Emma, over at Late Night Thoughts, has a seemingly logical proposal. In an essay in which she considers the possibility that she may have benefited from Affirmative Action in her college career, she comes to the conclusion that the solution to the problems of affirmative action is to “…make sure that every kid at the elementary and high school level get the same good education…” And then she continues with her proposal, suggesting that we should
Emma, Emma, Emma. Don’t you realize that’s not how we do it in Bush’s America. In this world, if a school and its students are struggling, we take funds away from the school. We encourage parents with money to take their kids out of the school and into private for-profit schools. We criticize the teachers for their students’ poor performance on tests — tests which are created for students in schools with working bathrooms, not to mention functioning libraries. Then we punish the teachers by lowering their salaries below their already laughable levels, and wonder why those people entrusted with the education of our children are so woefully under-prepared and under-qualified. We withhold state and federal aid and remove the school’s capital budget, until the building is a crumbling asbestos- and cockroach-ridden mess, serving solely as a sub-minimal daycare center for minimum-wage parents who cannot afford any other kind of care, and whose children should be taught early not to expect any other kind of life than the miserable one their parents inhabit.
That’s how we do it today! Now aren’t you ashamed about that silly proposal?
