Dumbing Down America

"The pact calls for a pay increase of 14.25 percent, which, when compounded, amounts to 15 percent. The maximum salary rises to $93,416, from $81,212. Salaries grow more modestly, however, for new teachers - by about 9 percent - with starting pay rising to $42,512, from $39,000." [City Reaches Tentative Deal With Teachers, NY Times, 10/4/05]

At long last we are beginning to see the incomes of teachers catching up to those of comparably skilled and demanding professions. For far too long teaching, as nursing, was one of those careers to which women were restricted, thus permitting economic exploitation combined with their professional excellence. Now they can become lawyers, doctors -- even CEOs, if more at risk for imprisonment for 'crimes' committed routinely by their male counterparts. Thus, competitive pay scales are required to attract competent teachers into this critically essential field.

The catch now is that higher education in North America is being exploited by a corporate mentality that seeks to produce the greatest 'productivity' for the lowest cost. 'CEO' college presidents and university chancellors knock back incomes and perks well into six figures while an increasing percentage of our college teaching is being done by struggling part-timers, fortunate to have even minimal medical and retirement benefits, let alone earning a living wage.

Pretty obviously we are up against a numbers game here. Teachers of children from pre-school to graduation from high school represent both large numbers of voters themselves and also impact upon the lives of the bulk of the population with children needing to be taught. But higher education is still viewed as a 'luxury' item -- necessary to obtain professional standing in our society, but affecting far fewer numbers directly who are seeking higher educations. And the great bulk of our population does not realize that excellence in higher education is essential for the general well being of any modern society which needs well-trained persons to carry out its functions in an increasingly competitive global economy.

The upshot is that we are watching a decline both in the quality of higher education in North America and a corresponding competitive economic decline in our national productivity and capacity to compete with others. America is building up huge debts, both personal and national, that will catch up to us sometime in the near future.

Ending with some personal anecdotes, one of my Brooklyn College students who had received a generous 5 year fellowship award for graduate philosophy studies in an Ivy League University recently abandoned his studies there to enter school teaching -- a far more secure and guaranteed prospect for a lifetime career. Another, who had won similar grants at another Ivy, switched over to its law school after a year of graduate studies for the same reason.

Needless to say something has to give here or we are in serious trouble as a nation being dumbed down at precisely the time when we should be smartening up.
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"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
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Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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