Let's return to the days of of de facto or de jure sexual segregation in employment. Let's close the doors to careers in medicine, law, science and engineering, business, elective office, finance and academia. Preserve those fields for men and men only. And where do you think all those ambitious, brilliant, passionate, innovative, driven, visionary women will go to make their mark? The Post Office. Nope. Into public education. Problem solved.
One of the hallmarks of my upbringing was that I was raised in a university town during a time when it was all too common for wives to put their husbands through school. Many of those wives, after having obtained their bachelor's entered teaching, and we kids in the 1960's and 1970's were the beneficiaries of these smart, often brilliant, women supporting their families. By the time I entered college that compact was eroding as more women opted for pursuit of advanced degrees in higher-status and more lucrative professions.
I liken this change to the documented unintended consequences of racial desegregation for African-Americans -- given choices ambitious and affluent blacks left their communities leaving the poor and unemployable behind. (And yes, I know I'm collapsing a complex phenomena, but allow me this concision. My argument is also culturally-specific to the United States. In Ireland, for instance, the expansion of opportunity probably meant that fewer gifted men and women trained for the religious vocations.) In cities that led to what's described as a permanent underclass -- the very object of much of the anguish and frustration that accompanies school reform.
The success of post-WW II feminism (and increasing literacy) catalyzed analogous results. Many (not all) gifted college-educated women, given opportunities to pursue other professions ignored elementary and secondary education. In my grandmother's time teaching and teachers were respected and revered. (The quartet of high-status occupations pre-segregation? Doctor, lawyer, teacher, preacher.) In our current time other professionals condescend to "those who teach" and too often, teachers, the training programs that produce them, and the school systems that hire teachers don't do themselves any favors. Too many students attend and sustain Schools of Education where the admissions and competency standards are too low. Too many unions have resisted squarely addressing some of the most troubling byproducts of guild protection such as job tenure for the incompetent. And too few school systems have not created advancement pathways that reward teachers who want to stay in the classroom yet need more challenges.
So many ways to address this topic. Maybe I'll do a post called"13 Ways to Look At American Public Education". But for today I'm serious, what will it take to restore a universal sense of mission in American education? And who should be leading the charge?
"Everyone in the room, even those who fear and despise the police, understand that their function is necessary and complex, and that not all cops are bad. And yet, and yet."
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Did anybody in the room even the police articulate what their function actually is?
Something is only necessary if it has a function and is only useful if it serves that function.
Which then begs the question who do the police serve.
One thing I am sure of, whatever the function of police is it is not complex. It has historically never been complex. The roll of any police force throughout history has always to be to protect those who write their paychecks. The people who joined this police force as an aggregate or not complex people. They want 3 things health benefits a paycheck and a pension.
Meeting with the police chief is like meeting with the head Butler. He may control the day-to-day schedule of the staff but he does not own the house or can he make any major decisions about the family living in the house. He must awake every morning put on his gun and go into the day doing the bidding of his employer.
The irony that both parties are living on taxpayers dollars. Each of them are living on government tax rolls spending; one group for doing nothing and other group for controlling those that are doing nothing. This is how people in government think is a good use of the wealth of America. And the role of the police to oversee this government waste and idiocy at gunpoint?
No free human can live like this and say sane.