28 April 2006

Education is Important--Not!

Might as well keep beating the dead horse that is the current state of affairs in Puerto Rico...

As The Fools play at being something other than mobile bags of guano, the pseudo-fiscal crisis they have launched to entertain their obscene excuse for brains has created a seriously harmful result: Public schools have closed for the year.

And I'm ABSOLUTELY sure, more so than the fact that I am a Jenius, that none--NONE--of these walking sacks of steaming road apples really cares a damn about this.

Why should The Fools care? Their kids are in private schools.

Why should The Fools care? Education is a budgetary sumphole more attuned to spreading the wealth than spreading knowledge. Fewer classes means more money to grub with.

Why should The Fools care? Come election time, some 40% of the campaign and precinct workers so vital to getting their sorry asses elected will be teachers, no matter what The Fools may or may not have done for them. Teachers have the political memories of goldfish: five seconds and everything's new again

Why the hell should The Fools care when the teachers themselves are content to call it quits and get an extra month of vacation time?

Think I'm being unfair? Here's proof: The only budgetary shortfall was in salaries that have to be paid anyway, so teachers COULD have continued teaching while waiting to get paid in late May or early June.

Instead, what was the overwhelming and immediate reaction: No pay, no teaching. Taking a page from the demagoguery of The Fools, they made the issue "no pay", when IN FACT, it's really an issue of LATE pay. And for a group notoriously slow to get the job done, the teachers really moved freaking fast to get everything done in time for the early closing, didn't they?

Now The Jenius knows that there are many, many teachers who would rather continue to teach than have the school year end like this. But sadly, they are neither numerous enough nor willful enough to make a difference. It might be a case of majority rules, or a silent majority being dominated by an aggressive minority, but the end result is the same: The Fools don't care about education, and neither do teachers.

Now there's a thought to carry through the longer summer and into the next school year...

The Jenius Has Spoken.

3 comments:

Ana Oquendo said...

Whenever you wail away on the theme of education and teachers I get mixed feelings. You see my wife is a teacher. I know she loves teaching. On the other hand she hates the school environment. Which is not conducive to teaching.

I'm not trying to excuse the teachers' willingness not to work on monday. But I know there are certain legalities that prevent them from teaching in spite of the governor's orders. Since they are legally liable for their students' well being while in the classroom, but they may not be covered by union or government's insurance if they where given a leave licence...

GCSchmidt said...

Aníbal, my mom is a teacher, too, retiring soon after 30 years of service. She hates the situation as much or more so than the environment. I know there are good teachers out there, plenty of them, but they seem to make less of an impact every year. I agree that the system reeks, but if the people inside the system don't make a strong effort to change it, we're not going to see any real progress. Teachers had the chance to slap The Fools and their fetid games into Hell, but chose "vacation" over "teaching" their own students and The Fools. That's Our loss all the way.

Unknown said...

Very tired and groggy to do a full email (yesterday was not a good day for a business trip to the USA) but wanted to link to a positive news regarding this subject:
http://www.endi.com/2006/05/02/Ultimahora/413532.asp?category=Ultima+hora&title=Desafian+dos+escuelas+la+clausura&artdate=2006/05/02
And count me as another one with lots of family in education. My parents, brother and most aunts are teachers, librarians or professors. I the black sheep!