Cut here

Cut here…

One of the things this country is known for is education, not great education but free education. You may not know this but in many countries the education, even in public schools cost money. You have to purchase at least the school supplies for your child and in some you even have to pay the teacher and the school a small fee to have your child admitted. It’s true, but by the time the child graduates from their school, they are educated which is more that can be said for the children in this country. Apparently as of late some politicians have taken notice of the education system here (U.S.), and have decided that teachers should earn the pay according to their abilities to teach. Tenure, for those of you that don’t know what it means: tenure commonly refers to life in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.

Tenure and pay are the two items that are being changed and a lot of teachers don’t like it, I wonder why? If I were a teacher, a good teacher like the minority of teachers in this country, I wouldn’t be worried about these changes; in fact I would welcome them for that will get rid of the incompetent teachers and will make the lazy ones get to work. The bad teachers will argue that if they weren’t doing their job properly, they would have been fired a long time ago. Any one that has dealt with the school system and or government employees knows that that is a crock of s*%#. The process to get rid of incompetent personnel in tenure jobs is arduous and always in favor of the employee. Remember that the same people that wrote the laws are the ones that have to abide by them. “Catch 22”

So, in that regard we are moving in the right direction, getting rid of incompetent and lazy teachers; but there’s another little item regarding education that has been going on for years and now it’s to the point of creating the most ignorant generation of Americans ever! What is it? The government’s budget!

Whenever the government at any level, city, county, state, or federal, need to cut the budget, the first item on the list is education. Why is that?

Years ago many of the states after cutting the budget for the education system, sold us the idea of the lottery; “THE LOTTERY WILL HELP OUR SCHOOLS”. The only ones making money from the lottery are the insurance companies that lobbied the politicians to support the lottery and the politicians themselves. Look with an honest eye at the lottery earnings and you will find that very little money goes to education, and in some cases nothing at all. It’s all in paper and lawyer’s jargon.

Here are a few ideas: Let’s take the money that we spend in one year in the Middle East, where we are not wanted and give it to our educational system. Or, how about cutting the salaries of all house and senate member in half (and still they will have a higher salary than 70% of Americans) and pour it into education. Or even a more honest way of doing business: Close the tax loop holes for big corporations and the rich. Not raise taxes on the rich, (which is not a bad idea to start with) but make sure they pay what the lawfully owe. There three simple readily available right now ideas that not only will save our educational system, but will give it enough funds for improvement.

There are so many special interest programs that are completely unnecessary yet we endlessly pour our money into it and there’s no watch dog to warn us, nor a government that cares enough for its people to prevent it or at least stop it once it’s found.    

To suggest a complete overhaul of the government in these United States is ludicrous.  But the people should start to consider that very possibility. Too many thieves, too many careless individuals that don’t represent anyone but those that line their pockets. There is no need for a Congress that is a joke, a House of Representatives that accomplishes nothing, and a President system that either plays along with the rest of the politicians or he gets nothing done. The President of the United States of America is not the most powerful person in the world, regardless of whom it may be, he is just a poppet of those in power; and who may they be? The rich that have always ran this and every other country.

Food for thought

Jorge Rodriguez