Cartoon 674: Oxymoron

In this cartoon I pose a question: “If education is so important to the nation, why is it being killed in America?”

Asia and other areas of the world are focusing on education as the strategic advantage. Government policy is shaped around fostering education. In South Korea when someone references a second language learned, it is not English.  English is a given in the education system. A second language means learning Chinese Mandarin. India is focused on science and engineering. China emphases technology. Even Viet Nam, and South Africa have joined the education rush. Only America seems to be going in the opposite direction.

Education as a national advantage is not new.  The Soviet Union had the largest number of scientist and engineers in the world. Russia at that time had one of the highest literacy rates in the world. This vaulted the Soviet Union to superpower status rivaling America. The world had seen what happened in America when a certain level of public education was made mandatory and free.

America has a solidified aristocracy.  It is apparent in the disparity in wealth that now follows each succeeding generation. The first purview of any aristocracy is the garnering of education. The way this is being accomplished is pricing it out of reach for the vast majority of people. In fact 60% of the people that achieved higher educations several decades ago could never afford it today.

The engine for America’s place in the world has been the ubiquitous and free liberal education system that facilitated social change. Social mobility by many studies is now less in America than in Europe. We see so many non-ethnic indigenous faces in the high tech, science and economic fields because we have to import the educated people.

I imagine a future historian will look back on America’s demise and wonder why we were stupid. The “oxymora” is that being stupid does not give rise to greater stupidness.