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Education: The philosophical difference

Submitted by Tom Sullivan on Mon, 03/12/2012 - 5:29am

This radio interview with North Carolina state Rep. Rick Glazier last week has stayed with me. Glazier and state Rep. Ray Rapp were reacting to the Republican handling of education after gaining control of the North Carolina legislature in January 2011. Glazier explained it with this story:

Sort of mind-boggling. Maybe an opening script at the beginning of this session was a precursor to what happened.

There was a Republican legislator who has been there several terms … she had a question early on, because Representative Rapp and I did chair for four years that appropriations committee, and she said, “How much do we spend on financial aid for needs-based kids going to college in North Carolina?”

I think my answer at the time we were looking at it was somewhere around $175-$200 million dollars was need-based. And she said, “Well, I don’t understand why we spend any.”

And I stopped for a minute, and I said, “What do you mean?”

She said, “Well, if you can’t afford to go to college, then you shouldn’t go, until you can.”

And I said, “Well, you understand that would make our colleges strictly for the wealthy, and would create a disincentive for anyone – particularly in a recession and a down economy – to think they could ever pay, get together the money. They can barely get together the money to pay their bills, to hold onto their mortgage. And you’re talking about them not having any assistance from the government – any grants, any loan capacity – to go to college, to improve themselves, to re-train and re-skill.”

And she looked at me, she goes, “Well, it seems to me if you save up the money, you go work, and until you have the money, you ought not go. And I just don’t think we ought to be paying any money for need-based.”

And I will tell you, that it’s probably one of the few times that I’ve been in the legislature that I was so astounded by the philosophic difference that I just stood there and thought, if that view ever prevails here, we will have a very different society than the one we all want to have.

Local Edge Radio, 880 AM, Asheville, NC -- March 5, 2012, Hour 2 [Timestamp 22:30]

(Cross-posted from Dirty Hippies.)

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Comments

Pass the books, hold the oil

Submitted by James on Mon, 03/12/2012 - 8:53am.

This article by Tom Friedman should be required reading for the Neanderthals in the anti-education party. It's not a lot of words, so maybe they can trudge through it.

Add it all up and the numbers say that if you really want to know how a country is going to do in the 21st century, don’t count its oil reserves or gold mines, count its highly effective teachers, involved parents and committed students. “Today’s learning outcomes at school,” says Schleicher, “are a powerful predictor for the wealth and social outcomes that countries will reap in the long run.”

Also relevant

Submitted by James on Mon, 03/12/2012 - 9:00am.

Some pointed criticism of the Obama administration's failed stewardship of public schools. From Policy Watch.

Bass-ackwards

Submitted by scharrison on Mon, 03/12/2012 - 10:01am.

Without a college degree, you can't afford to pay upfront for a college degree. And without a college degree, you can't afford to pay all your bills and still have enough to set aside for a future college degree.

The idea is, those needs-based students will get the degree, then get a job that pays good enough so their children won't need the same kind of assistance they did.

If those Republicans would study their own family histories, they would (probably) see continual cycles of poverty until someone went to college, and then relative prosperity after that.

It ain't rocket science...