Occupy Santa Rosa addresses public education (so-called)
My son recently completed his California public education (at least pre-Santa Rosa Junior College) and it was, shall we say, less than a satisfactory experience. We experimented with all kinds of options that kept us within the public schools, such as the REACH program.
Of course it's no secret that the quality of California education has plummeted, and Sonoma County is no exception. As government budgets have been squeezed, schools have made do with less.
Parents and students are asked to pay money for supplies, and teachers are increasingly incompetent and overworked. And through it all, the steady drumbeat of budget deficits rings. Government services need to be curtailed. Or privatized.
In point of fact, education has already been privatized, in that anyone who can send their kids to private schools is already doing it. Public schools are the domain of the middle class and the lower class. Some people are coming to just accept mediocrity. Others would be pleased if education were that good.
Is this just the way it is going to be? An elite of privately, well-educated students? A mass of poorly educated students? Private industry, having no choice, importing qualified workers from overseas, leaving most Americans to fight over middle management or blue collar jobs?
Yes, this is the agenda: the destruction of public education. Does it have to be this way? Occupy Santa Rosa is hosting a discussion on that issue. It's Monday, Feb. 20 at the Arlene Francis Center (a name hard to say without irony), 99 6th Street, in Santa Rosa's Railroad Square.
"Children have become a commodity, and education a tool for profit," says Jina Brooks, one of several Occupy Santa Rosa organizers who are helping with the Santa Rosa Teachers' Association Teacher Rally on February 25 at Courthouse Square. "We hope that the information and discussion shared at this teach-in will motivate people to show up and fight for public education beyond next Saturday's rally. We need to learn what is really going on so we know how to best support our teachers and children."
Starts at 6 p.m.
