The Creation of the American Madrasa

In a recent blog article dated August 26th in the Patch titled: School vouchers make WI a ‘Star Student,’ says budget watcher by Wisconsin Reporter, it has led to a vigorous discussion about the Wisconsin School Choice Program and voucher schools.

My take on the entire situation is clearly one of pure political cynicism with the ignorant and innocent caught up in a vicious game of manipulation to one end, the death of public education as we know it. Let me be clear on one thing; I am fully supportive of public education reform making it more responsive and relevant to the needs of the changing social environment. We as a nation need a strong and superior public education system to fairly compete in global affairs and to preserve the best of American Culture. After a great deal of research and some good old fashioned reasoning I have deduced the following:

A process of social change, beginning in the mid 1930s, as a response to the horrendous conditions of the “Great Depression”, has culminated in the current political divisions that we are now caught up in. From the time that the Roosevelt Administration began pushing the 'New Deal', it has laid the groundwork for the divisions that reflect two separate ideological philosophies. Before proceeding, Mr. Roosevelt was an ultimate pragmatist and understood very well the danger the nation and American society were in. Although, I have gotten and will continue to receive criticism for this statement, I none the less believe that Roosevelt saved business and free enterprise in the United States. His Administration recognized the rising danger from the political left and a movement to socialism, but more importantly a move to communism. This movement would not have come with a simple transition of power, but a bloody civil war that would have destroyed this nation. The social programs that were enacted were stopgap measures and compromises to partially satisfy the critical needs of Americans during a time of economic and social crisis, but also a means to cut short the journey to soviet style communism and social unrest.

There are two competing universal suppositions; the Sovereign Individual and the Sovereign Community. Although these ideologies seem to conflict, they are both necessary to a strong and stable society. The primary needs can only be achieved if we are able to find and implement compromises to partially satisfy each position. From the time of the first President Roosevelt, our nation began a progressive journey to achieve social and economic justice for all of its citizens. This process was vehemently opposed by the plutocracy and oligarchy that had evolved within this nation. They (the plutocracy) only gave way when the voting majority demanded the progressive changes. Although the plutocracy controls the nation's wealth and power, the one thing that they cannot control is the vote and they must compete to gain that vote. Thus, the battle lines have been drawn to gain and maintain a voting majority.

Educating the young became critical in this battle. American Education has, for over a century, followed the path of imparting knowledge based on truth and leaving behind societal mythologies. As new knowledge has been revealed about the nature of the world, education has incorporated it into the curriculum creating more accurate knowledge bases. The plutocracy and oligarchy of this nation doesn't want a fully educated majority that will question their power and wealth. To maintain their elite positions they must control the content of knowledge. Thus, their opposition to secularism and especially secular humanism. By law, public education is limited to imparting secular knowledge and information that doesn't promote sectarian systems and beliefs. However, the loop hole is the limitation on public education and not private education. Therefore, if education is accomplished through private education, the plutocratic elite can control the content of curriculum and structure the system to educate the voter in such a manner as to guarantee their further power and control over the electorate. The entire battle is over the control of people's minds. A free people and free society can only be achieved and maintained when free choice is granted.

We have seen how the private school loophole has been used in the past. During the desegregation of the South in the 1960s, rather than accept the desegregation of the schools, many Jim Crow Southerners moved their children to private schools and academies. This created two education systems with the private academies flourishing and public schools sinking into the morass of depleted resources. We still see this in both the Mississippi Delta area of Mississippi and Louisiana. The parochial school has proven to be the perfect vehicle for the dissolution of the American Public Education System. Not only do religious schools provide a safe haven from government mandates, but their curriculae, for the most part, supports non secular ideas and mythologies. The only problem with parochial schools is that they have relatively small funding resources through tuition and charitable contributions. This problem is solved by allowing taxpayer money to be paid for educational contracting through the use of vouchers. Add to this the tuition tax breaks for those sending children to private schools and you've created perfect conditions that invariably will weaken the public school systems, ultimately leading to their demise. The plutocrats can only retain their position of power as long as there is a compliant and ignorant electorate.

The support of the publicly funded private schools is actually a form of class warfare against the middle and lower classes. Electoral power rests with the middle and working classes and efforts to divide these groups along artificial ideological lines promotes the retention of real power with the upper elite. This nation was at its strongest and most stable when the middle class was the largest. The shrinking of the middle class is a harbinger of the ills that will befall this nation. The whole notion that voucher programs will stabilize society and provide an escape route for the impoverished is a total and complete fabrication. To pull out those students and parents that can add strength to the public schools only weakens the schools and put them in more desperate straights. Those very people are needed to help turn around the public school system through meaningful reform. Choice parents are clearly turning their backs on their own communities. What is needed is to strengthen public schools in these communities by bringing school governance to the lowest possible levels and empower people of the local communities to take charge of their educational destinies. Bigger isn't necessarily better and in education it may be the most counter productive of all.

I have an 'acid test' that I use when it comes to public policy and programs. If the plutocrats and oligarchs aren't screaming in opposition, then it means it's good for them and bad for the rest of us. To illustrate this; look at the two movements, Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. Occupy is a true populist movement whereas the Tea Party has been co-opted by the Plutocracy as a vehicle of oppositional control with the veneer of populism. It is clearly a manipulation designed to be the henchmen of maintaining plutocratic control.

This whole movement is nothing more than the creation of the American Christian Madrasa.