The Democratic Debate generated a number of interesting observations by Conservatives. An interesting post on Red State, “The Dream and Costs of Free College,” suggested that Liberal’s focus on public education is wrong. Conservatives believe that public education is not worth the cost. Specifically the author said, “Public education in the United States has huge deficits that no initiative, be it Common Core State Standards or anything else, can fix.” As an example the author offered the following, “Maybe we can start cutting costs by not paying six figures a year for someone to tell you the inherent racism of sex toys.”
In a similar post US News and World Report fact checked the plans from both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders – Click here to read.
The key take away from both of these posts is that conservatives truly believe that, “Clinton and Sanders both would shift more college costs onto taxpayers and away from parents and students.” And conservatives think the individual should be the funder of any education, not the community.
Here is what I think conservatives heard when they watched the Democratic debate.
This is key. Conservatives believe that parents and students should bare the costs of education, not the community.
I disagree on a number of different levels.
Let me start with a quote
“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, (A)nd if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”
Thomas Jefferson
Any thriving community is based on the education of its members. The entire community benefits from an educated community. So, the entire community should want to ensure that all its members have the greatest opportunities to learn.
In addition to hearing conservatives complain about paying anything for public education they also complain greatly about the lack of good employees. Unfortunately for conservatives, the reality is simple; the reason they can’t find good employees is our public education is underfunded and fundamentally sabotaged by conservatives.
Right now, there are millions of smart hard working community members that are destined to live in poverty because the cannot afford the education needed to fill today’s good jobs. See my recent post on why education is so important to get a good job.
I personally think that successful people and businesses in the community should want to fund good public education. Not because they have, but because they understand the benefits a educated workforce brings to them individually and to the community generally.
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