Rather than calling the ongoing slashes to our educational systems an “unwanted and painful necessity,” as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did last week, we should call it what it really is — California’s academic genocide.
We don’t wish to lessen the agonies inflicted on victims and descendents of past atrocities inflicted by state hegemony toward American Indians, Mexican Americans, Mexicans, Chinese and others by playing the genocide card, but that’s the current reality in the Golden State.
The controversial definition of what is or is not genocide explained to today’s politically atrophied youth shouldn’t be defined only by measurable death, but by the educational opportunities that are being slain with a dull knife.
Education slashes start at the bottom of the economic scale, hurting urban and inner city teens most, but the damage doesn’t stop there. By stripping low-income youth of opportunity, the next generation of urban youth gets oppressed even further. As they get pushed deeper in the hole, those who are higher in the socioeconomic food chain will get pulled down in their wake. It’s the Domino Principle run amok.
Many community college and K-12 systems, including Long Beach Unified School District, are eliminating summer school because their budgets are skeletal. Last week, Schwarzenegger proposed cutting another $481 million to the California State University system. He tried to eliminate Cal Grants, which would have impacted all levels of education in the state.
Instead of cutting education the state should be increasing its investment. A highly educated society is the only way to fix a broken system.
While approximately 1-in-10 Californians are unemployed, many employers are having a hard time filling positions that require college degrees. According to Forbes, the greatest shortage is for engineers. Engineers are expected to become scarcer as infrastructure projects funded by the federal stimulus program like highways, tunnels and bridges get underway.
Other positions in demand are for teachers, nurses and informational technology. Educated workers will be needed as the country shifts to green technology. If California isn’t capable of harvesting educated and skilled workers to meet demand, other states and nations will capture businesses and the state will plummet further into economic obscurity.
We have become lethargic, apathetic and complacent. We need to twist our legislators’ arms and demand they not only stop trying to balance the budget on education’s back, but that they return and increase educational funding to keep us in the running.
By disenfranchising “millennials” the state relegates its youth — its future — to the nightmare of never being able to realize the “American Dream.” The message being sent is, “There is no way out of the jungle, so prepare to be eaten — or to eat each other.”
The time is past due for massively bombarding Sacramento with letters, phone calls and e-mails. Until legislators and the governor realize that academic genocide is unacceptable, they will continue hacking away at our most critical resources — education.