At the same time, Carrol seems to be jumping on the slightest whiff he gets of what appears to be someone believing that bettering the schools will do the equivalent of what the conservatives like to claim about the economy, "Rising tide will lift all boats." I definitely sympathize with that critique but, in this case, it doesn't seem to apply to Joanna.
I mean, in general Carrol, I think you are correct in your larger critique - the one that I think undergirds your position: That if we could achieve better schooling, we have a better chance of winning people to the left. The derives, you think, from the notion that one's politics is closely connected to level of intelligence - not, of course, in terms of native intelligence, but in terms of the intelligence gained in classrooms. Your critique of this position is closely connected to your concern that a lot of criticism of right wingers rests on the idea that right wingers are basically dumb or dull or otherwise lacking a decent education, no?
Joanna wrote:
>I care about education because I don't like children to be tortured in
>order to justify profiting off public education. Better schools might not
>end capitalism, but it might help future citizens feel like they shouldn't
>be treated like crap.
>
>A lot of things won't end capitalism, but that doesn't mean we can't fight
>for justice in whatever sphere we happen to inhabit.
>
>Joanna
>----- Original Message -----
>
>Carrol says, "Schools are not a problem anyhow; there is no problem --
>problems are what they have in 6th-grade arithmetic texts with answers in
>the back of the book. And when there is no problem there is no answer to
>put in the back of the book or in the last paragraph of an e-mail post.
>There is a huge complex of social relations, relations that are no one's
>fault and that can't be changed by finding 'better' people. They can be
>changed, though to find out how we are going to have to fight one hell of
>a lot of losing battles."
>
>This is certainly true. Suppose that there were no standardized tests and
>that every teacher was a good one (whatever that might mean, but we might
>reach some sort of consensus). Would capitalist society, much less the
>capitalist mode of production, change? I doubt it. Yes, fight against
>standardized testing. Yes, fight for local control of schools. Yes, fight
>for (and with) teachers as you would fight for any workers. But don't put
>special focus on schools, as if you think that if our kids only had good
>schools and good teachers that this would be a better world. Or that the
>deplorable inequalities in incomes and wealth would dramatically change.
>It's a vast, impersonal, and barbaric system. Individually, we have little
>to no control over many, many important aspects of our lives. To a large
>extent, the starting block and chance rule for each of us, no matter how
>much we'd like to believe otherwise.