NWLB: Imagine a Federal Program that Didn't Scapegoat Teachers as the Cause of Poverty in the United States

For too long now, the humble profession of career public-school teacher has been blamed for poverty in the United States.  How much longer must teachers be the scapegoats for society's ills?

In NYC during the Bloomberg years, the dismantling of public schools coasted along side by side with increases in poverty rates.  The privatization of public education and the harassment of teachers has not proven to be a panacea.  It has just sharpened the divide.  Indeed, public-school children have fared far worse in overcrowded, underfunded, now segregated public-schools. 

Since NCLB and its successor RTTT seem to miss the mark, I suggest a new federal program:  No Worker Left Behind.  Wouldn't it be nice if honest, hard-working civil servants and other employees actually merited respect?  Wouldn't it be nice if the economy could grow to support our college graduates?  In a country like South Korea, sited by Arne Duncan as a model of educational excellence, unemployment rates and suicide rates for college grads remain high.  Wouldn't it be nice if more people could be paid a living wage?  Wouldn't it be nice if more people could obtain full-time jobs with benefits instead of acting as temps to cut business costs?  Wouldn't it be nice if fewer jobs were outsourced to cheap labor working under potentially hazardous conditions, now illegal in the United States?  Wouldn't it be nice if pension systems were not robbed and their very survival threatened?

Think of all the metrics we could devise to see if NWLB, No Worker Left Behind, was actually working.  Perhaps all the statisticians who now use their junk science to harass public-school teachers could be redirected to new offices.   I just wonder if teachers were no longer the scapegoats of the wealthy and well-endowed who might really turn up as the real threats to the continued well-being of society!