"protect the children" = a very misguided statement in today's rhetoric

[alp227]

I just finished reading Jonathan Kozol's book The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (2005), and the title of this thread came up in my mind.

Much of this "protect the children" rhetoric by cultural conservatives often targets the entertainment media but ignores the too-real-to-be-ignored problem of underfunded, crumbling public schools in the inner cities. Conservatives are far more likely to blame stuff like gangsta rap and violent video games on the problems of inner-city youth than the factors that instigated them in the first place that Kozol points out in his book. Some passages of the book made me want to cry, such as overcrowded classrooms in facilities sans air conditioning and proper maintenance, military-style micromanaging regulations in the classroom, and a very plain, unenlightening education almost exclusively manufactured for poor children, while children whose parents can "afford it" attend districts with more funding from the state in return. From that comes more social, cultural, and intellectual enrichment and therefore all the more opportunities to move up the social ladder. In contrast, as the state focuses more on those middle-class/upper-class suburban kids who "deserve it"...the children of the lower class/inner city will probably be stuck forever because they are left behind by both an uncaring state and parents who most likely lack the connections and knowledge to help them.

President Obama's education secretary Arne Duncan has proposed funding assistance for public schools on the condition that states enact merit pay for teachers based on standardised test scores and expand charter schools. I really appreciate all on DU (including Madfloridian) who've done the research to expose Duncan's plan, Race to the Top, as a big gooey mess of snake oil. Kozol observed in Shame of the Nation that test scores made things worse for schools rather than increase accountability, as schools are forced to dumb down education for the sake of those bubble fillings and in some cases violate proper ethics just to get their numbers up.

With all these unfortunate facts, is there a big resistance movement in America? Doesn't look like so.

But...the Right Wing has manufactured all sorts of phony "moral panics" to distract Americans from this issue. And the media isn't much of a help either by covering too many "issues" that in reality don't matter to most of us.

Apparently, the Cultural Right thinks that a less-than-a-second flash of Janet Jackson's breast in the Super Bowl halftime show or an accidental slip of the tongue on live TV is oh-so-much-more harmful for those poor ghetto youth than having to attend school in squalor, unengaging conditions every day.

And whenever the Cultural Right does bring up issues of public education, it's not usually the upcoming corpo-charter takeover by the Obama admin. Usually, it comes in the tones of: "Waah! My child is being suspended for praying in class!" or "Public schools hate Jesus" or "Why isn't creationism being taught alongside evolution?" or "OMG! Gays!" or "Aah! Kids with dark skin!" or "My kid actually has to learn about OTHER cultures?!" or "Oh no! Commie PinkObama is brainwashing our students!" or "Sex ed encourages kids to be perverted anti-religious rebels".

Yes, in Shame, Kozol discusses certain instances when groups of suburban parents have protested their schools taking in inner-city students or opposed desegregation plans.

So if you were wondering why our message isn't being put up in a loudspeaker like all the celebrity gossip, true crime stories, and trivia in the media, I guess I've explained why.