this has nothing to do with being "smart". This has everything to do with being educated.

Smart implies IQ, aptitude, etc. whereas what the GOP wants is a highly uneducated electorate.

You can have someone who is very smart but uneducated and have the opposite, someone who may not have the highest IQ but is very educated, engaged, etc.

(that's 100-factorial!)

"Smart" relates not just to a potential, but to a fulfilled potential.

to question what Faux News tells them.

Because they are the ones actually being implemented right now. And they are a model of educational corporatization, privatization, and deform.

Or was the goal here just to post something vague about education and Republicans, and hope that people would get all riled up and not notice that the educational crises happening in this country right now are happening because Obama has signed on to corporate education deform, and picked his Secretary of Education to further that goal?

We can keep mindlessly posting and following the propaganda that tells us the problem is coming only from one side, or we can open our eyes and face the truth. We're not going to solve a problem until we are honest about what the problem really is:



RAVITCH: Conservative think tank praises Obama for standing up to teachers' unions
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101642419

Teachers give cold shoulder to Obama education chief
http://betterment.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1113854

Obama’s Universal Preschool Proposal = Race to the Top for Tots (more education deform)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022378733

Obama's 'Race To The Top' Drives Nationwide Wave of School Closings, Teacher Firings
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022183810

Rick Snyder's school privatization plans may get Race To The Top money from Arne. Really?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021966822

Education: The Big (Profit) Enchilada
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002967097

A Call for President Obama to Change Course on Education
http://www.democraticunderground.com/11244560

How Michelle Rhee is taking over the Democratic Party
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021305279

Get corporations out of education: An open letter to Obama's Sec. of Education, Arne Duncan
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022384780

Arne Duncan says Obama agrees with NJ GOP thug Gov. Christie on education
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101637756

Arne Duncan says Teach for America founder has done more to identify good teachers than anyone in the country.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x830312

Teachers demand Arne Duncan's removal
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1124514

Obama continues High Stakes Testing
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4131605&mesg_id=4132015

BAD bipartisanship: Obama ed sec to speak at Jeb Bush public ed privatization conference
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101648354

Can we be honest now about the war on public education?
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/8492

What I am seeing is a purposeful plot to destroy public schools, and to profit from the destruction.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022563400

It gets very old, the constant vague, emotional bids to rally into our Red and Blue teams, while completely ignoring our own party's complicity (and current leading role) in the corporate takeover.

..... to post this astronomical list of posts on the current plight of Education in the USA. As a matter of fact, this needs to be a lead OP so all open-minded DUers (which I think we all are) will have the opportunity to read up on this all important issue. Education is an issue that supersedes politics. Period. Thank you, woo me, for this tremendous post!

Did the democrats take over and no one told me?