The Road to Education - Closed

Twelve percent (yes, 12%) of American high school students have a firm grasp of US History according to the Department of Education's National Assessment of Progress Test for 2010.  A mere two percent (2%) have any idea what Brown vs. Board of Education is about.

So what do those thousands of dollars I pay in "school taxes" each year buy our children?

Apparently not very much useful - at least in the way of education.

Then there is my "Road Closed" road.  Several weeks ago a crappy repair made a couple of years ago failed and the outside curve sagged and started to fall off into the farmer's field.  Initially there was a "Road Closed" sign installed by the highway workers.

I passed by the initial installation of the sign on my morning jog - one of the workers was talking to someone that had stopped to ask a question about the closure, one was on his cell phone, one was in the truck that had brought the sign doing karaoke along with the radio.

For the last few years I have been paying a couple hundred dollars a year in "Road Tax".

I wondered if this is what I was getting for my money.

Then, of course, no work on the road occurred - though many people drove over the collapsing road.  The road crews, stymied by people's lack of adherence to the signage posted a cop nearby to arrest those that ignored the sign.  After a time that failed to stop the interlopers so a large backhoe was placed across the road.

This apparently did not stop the bikers from riding around the back hoe so, as of today, the road crew as ripped a six foot or so section of the road out, leaving about a one foot drop between each edge.   But this doesn't stop the runners...

The "running lady" who passes by my house in the evening seem undaunted by the recent modifications to the road.  We passed her on her way toward the closure one evening.  We were headed to the store.  After circumnavigating the detour there she was - passed the dug up road section as if by magic.

So, instead of, gasp, fixing the road as one would foolishly imagine a road crew would do we instead have the road crew at war with the users of the road.

What will be next, machine gun nests?  Mines? Marines?

(Simply placing an active sobriety check point near the spot would certainly keep everyone away.)

Given the current state of financial stress for municipalities and states one begins to wonder about the focus of these institutions.  Its almost as if, for example, the road crew's activities (vacations, wrk rules, pensions, health care, etc.) are more important than their actual job, i.e., fixing the road.  Similarly for teachers.

(Certainly on the news no one ever talks about, say, the quality of work some agency is doing.  They only talk about the pension for those working in the agency.)

While I am certain states are required to contribute, for example, to various pension programs it seems as if this is beginning to trump the actual doing of the work for the state.  That is, given a shortfall of money to we contribute that money to the pension of the road worker or to the road work?

Isn't there a law that tells the road department that they have to work on the road?

Why does the state need a karaoke singer in the three man crew to put up a sign?

How does 12% of the student body learn history while the rest do not?  Is it being taught in such a way so only 12% understand it?  Is it not being taught at all in traditional school settings and only the home-schoolers are teaching it?

And how, in today's politically correct atmosphere where every syllable is endlessly parsed for "racism", can but 2% of the population know what Brown vs Board of Education is for?  Is this lack of teaching of the history of "racism" in and of itself a "racist" act?

The bottom line here is that the mandated by law product (educated children, repaired roads) has been replaced with maintenance of lifestyle of those who are supposed to produce the product in the first place.