Tahir, those words emphasized above mark where so many embryonic conversations turn into empty and somewhat amateurish polemics. In a given post or given exchange one cannot go back to the invention of the wheel or the codex and carefully trace human history up to the point where, at a given moment, in the context of the whole of humanhistory, the post or exchange in question focus on only one issue. Also, beyond that unavoidable 'problem,' a shot gun list of all "the important issues" may blur those issues more than fousing on one as _the_ issue would. Of course textbooks are a 'problem,' in the U.S. as well as SA. Consider a child ocked in a room in a burning house. What is the_central_, in fact _only_ issue to begin with? Andswer: How to break down that door! But the child is a more important issue someone screams; forget the fucking door, let's concentrate on the child. Now when we turn to the schools[1] we have to start with teachers. U.S. imperialist leaders are determined to transform the wonderfully messy, inefficient, chaotic schoolint of the past into a Nationaly controlled, orchestrated, and above all efficient _system_ (and there has never been an Eduational System in the U.S.: that is the grat and beautiful featue of u.s. schoolin). It is that messiness and inefficiency that allows the island of excellence in which Miles operates to exist, and Miles, one of themost perceptive members of this list, suddenly cannot see around what he and his colleagues have to the material conditions that make his situation possible.
What stands between the Imperialist[2] policy makers and this transformation of a messy schooling into an efficient SYSTEM for the control of the population. ONLY TEACHERS. Now at the present time teacners are presenting only passive resistance, foot dragging. They are not even in embryo a fighting force. But neither are they a well-trained and disciplined Army for Imperialism. So Bush/Obama have set out to discipline that inchoate mass, and by the usually capitalist means: Impvoerish them. (Again, it is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of Marsx's argument in Wages, Price & Profit.)
And Tahir, you write, "a government that doesn't provide enough resources of all sorts of kinds, from books to buildings and that generally impoverishes the populace." All very true, and true of the U.S. as well. But this focuse on what is wrong tends to sidetrack the question of organizing/mobilizing resistance, just as the horror at the child's danger in my crude little example obscures the problem of that locked door. What leftists think is pretty irrelevant as long as they have no Power to change what is wrong. And of course for the left, there is only one kind of power, only one conceivable form or source of Power: Working People organized to resist. And there is a very accurate measure of that power: The number of people who take to the Street to March. In my lifetime, the high point of working-class power was November 15, 1969, when in our tens and hundreds of thousands we gathered in Washngton, D.C and San Francisco (and there is evidence tha by doing so we may have stopped a nuclar war.) As of now, teachers do not exist as a collective entity; we cannot know whether they will ever exist as a collective entity (whether as resistance fighters or as an efficient army of imperialism). But if you want better schools; if you want schools that make room for creativity (it is absurd of course to think schooling can actively develop creativity), then there is only ONE central issue for you, because there is only one (potential) force that can defend such 'values:' Teachers. So yes, the only issue, the ONLY issue (in the Debate over Schools) that makes sense for leftists: Higher Pay for Teachers.
No guarantees. Teachers may not rally in their own (and thus in the working class's) defense. We shall see.
Carrol
------------ [1] Incidentally, u.s. schools are one fucking hell of a lot better than their defenders on this list recognize. But there again, there is no way to 'appreciate' the excellence of u.s.schooling, its supreiroity to that of (say) France or Japan, until one has first escaped from theideological blinders that prevent examiing those schools in any depth. If that ideological investigarion is blocked from the beginning by screams of But Kids are Important' or "Is Capital chpped liver," then thee is not going to be a very interesting conversation.
[2] I try not to use this word very often, but I think it's correct hee: Our political elite do understand Ellen Wood's point: they know that the U.S. must continue to operate as the"Power of Last Resort" in maintaining the stability of world capitalism, that this entails Endless War, and it is a war that the populationmust support. Their domestic policies, including Educational policies have to be seen in this light. They also know that "Business' requires a steadily falling standard of living in the U.S. and other 'core' capitalist nations, and that also is a bit of a ticklish problem for them. Their assault on u.s. schooling is an important then in the same way that earlier in the process the crushing of PATCO and the computerization of the Post Office were important: Teachers have to be disciplined as industrial workrs, Postal Clerks, and Air Controllers were disciplined.