Why We Need All Our Public Schools To Be Elite Schools. How To Make Them Elite: Provide An Enlightened Liberal Arts Curriculum Along With Strict Discipline.
Poverty, drug addiction, violence of all sorts, mass shootings, crime, racism, religious and sexual discrimination, rape, abusive behavior, police brutality, absurd conspiracy theories, fascism, Trumpist voter suppression and vote nullification, and Trump’s attempted coup d’etat with his insurrectionists/seditionists, involve the undereducated and the mentally disturbed, not the well educated and well adjusted. Statistics would prove this. We should have them. Our major problem, which few seem to realize, is that almost half the population is undereducated and not well adjusted, in great part due to the mediocrity of all too many of our public schools, with their severely deficient curriculum and lax standards. It is no exaggeration to state that mediocre public schools constitute a grave danger not only to our social and economic prosperity, but also to our democracy.
The mediocrity of many public schools is our nation’s greatest moral and policy failure. Our nation’s number one priority must be to quickly turn all our public schools into elite schools. Beyond properly overhauling the curriculum of our public schools, it is critically necessary to run our public schools like the best private schools. That means having strict class discipline, lots of homework/study hall, and individual assistance to students with academic or psychological difficulties, in order to prevent them from falling behind and dropping out. Constant testing as prescribed by “No Child Left Behind” is a mistake, the product of well-meaning but misguided politicians and policy makers with no teaching experience in “failing public schools”, and with little common sense in this matter.
The optimal public school curriculum is one that gives a broad educational base, a solid “liberal arts” base to build on later in life, a meaningful head start for college and beyond. It is misguided to believe a liberal arts base should wait for college, since many Americans do not go to college and since many colleges provide a mediocre liberal arts education. Furthermore, many graduates are narrowly educated, with their college studies focused on their future profession. Many have little understanding of how the world works outside of their profession, little understanding of others and even of themselves. Many have deficient logic and critical thinking. Very few post-graduate students, even from our top universities, would be able to identify and knowledgeably discuss the major mistakes in our economic, social, and foreign policy of the past 100 years and which would have been the correct policies. The consequence is many citizens vulnerable to con men and misinformation, supporting bad policies, and voting for incompetent and even dangerous politicians. A healthy, solid democracy -which sadly and scandalously we do not have today- needs all its citizens to be very well educated. That has to start way before college. An enlightened public high school curriculum is the key to our social and economic prosperity, a successful foreign policy, and an end to political strife.
The optimal public high school curriculum would arguably include the following courses beyond the basics: 1) The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the world history of human rights violations; 2)economics/finance/investments, including properly examining whether QE financing by the Federal Reserve is inflationary per se, whether QE-financed debt is necessarily passed on to future generations, and examining which mainstream economic theories are flawed, not backed up by statistics, such as those on the causes of inflation and the effects of budget deficits; 3) 20th Century world history in great detail, since all students must understand the causes of World War I; the causes of the Great Depression; the causes of communism and fascism and why they failed; the causes of World War II and the Holocaust; the causes of the Cold War; the causes of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and the reasons why all “land for peace” negotiations have failed; the causes of Islamic terrorism; 4) history of art/architecture/design; 5) history of music; 6) logic and critical thinking, and how to properly play “the devil’s advocate”, in order to spot fallacies generally and in conventional wisdoms in particular, accompanied by case histories and workshops; 7) ethics and empathy; 8) introductory and Constitutional law, including examining whether presidential pardons are limited by conflict of interest considerations, must be for specific adjudicated crimes, and must include a written moral or legal justification; whether the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel opinion against indicting sitting presidents (ordered by Nixon as Watergate was unfolding) is legally invalid and fraudulent, and whether that OLC opinion is misleading and full of fallacies and misstatements; whether wealth and estate taxes violate the “no taking” clause of the 5th Amendment; whether the death penalty violates the “cruel and unusual punishments” clause of the 8thAmendment; 9) foreign languages/cultures and Latin; 10) comparative religion, including examining key parts of the Bible and the Koran; 11) marketing and advertising; 12) psychology, including “group therapy” and “good parenting” workshops; 13) the major mistakes in economic, social, and foreign policy over the past 100 years and which would have been the correct policies.
Additionally, we need all-day public school, from nursery through high school, to free parents to work and to keep our youth constructively occupied and out of trouble. Quality breakfast, lunch, and dinner offered daily. And of crucial importance, well-organized extracurricular activities in the arts, sports, and vocational topics on weekends, holidays, and during the entire summer break, True, real equal opportunity must be provided to all our youth.
Our nation’s serious chronic problems are the result of our politicians’ ignorance and/or deficient logic and critical thinking. Knowledge without logic and critical thinking is worthless. Lyndon Johnson proclaimed the “War on Poverty” in 1965. The results since then have been miserable because the emphasis was not put on making all our public schools elite, the common sense solution. Had all public schools been turned into elite schools in 1965, there would be practicallyno poverty today. There would also be practically no unwanted pregnancies, so no battles over abortion; no violence, no crime, no mass shootings, so no need for gun control; no addiction; no racism, no religious, gender or sexual discrimination; no abusive behavior, no rape; no police brutality; no absurd conspiracy theories, no political animosity; no class warfare, no invidiousness; no need for high taxes, given more reliance on QE financing and a full-employment policy; no proposals for unconstitutional and anti-investment/double-taxation wealth taxes; no more unfair and economically counterproductive long-term capital gains taxes; no dishonesty, no hypocrisy, no corruption, no mentally disturbed, no authoritarians, no seditionists. We would have no migrant/illegal immigration crisis, as our political leaders long ago would have understood the logic of requiring all visa and asylum requests to be made exclusively at U.S. consulates in the country of residence, not at our border, and the logic of having a major, sustained Peace Corps effort to help poor countries develop economically and socially through effective education and infrastructure projects. Sounds too good to be true, pie in the sky? It’s not. It’s all well within our grasp if we just think straight and turn all our public schools into elite schools, thereby ending up with a well educated and well adjusted citizenry.
We had better start turning all our public schools into elite schools now, before it is too late, otherwise we may end up with a dictatorship run by the dishonest, the corrupt, the immoral, the cruel, the mentally disturbed, and the ignorant. Hitler and his followers were given more than one chance to gain total power. We must keep that lesson in mind. Never give politicians with autocratic tendencies a first chance, and certainly not a second chance.
© Edward Sonnino 2021
June 17, 2021
Independent Write-in Candidate for Mayor of New York City: www.mayored2021nyc.com
