One of the most unreasonable features of the US is its deification of the military. "Thank you for ripping us off" is what, if we were honest, we'd tell the greedy members of Congress who invest our money in a bloated military and turn their guns on education. Instead we thank soldiers for allowing us to suck them into deadly war machinery and scowl at teachers whose jobs are no less difficult and whose survival rate is iffy, at best. We ask soldiers and teachers alike to do our jobs for us. We throw other people's kids (and often our own) into sinkholes -- first, our schools, and then the wars we invent. We do it for the bubbles of profit it brings us, state by state. The military budget is the last budget we want to cut.
And we are not innocent or noble in our sacrifice. We are, in fact, sacrificing others. David Eggers and co-author lay it on the line.
When we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.
And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives....Dave Eggers and Ninive Clements Calegari, NYT
Don't forget how many of the kids who go into the military are the ones to whom we've given the weakest schools in a weak educational system, making the military their only chance to take charge of their lives. That is, if they're not killed, maimed, or destroyed psychologically by their service.
We elect the members of Congress who maintain this system, profit from it, and obstruct any efforts to change it.
If any administration is capable of tackling this, it’s the current one. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan understand the centrality of teachers and have said that improving our education system begins and ends with great teachers. But world-class education costs money.
For those who say, “How do we pay for this?” — well, how are we paying for three concurrent wars? How did we pay for the interstate highway system? Or the bailout of the savings and loans in 1989 and that of the investment banks in 2008?
