El Cuatro de Marzo

Defend public education

Defend California public ed. and at the same time, improve it, retrofit it, humanize it, make it more efficient, less violent, less bureaucratic. Few citizens would doubt the need for the Three R's (reading, writing, Riemann sums). We might, however, question funding basket weaving or for that matter, badminton or the basketball team. With some reasonable apportioning, classes in essential subjects could be easily saved, as could teachers' jobs, though some extras might have to go, like sports, and some arts programs (though some humans might prefer having kids playing Bach than basketball).

Public schools have in many areas of California, unfortunately, become blackboard jungles and gangster training academies. One proximate cause for the gangster-ification? The athletic departments, says Contingencies. Athletic bureaucrats (athletic directors, coaches, asst. coaches, so forth down the food chain) generally control the local campuses (from high schools to colleges and universities), and the trustees and administrators generally follow orders from the jocks. Who cares about reading the history of World War I and II; the rasslin' team's on a roll (or ball of whatever sort). Many students, male or female, don't learn how to calculate.
They now learn how to kick a**.

Opposing the jockocracy should not be mistaken for elitism or crypto-racism. Be assured a Thomas Sowell or Barack Obama, for that matter, spent more time with books and home work than on the football fields. Unfortunately, some brainy kids in urban areas often are targeted by thugs and jocks (of whatever race)--that's an outrage. In effect, the public school often conditions students, even smart ones, to be opposed to education and scholarship, whether mathematics, or modern history (or auto mechanics for that matter). When Las Huelguistas start burning effigies of Ahhnuld (the real culprit), or UC alpha regents, or local bureaucrats and trustees, they ought to include some local athletic mafiosi.