Peter E. Pflaum - Golden Globe - The Synergy Network
http://www.wiredbrain.net/  Pflaump@wiredbrain.com

RE: Best schools in the world:

There are some of the best schools in the world in and around
NYC.  The names are Groton, The Dalton Schools, St. Pauls,
Phillips, American Friends, MaryMount, The Japanese school, the
International School, other private academies mostly for the
rich. Fees run up to $25,000 per year. Then there are the
Scarsdales, Marion Conn., Westchester County, Oyster Bay, etc.  
I really don't know what gives these days. There are also some of
the worse schools. Maybe to coin a phase "It's a tale of two
cities." 

You would never know it from the public media or learn it public
schools (or maybe even in the Schools of Education) but the
America social system is very class structured. The Rich and
Super Rich send their children to the best schools, then Harvard,
Yale, and other good colleges. In "Who rules America" (Rose) and
in Tom Dye's work on the Irony of American Democracy - show that
families like the George Walker Bush's - household like his,
still maintain a large part of the power (and most of the wealth
) in the society. A easy factor to track is private upper class
schools from the Catalina Island school to Phillips Academy in
New England and members of boards, social positions (the blue
books, who's who etc)

Rich suburbs have the best supported schools that pay teachers
twice as much for much more pleasant work. In small towns that
had a "common" education, High School stunted working class
students into under-funded vocational programs, and upper class
kids into college prep programs. The work of Coleman, Lipsets,
Hunter, Warner, Hunts, and other community studies show the class
structure in public education. Social Democrats in Europe would
never stand for the way working class people are treated in this
country. But then the working class were "foreigners" or "blacks"
or "slum dwellers", or Irish, or Mexicans, "them" - not "us".
They was never a labor party in this country to protect the
interest of the "working man" because the skilled workmen of the
AFL did not feel they had a common cause with the "alien" CIO.
Social and ethnic power reinforced a caste system. In fact
skilled trades kept out non-family members.

The industrial school system was constructed to "Americaize"
foreigners. From the 1830's to the 1930's the vast majority of
city people were first and second generation immigrants. They
were need in the growing factories owned by the WASP (English)
and run by German and Scot engineers and foeman, with Eastern
European, Italian, Irish, and black workers. The Schools looked
and ran like factories. Working class girls were hired to be
school teachers as a step into the middle class. Upper and most
Middle class girls didn't work in those days - or did social
work, or tutor music, or French - or maybe in a Private School.
Nursing was also a working class, female and poorly paid trade or
profession. Public education benefited from the lack of
opportunities for women, these same women now go into much better
paid profession, accounting, business, banking, etc. Men taught
in High Schools separated neatly by class, never a very "good"
job.   


As the demand grows for skilled (really skilled labor) and at the
same time declines for semi and unskilled workers the traditional
industrial school can't keep up. This is THE social issue. In the
past, until the 1970's, High School graduates went into factories
and did quite well. Now there is almost no market for the mass
produced semi-literate graduates from our poorer schools. Fully
half of new high school graduates can't read on the 7th grade
level of yesterday and the 25% that don't finish many can't read
at all - a major cause of crime because what else can they do,
dead end minimum wage jobs ? The military won't take them any
more. (I really believe in the military as a educational and
corrections institution ) It was when a young man got into
trouble it was reform school or the army. Now the Army is too
picky. 

We should look to Europe and the training of skilled workers but
are still bogged down in class, ethic, racial politics. The Upper
class has abandoned it's obligations, the middle class runs
scared of the competition, and the working class sinks into the
under-class lumped-proletarian. So we build walled towns like the
"insiders" in Panama. We become a banana republic. Haiti has one
of the most poorly educated population in the world and some fine
Lycee's for the very very rich. The Rich in Latin America go to
USC, Harvard or Madrid. It's a tale of the lack or real
opportunity for our peasants. Let them eat cake ??? Apre' moi la
deluge ? Revolutions are caused by people doing well and being
pushed back - like in France, Cuba, Russia - a failure of
expectations, dis-illusion-ment, false promises.. Remember social
warfare is to keep the poor quiet. Otto Von Bismarck and the land
and factory owners of Europe created Social Security to kill off
the socialist.

RE: SPQR the Roman System (Church and State)

You know the Roman Empire fell of it's own weight. (Gibbons) The
protestant reformation was about the powers of an executive
bureaucracy. (Weber) The Mayas workers just picked up a left when
the tax rate was too high. The History of China, for 5,000 years,
is the Yin and Yang of central and decentralized power. The
center brings order but get oppressive which sparks rebellions
and war lords and chaos a new strong ruler. The American System
of Government is congressional where the Speaker of the House was
the most important figure in Federal Government for with most of
our history. (Wilson) The power is in the hands of war lords
called committee chairmen and policy is called log rolling. 
Lincoln (and to some extent Roosevelt, one of the few presidents
more powerful than the speaker - but Joe Cannon could make a case
) ignored the constitution then rewrote it. The original idea was
to give very limited powers to a federal state. We could try that
again. IBM, GM, CBS, were the local lords of their day, and their
day has almost past, they are in the twilight of history.

According to Hagel (and Marx ) the thesis of the corporate state
is meeting the anti-thesis of the Z organization, small is
beautiful, less is more, fast, creative, moral and meaningful
beyond material gain. 

The bottom line has changed. 

The consumer society, were frantic families are working hard in
stupid jobs, to keep up the mortgage, the car payments, the
credit card bills, are buying themselves into dis-illusion with
the commercial, material, superficial, false frills of fashions
of current relativist value free society.(while the children go
to hell and bad public schools) We have meet the enemy: who are
is our best and most creative element of our civilization -
commercials and psychological manipulation. The glory of product
images and the happiness they bring is so wrong and successful,
MTV and Bill Clinton, only being a leading edge of all
commercials and false hopes.

Education is "face the truth and the truth shall make you free".
There is no freedom ( An ancient Greek argument ) for those whose
lives are false, living in a dream, asleep, unaware,
intellectually comatose. Commercial are just so designed to
produce slavery, tyranny to THINGS, to externals that make false
promises, the whispers and temptations of the devil himself.

That's why values and character matter - I'll go with the General
(Powell) because he has character - policy doesn't matter much or
does the president for that matter. It's mostly show so we may
hire another professional actor. Who gets what, when and how is a
power play. The masses are not even in the audience, and the
public address system doesn't give the real score. It's all a
"human interest" story on sound and fury that signify nothing,
the evening TV news is the muttering of mad people, Bengie (in
the sound and the fury) like me...

***************************************************************
Peter E. PFLAUM Ph.D. , Headmaster
GLOBAL_VILLAGE_SCHOOLHOUSE 225 Robinson Road, New Smyrna Beach
http://pflaump.ip.america.com      FL 32169-2176 (904) 428-9609   
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