nothing less common than dog shit?

but this is all academic, and i digress.

as a general rule, the majority of parents in this country have decided it's the school's job to raise their children. the ones who should be a child's biggest supporters and first line of defense have abandoned them. now the youth of america's second line of defense will be stripped of their big guns and handed a butter knife and will be allowed to fall under the tank treads of apathy and disinterest, selfishness and avarice.

were this bill currently law, my oldest son's teacher would no doubt be homeless and starved. she is a teacher with many year's experience and a vast well of patience and who i know for a fact actually goes home and stresses about certain children in her class (my own son is one). she does her job not because it is a job or someone told her she should teach, but because she actually cares about the kids, and wants them to succeed, and she agonizes when they fall short. she would starve because she routinely gets the hard cases. the rebellious ones. the ones from dubious familial backgrounds, the ones with adhd, the ones with learning disabilities. and she battles daily to give them every chance and opportunity. but if one student, on the day of the fcats, were to flat out refuse to test (as my son has done in more than one instance with spelling tests or math tests), then that is one less meal she can afford.

when we treat our kids like used cars, that is exactly what we get: children with knocks in their engines, kids whose carburetors don't function as they should, an entire generation of rusty, malfunctioning, bound for the junk yard progeny who are overpriced and have been patched up for resale to consumers who don't really want them.

and when our nation is driving those clunkers, and nothing else, then we will be a nation permanently in the break-down lane.

darth sardonic