Paul Krugman surveys recent events in what some in America probably call "the education industry" -- thus elevating education and giving it the same respect we give to money-making -- and he's worried. Maybe it would be easier just to drop education altogether. Education costs. We want that money in our pockets, after all, not floating around some campuses where the whole purpose is to turn the children of decent people into Democrats and infidels.
... Over the past 30 years, there has been a stunning disconnect between huge income gains at the top and the struggles of ordinary workers. You can make the case that the self-interest of America’s elite is best served by making sure that this disconnect continues, which means keeping taxes on high incomes low at all costs, never mind the consequences in terms of poor infrastructure and an undertrained work force.
And if underfunding public education leaves many children of the less affluent shut out from upward mobility, well, did you really believe that stuff about creating equality of opportunity?
So whenever you hear Republicans say that they are the party of traditional values, bear in mind that they have actually made a radical break with America’s tradition of valuing education. And they have made this break because they believe that what you don’t know can’t hurt them. ...Paul Krugman, NYT
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Stolid conservative, Michael Medved, writing in the Wall Street Journal, faults Rick Santorum for his position on education and points to Santorum's hypocrisy as well as his lies.
... Dr. Ron Paul earned his medical degree from Duke and Newt Gingrich won a doctorate from Tulane; Mitt Romney holds both law and MBA degrees from Harvard, while Rick Santorum got the same two degrees from Dickinson School of Law and the University of Pittsburgh, respectively.
What's more, Mr. Santorum's family background shows the profound value of education in lifting the disadvantaged into the middle class and beyond. The campaign likes to leave the impression that he grew up in the coal fields of Pennsylvania, but young Rick actually came of age in a home where the father earned a doctorate and worked as a clinical psychologist while the mother toiled outside the house as a well-credentialed administrative nurse; it was his immigrant grandfather who worked the coal mines.
It makes no sense for the former senator to hide his own family's success story, because his parents' progress exemplifies the sort of achievement that all mothers and fathers seek for their children. Sure, it's important to talk about protecting and increasing manufacturing jobs, because so many hard-pressed people depend on them. But those same workers dream that the next generation may choose educational options that extend their horizons beyond industrial employment.
It's neither an accident nor an embarrassment that an America eagerly embracing meritocracy has elected four presidents in a row with degrees from either Yale or Harvard... WSJ
