Cunning Tricks and the Privatization of Our Schools

This morning, I turned, happenstance, to Mark 14.1-2:

It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, “Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.” [NRSV]

The Common English Bible has a bit more bite to it:

It was two days before Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and legal experts through cunning tricks were searching for a way to arrest Jesus and kill him. But they agreed that it shouldn’t happen during the festival; otherwise, there would be an uproar among the people.

As I read through the passage, given what I heard last evening from Diane Ravitch about American Education and the full-tilt effort of "reformers" (read corporate interests) to take over education, I found myself considering "the rich and the powerful" of Jerusalem and how they hated Jesus, and did everything they could to undo him, because the message of Jesus was for The People and their children.

In similar fashion, the rich and the powerful of our day are doing everything they can to undo American Public Education - with a cunning strategy -  spinning endless hoaxes about "just how bad things are," and telling American "we can rescue our children if you will only turn them over to us and our corporations."  

The large audience last evening [October 2, 013] at CalState Northridge was huge and enthusiastic, and gave me hope for the future, that maybe, just maybe, there might be a coming revolution in America, when The People finally realize what "cunning tricks" have been used by the rich and the powerful (read chief priest and legal experts) to destroy American Education - to turn our children into nothing more than worker-bees to compete in international markets.

But worker-bees are not we need or want - we want American Citizens who can think critically and be an informed electorate, and serve wisely on school boards and town councils (the last thing the rich and the powerful want).

And, btw, good citizens will always be good workers, able to compete in the international markets. But good citizens will also be able to see cunning tricks for what they are, and with sound legislation and wise politicians, craft laws that serve all the people all the time, with fairness and dignity for all.

Let's not forget that the rich and the powerful of Jerusalem made headway in their cunning and succeeded in destroying Jesus, at least for three days. And to this very day, the rich and the powerful plot his death again and again, because they hate him and his populist message.

The rich and the powerful always behave in this manner - nothing new here. 

Because the message of faith, hope and love, is always a threat to them, and though, for a time, the message may be killed and buried beneath a heavy stone sealed by the powers-that-be and guarded by their armies, those stones are always rolled away, and the message of hope rises again from the dead, to bring liberty to the oppressed and sight to the blind [Luke 4].

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Diane Ravitch's latest book: The Reign of Error

Click Here for her Blog.

"A Classmate Went Missing" - Poet Bob Dahl

From my dear friend, the Rev. Dr. Robert Dahl, a fine writer and delightful poet.

A Classmate Went Missing

A classmate went missing from his class

reunion only to be discovered later dead.

A response from a classmate reflecting on

the dead who he hadn’t seen in let’s say around

fifty years, in part, “A handful of us always seemed to be

competing. Good practice for the next 40 years.

The only competition left is who will outlive the other…..

and of course, who has the

brightest and best looking grandchildren……….need I

say more.”  (He must have forgotten in his

old age that that was a question requiring a question mark

and there were way too many ellipses.) —- hmmmm,

probably written jokingly, but hmmmm…so…does shallower than a

kiddy pool in a drought  come to mind,

and after fifty years no less?  And when the last person living

reflects on his situation and what he has won

what will he  have?  Oh, yeah, loneliness.

Good Lord.

Fifty years and still counting… still competing.

“Hey, guess what?  I beat so and so and so

and so and so and so and so and old

whatshisface… and ….”

So what?

And if that classmate is the only one left standing

and cries, “Hey, I won!” into the void

will there be the sound of victory or just the sound of silence

from back in the 60’s? Oh, yeah, the most

beautiful  and brightest grandkids:  “Bye, bye

Grandpa,” as they go off to their futures without

much as a thought of him as he sits by himself

surrounded by all of his trophies.

Need he say more into the void (leaving only the question mark

he forgot the first time around),

about that shallow-as-a-kiddy-pool comment

on the death an old high school

classmate? Oh, yeah, in all fairness, he said it brought a tear

to his eye, too.