BY CHRISTOPHER G. ADAMO – In the wake of the horrendous cheating scandal that has been exposed in the Atlanta public school system, in which nearly two hundred teachers and high-level school officials doctored and falsified standardized tests in order to create the impression of teacher competence and student proficiency, the primary focus is on who to blame and how to punish them. But that does not even count as a good start. The aftershocks in Atlanta are only beginning.
A few tepid efforts are being made within the district to implement safeguards that might ostensibly prevent similar events in the future. Yet in comparison to the scope of abject failure throughout the American education establishment, and the tragedy it portends for entire generations of young Americans who are failing with it, any token systemic changes will be as consequential as outlawing ice cubes in cocktails on ocean liners after the sinking of the Titanic.
The corruption in Atlanta was not limited to individual teachers and administrators who willingly participated in the cheating, nor even the de facto collaboration of those who allowed themselves to be cowed into silence. Rather, it is a microcosm of the entire government education monstrosity, and more specifically how that system, over the years, has largely forsaken its original intent of teaching children. Like every other statist creation, it has degenerated into a pipeline for channeling enormous sums of money taken from public coffers into the hands of overwhelmingly liberal special interests.
It can hardly be contended that, outside of Atlanta, children in government schools are faring significantly better. Does anyone seriously claim that elsewhere, such institutions can generally trumpet a pattern of success, characterized by pupils who understand the Constitution and American history, or exhibit excellence in math or the sciences? From Maine to California, America’s government schools are engaged in their own version of rampant cheating that dwarfs anything indigenous to the State of Georgia. And in an even larger sense, the tactics employed by the frauds in Atlanta reflect the manner in which the American left has advanced itself on the backs of the “little people” it so sanctimoniously professes to help.
Consider, for one example, the not so subtle suggestions of racism used to intimidate those who took exception to the cheating. According to the report released by Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, Atlanta School Superintendant Beverly Hall and her cronies “accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.” In truth, it was Hall and her cohorts who devalued the humanity and potential of Atlanta’s students, relegating them to the status of fodder to nourish the public education/money machine.
That those students would pass through a critically flawed system, never gaining the proper level of academic training from it, and be thereafter consigned to face life at an intellectually diminished status was of little concern to Hall and her cabal. Of singular importance was the necessity for the system to look good on paper, and thus guarantee a continued inflow of tax dollars. And this liberal contempt and scorn for the plight of future generations of Americans is hardly confined to urban Georgia schools.
It is worth recalling the groundbreaking work of freelance investigative journalists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, who exposed a menacing and despicable agenda within the “Association Of Community Organizers for Reform Now” (ACORN) back in 2009. Among the most revealing statements to come from any ACORN worker was a woman who, when told by Giles (posing as a prostitute) that she wanted to get her underlings into school, warned that if they received a worthwhile education, they would become self-sufficient and would no longer be dependent on Giles.
Ultimately, every action perpetrated by the American left can be understood on this basis. For liberals to accrue and hold power, it is essential that they establish and maintain a permanent underclass. It is only from the continued suppression of such chattel that they are able to solidify their positions of seeming importance and control. And if they can do so while perpetuating the notion that they are motivated by selflessness and benevolence, then their lock on the situation is that much more permanently cemented.
Thus, to the degree that liberals dominate the government school system, it is assured to be both exorbitantly expensive and inept. The same can be said of liberal dominated establishments of any kind, including the latest power/money grab that threatens both the rights and well-being of America, Obamacare. In no less a sense than the fraud in Atlanta, the euphemistically named “Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act,” has already put upward pressure on medical costs and insurance premiums across America, while guaranteeing a decrease in the quality and availability of America’s formerly unrivaled health coverage.
So as the grim statistics began to paint the dark picture of the havoc socialized medicine has already wreaked on the nation, how did the Obama Administration and its lackeys respond? They have juggled the numbers and concocted false “data” on a scale the makes the Atlanta cheats look like amateurs. Similar indictments can be made regarding the indefensible “Troubled Asset Relief Program” (TARP), Obama’s 2009 “Stimulus,” its phony promise of “Shovel-ready jobs,” and the entire “green energy” boondoggle.
Thankfully, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal did not waver or recoil at the appalling findings of his investigation of the cheating in Atlanta, but remained committed to uncovering the truth, as did his predecessor, Sonny Perdue. Only through a tenacious and courageous investigation could this travesty have been fully uncovered. The rest of America needs to recognize how rampant such activity is and, if the country is to be salvaged, expunge it from every level of public office.