I normally don't dwell too much on my Polish heritage, despite the ethnic traditions playing a large role in my upbringing. My late dad came to the USA in August 1929 with his family as a six year old, and had only vague memories of growing up in a small town in what is currently north-eastern Poland called Ruda. As a 10 year old accompanying my parents on a trip to Poland (the first time my dad had returned to the country of his birth in almost 50 years) I recall us passing through Ruda - it was literally so small that if you blinked you would miss it. I counted six buildings, and one of them had a chimney...
This cought my eyes in the news this morning:
Poland Attracting US Tech Giants
How has Poland pulled off this feat of economic magic? Observers say it’s not just about the low labor costs compared to neighboring Germany, or the boon of a currency freed from the struggling Euro. They point to an impressive, decade-long campaign to raise the quality of secondary and university education.
A salient statistical detail in the article:
According to Eurostat, the proportion of Polish young people (aged 25 to 34) with college degrees has jumped from 15.0 to 37.4 percent since 2001.
So what is the lesson? I think if anyone needs it explained they are probably so dense that they would have difficulties noticing a 2x4 slamming into the side of their heads, but I suppose that describes much of the so-called Conservative wing of the USA's current political spectrum (apologies for being redundant here).
Living in Florida, I've seen our "esteemed" (read: "basically criminal") governor slash education spending in one year, then crow about nearly restoring those funds the next year. So over two years there has basically been a flat line in educational funding, but the reality is that the wild vacillation in support is not helpful to the public schools. We've also instituted a teacher evaluation system that apparently judges teachers on basically everything but the students they teach. Throw in attempts to create a school voucher program, and the truth is the GOP dominated state government in this state really does not support the concept of public education in this state very much.
Within my family, I've heard my radical right wing brother in law complain that schools "spend way too much money"...I've heard my RWNJ brother muse about seeing a nearly 50 year old book titled "Crisis in the Classroom" on my dying aunt's bookshelf "they knew there was problem back then"...those who frequent this site probably recall Rick Santorum's idiotic comment about President Obama being a "snob" because he wanted everyone to get some advanced training after High School. The overall dehumanization of public employees by the Conservatives in this country has a large component of ire pointed towards public school teachers.
I find a couple ironies in this article about Poland's efforts to strengthen their higher education system and results - first of all it contrasts with old canard about the "dumb Polack" and all the associate "jokes" this caricature has spawned. I long ago stopped being bothered by these poor attempts at humor, knowing that plenty of Poles in history have contributed to the arts and sciences (Marie Curie, Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński, Frederick Chopin, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, among others...), and confidence in my own intelligence.
The most important irony here, however, is how the Conservatives in this country have tried to co-opt Poland as a political ally, but their attitudes towards education could not be more diametrically opposed to the apparent attitude in Poland. In this country the Conservatives seem to think that less support of education will lead to better results. In Poland, a relatively conservative political environment, the attitude is the opposite, and the results seen in the last 10+ years suggest their ideas have actually produced tangible positive results.
But then again, it seems that "conservative" means very different things on opposite sides of the pond...and perhaps instead of calling the GOP "conservative" in this country we should start to call them "radical reactionaries".