Hitting the Education Wall

We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher leave them kids alone
--Pink Floyd

My freshman college roomate was endowed with a nice turntable and a large record budget. I can therefore recall a rather inordinate number of artists who released albums during that school year. Springsteen, the Pretenders, Seger, even the Knack.

However, no album released that year was more memorable than Pink Floyd's The Wall. And no song on that album was more memorable than Another Brick in the Wall (Pt 2, officially).

The lyrics were accompanied by cryptic video at a time when MTV was settling into its own. There was a longer version and a shorter animated one.

The song told the story of collectivist education and the consequences of not conforming. In the videos, children were seen as being processed through a meat grinder.

Once processed by professors hammering home collectivist ideology, students would march in lockstep with the State.

These memories were evoked as I viewed this video yesterday. A poly sci professor from Tulane argues that public education would be better off if parents would cede responsibility to the 'collective.'

Of course, we have already been moving in this direction. Hundreds of billions have been poured into public education as parents have outsourced the development of their children to public schools. Results have been true to Floyd--declining academic performance, general predilection for homogenous thinking, and healthy sympathy for the State.

Not to mention yawning budget deficits that cannot be repaid by graduates who are not productive enough to cover the costs of the program.

It remains to be seen how much of the Tulane prof's arguments parents will continue to  slurp down. Hopefully it won't matter. As the song suggests, rebellion to Statist education ultimately comes from the kids.

As with all other aspects of the socialist agenda, public education is destined to hit The Wall.