[Satire Alert!] Rep. John Kavanagh has proposed shortening Arizona’s education requirements to completion of the sixth grade.
“Someone who’s going to work behind the counter at McDonalds doesn’t need any more than a sixth grade competency in reading and math,” he said. “It’s time to dramatically look at our entire philosophy of K-12 education.”
Kavanagh suggested students who earn his new Certificate of Sixth Grade Competency need one addition to their education before they leave school. “They all should be required to take a three week course in basic English elocution. We need to be able to understand them when they ask, ‘Do you want fries with that?’ or ‘Would you like to supersize that?’” He added, “If they can train people at India’s call centers to speak like Americans, certainly we can train our students to say a few key phrases so customers can understand them.”
When asked whether it makes sense to encourage people to have a high school education so they can be informed citizens and voters, Kavanagh replied, “Are you kidding? We shouldn’t let those idiots vote! I’m working on a ‘No Diploma, No Ballot’ bill that adds a high school diploma to voter ID requirements.”
OK, Kavanagh never said any of that, but I put a Satire Alert! up front because, as ridiculous as my faux-news story sounds, it’s well within the range of unreasonable discourse we’ve come to expect from conservatives.
What Kavanagh actually said was Arizona is sending too many students to our state universities. These are his words — and I’m not making this up.
“If somebody’s going to end up in a sales position or someone’s going to be a real estate agent, why are we investing all this money in a research university degree?” he said. “What’s the purpose of it?”
Kavanagh sees this as a cost saving measure. Rather than increase funding for our universities, we should just cut back on the number of students.
“We spread limited money over a large area, and we have a lot of college graduates who are working in retail and food service jobs. Is that really a good way to spend money?”
Another state budget problem solved.
Of course, Kavanagh isn’t without a softer, caring side. He’s also concerned about the plight of all those low wage workers with college degrees who are shouldering the burden of college loans they can’t afford to pay off. Apparently Kavanagh doesn’t think the rising tuition costs which are a result of lowered state support are an issue that needs to be addressed. Just get all those people who won’t earn much money out of the university — he’s probably referring to those useless English and philosophy and history majors — and graduates will be able to pay off their college loans just fine.
The history of education in the 20th century was all about greater inclusion to create a more educated citizenry. If conservatives have their way, the 21st century will be the first time in this country’s history when we move toward making education more exclusive and shift its mission to worker training.
This article appears in Jan 16-22, 2014.
Fail Alert !
A misguided effort at satire. Kavanagh has initiated what ought to be the start of a serious conversation. We shouldn’t be afraid to talk about the issues he’s brought up.
Colleges and universities with high freshman enrollments and low graduation rates are using young people instead of developing them. U of A has been exhibiting this symptom for quite a while. No one should be ridiculed for trying to address it.
You certainly don’t need more than a HS diploma (or a GED) if you are running a tire shop in St. Johns or Snowflake in Eastern Arizona. That’s where our arch-conservative (pre-Tea Party) reps come from.
I will be financially supporting the opponents of Kavanagh and Yarbrough and the Andys (Tobin and the other clown in legislative leadership) to get them unseated this fall.
But then these 6th grade competency folks will try to make a living at doing what has traditionally been a ‘starter’ job for teenagers who then traditionally get more education or training to get a job that they can make a living at. The ones who want to make a living in a ‘starter’ job are basically taking away those ‘starter’ job opportunities for teenagers.
Perhaps if they were educated, they wouldn’t have to become politicians.
I really don’t think Kavanagh, who has three advanced degrees, believes this. I think he’s feeding his troglodyte base.
trog·lo·dyte
noun ˈträ-glə-ˌdīt
: a person who lived in a cave in prehistoric times
Nice word.
40+- years ago, a Yuma County Community College Board member (who, parenthetically was astonished that PCC had three female board members) said to the group I was in, “Why do we need everyone to have a college education? If everyone gets a college education, we won’t have anyone left to pick the cotton crops.” Of course, he was a distinguished, wealthy cotton farmer. This concept is still alive and well in our fair state. 20 years ago, a former TUSD supt. said to me in a recorded interview, it was wrong to put accelerated college bound classes over at Pueblo High, where no one in the students’ families had ever gone to college and they wouldn’t be able to succeed there either. In the time of which he was speaking (the 60s) a young female honor student at Pueblo was advised by a high school counselor to not take seats and scholarships that would benefit Anglos at University, because she was a Mexican girl and all they ever did was get married and have babies. The current 4 members of the PCC Board have allowed an attempt, and in some cases have fought back against changing, to limit admissions to PCC “because the students would never succeed.” Does anyone else see a trend? The whole thrust of freedom of choice is open doors, not close them. Provide the tools for success, then let the marketplace determine who rises and who falls. The nature of capitalism rests on this.
What about underpaid Arizona teachers who are struggling to pay off student loans? Does Kavanagh propose lowering education levels for them? That would probably be simpler than raising salaries of educators, eh?
Some more goodies to add to the Kavanagh “Satire Alert!”:
1. Change the voting age to 26. (Obama & Congress with good insight raised the
young person “health insurance ” age to 26…realizing full adulthood has move
up from the old 16-21 rang.)
2. Change the military service draft age to 26. (Oh, if congress declares war all elected
and appointed officials [fed, state, local] will register for the draft and 51% of these
official will be drafted to go to war.)
3. All elected/appointed officials (fed, state, local) shall be 30 or older.
4. The citizen requirement to be president should be changed from “natural born
citizen” to “US citizen”. Reason: Both of the large political parties over the last
eight years have presented some candidates who do not pass the “natural born
citizen” test.
5. Adopt 100% education voucher to all children, via their parents to choose home,
private, or public education. (1) Will give parents their prior-right to ed/train their
children. (2) Will give all children education/training opportunities. (3) Will lower
cost of education. (4) Will help reduce private and public debt.
6. Adopt state constitution & state statutes to recognize “Full Voting Rights” to every
voter age 18 (or 26 if raised). Arizona (& most 49 other states) do not honor/respect
our “Full Voting Rights”…yet!
Thanks and Good Luck….Keep those ALERTs coming.
Frank Henry
fmhenry4@netzero.com
gcb1, your comment moved me to anger and tears. Just before I read it, I wrote a new post which echoes the experiences you describe: “An MLK Day/University Education Thought Experiment.” It should be up soon.
Kavanagh could stand to take Stephen Covey’s lessons to heart.
Having been educated in the British Public Education System, I say that American schools are completely pathetic. I learned more in high school than most learn in four years of college here in the US. If we don’t fix our pathetic excuse for an educational system, our nation is going down the toilet!