Spending on prisons instead of education: pennywise and pound foolish

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/07-2

As a public school teacher I am quite familiar with this figure—it’s a typical teacher to student ratio in the classroom. But now that proportion has taken on new significance: A report released on March 2nd by the Pew Center on the States found that one in every thirty-one adults reside in the US corrections system—now totaling some 7.3 million people.

That means roughly one student per classroom in America will end up in prison, on parole, or on probation.

As New School Foundation board member Lisa Fitzhugh notes in her January 19th Seattle Times op-ed, states like Washington even determine how many prison cells to build based on 4th grade reading scores and graduation rates. So rest assured, if your 9-year-old stumbles over syntax or has trouble sounding out the word “priorities,” the state has readied the necessary cellblock accommodations. Why flush money down the sinkhole of reading improvement teachers when there are solitary confinement cells to be built? As the Pew study reports,

As George H.W. Bush said "Keep them fat, dumb, and happy". That was his recipe for creating an easily governed electorate. It also keeps the GOP in power; the less informed a person is the more likely they'll vote Republican. Another reason (outside of the general GOP principle that they should never spend a dime that doesn't directly benefit them TODAY) is the profitability of privatized corrections facilities. Private prisons take in huge numbers of taxpayer dollars. More Socialism for the already wealthy at the cost of the innocent; one recent article pointed out that teens who have committed the mildest of "crimes (traffic violations) were being sent to juvenile corrections facilities just to keep them full. It's a very sick system.

One of the good things about all of those fundraisers Oprah did for Obama; Oprah's "pet issue" is education. She believes that most of the world's ills can be cured if all children receive an excellent education. I don't think that she's far off there.

prisons in this country that from the Rethug point of view, it's good for business.