Public Schools Vs. Post-Cold War Military Spending

Public Schools vs. Post-Cold War Military Spending

Even though the Cold War era is a distant memory, encased in glass forever like some museum piece, our government is still spending as if the Soviet Union was in its prime. If the arms race is a forgotten memory, then why is the military still spending 86% of what it was spending during the Cold War. It’s not that us Americans do not want a solid military, we just believe that our military is wasting billions of dollars at the expense of our children’s education and well being.

50 years ago our country, and the entire world was in disparate need of a strong U.S. military. We inflated our military budget, and gave the government and private businesses an enormous appetite. Without a major threat to the United States since the collapse of the Soviet Union, our government seems to be in competition with itself. 50 years ago we sent tons and tons of troops overseas to fight in a foreign land, while we pumped private businesses up with the manufacturing of military equipment. The need for such products and the need for an over-healthy military allowance is long gone. While we sunk billions after billions of taxpayer’s money on wars that we were boisterously proud to spend (it gave us all the prestige we could ever ask for), our Allies were investing in their children’s education and well being. The result now is that while we have the most elite military capabilities, our children’s educational level is extremely under developed. European and Japanese children significantly outperform American children in math and upper-level reading (NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER [NCR], 1999).

This should not be too surprising, our children are studying history books that are from a decade ago. This creates difficult obstacles for our children to keep up on current politics and other global events. Also the over crowding of classrooms makes it extremely difficult for your child to get that personalized learning which may determine his or her ability to learn at all. Every child learns at a different rate and possibly in different ways, this makes it virtually impossible for teachers to tap into every child’s full learning potential. If your child needs that extra, personalized attention, but is not "defined" as handicapped their specific learning needs will most likely be overlooked and that may be the beginning of your child’s inability to learn.