Jess is all heart. She knows there should be no strings attached to donations and that education is something that is a privilidge not a right. We frequently talk about this in the form of arguments about what is and is not an appropriate donation to goodwill. we also have had occation to breech the educational topic while filing taxes then later in the car back from filing for a FAFSA.
*Let me tell you gentle tax payers. Heed this well. It is a warning from me that what you are about to read may piss you off. It may discourage you as well.*
Let me first tell you what I am all about. I am a CRMA(gov't subsidized drug dealer), lifer in the non-profit sector, degree holding retunring to college student, who has withering faith in our non-profits and schools. I have been volenteering since I was three, and have been in school since I was five. For the last ten years I have tolerated shitty pay and hard working conditions for near minimum wage pay. All the while I have been a good sport still volenteering occasionally, and just keeping a stiff upper lip about being poor. I get satisfaction from my work and that is enough. right that is enough. well this is enough. I am no longer going to be withdrawn from this issue because it needs mending and the answers are out there. Philanthropy and education need to no longer be tax shelters and businesses respectively.
Last week I filed my taxes and found out that being generous to goodwill only fetches you a deduction if you are donating above the 5300 dollar amount. Philanthropy apparently is not encouraged for the lower class. I make below 20,000 and I have to donate more than a quarter of that to have the government recognize me as a philanthropist. I am not saying that I want a medal or any reward I just want to know that my government is not just allowing tax breaks for people who have endless amounts of disposable income. The reason I find the current system for having a standard deduction so objectionable is that giving is right and morally essential nomatter what faith you come from. The world cannot function on greed. Monetary incentives for giving are not working because the scale is not even. We should not allow tax sheltered non-profits to continue on while not allowing the poor to be acknoledged as well. A million dollars from a rich person may be worth the same to a poor person. It is the charitable spirit we should acknowledge not the numerical donation. Cold numbers mean little if donations become tax shelters.
The educational problem I am seeing is one I encountered while I was running for office but was unable to bring up before the end of the race. We are failing as a country to provide basic skills for people who want to succeed in life and be able to maintain a balanced interest in learning while holding a job. Our system has potential to be great but the government has bend to the wishes of the learning institutions and removed all incentitves for lifelong learning. If you were to follow the monetary incentives from high school through the life of the learner you would find a recipie for disaster. The FAFSA program encourages debt in young student populations giving out free money only in extreme cases and cases where the learner is going to promise the institution they will be in debt for a damn long time after graduation. This is so wrong it enrages me every time I think of the result. We are essentially not allowing people who are inspired to learn to do so without debt. Every hallmark of our college system points to this wrong yet for some reason it has not been righted. I believe that financial aid packages need to be reallocated to encourage thoughtful enrollment. Education is the key to success only if the education results in more education and contentment. My experiance tells me this. It took me three years to get excited about learning again after i greaduated from USM with a degree I should have never gone to school for. Not once during those years did an educator sit down with me and recommend I make sure that I was on the right path. High schools and colleges should be forced to work together to ensure students can graduate in four years with a degree that will earn them a good living and be in line with oppertunities if the student so desires.
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1 comment:
I enjoyed reading your thoughts, and I share some of your ideas. Still, as a teacher in Higher Ed, I take issue with a few of your final statements concerning education and the role of teachers:
You write: “. . .i greaduated from USM with a degree I should have never gone to school for. Not once during those years did an educator sit down with me and recommend I make sure that I was on the right path.” Students have access to faculty advisors who can help them navigate the choices and paths in college. While I agree that the role of an advisor is to help a student, I don’t think it’s correct to imply that it should be the responsibility of faculty to recommend students make sure they are choosing the “right” major. Shouldn’t that be the student’s responsibility? If students cannot ultimately make that choice on their own, perhaps they aren’t yet prepared for college. On a related note, there’s a lot of new research to support the idea that student narcissism is on the rise as a result of the “you-can-do-anything-you-want” and “you’re-special” movements among parents and schools that has emerged in recent years (NPR just did a piece on this: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7618722). I’m not saying I think these kinds of encouragements are bad for kids— in fact, I think they do wonders— but I do think that with certain individuals in some situations, it may lead to a sense of false entitlement, an attitude that suggests, hey, I’m special, so make my choices for me. I just think we have to be aware of the dangers that can arise when we shuffle responsibility.
You also state: “High schools and colleges should be forced to work together to ensure students can graduate in four years with a degree that will earn them a good living and be in line with oppertunities if the student so desires.” It’s a sad reality that many of our Humanities and Social Services jobs are notoriously low-paying; is that to say that our education system should discourage students from following these career paths? I’m not sure I’d want to live in a world where that were the case. When I was a senior in college, a student in the Humanities planning to enter graduate school, I sat down with one of my favorite professors to get some words of wisdom. His advice: don’t go to grad school; get a “real” job or go to law school. Thank goodness I didn’t listen to him. Granted, I had to struggle through a few years of not making a “good living,” but here I am after five years of teaching, financially secure and, more importantly, happy. Now, I’m not saying that I think you mean we should get rid of the Arts and Social Sciences, but I am saying that I think this is a problem much bigger than High School and College. If we want students in these fields to have just as much “success” as those in others, we need a societal change; we need a culture that sets the example by valuing these fields enough to pay workers what they’re worth.
Overall, I think education is what we make of it, whether or not that means sitting in a classroom. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts; great discussion. Take care.
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