Condoleezza Rice: U.S. Education Will 'Drive Us Into Class Warfare'

On a special Thanksgiving edition of Face the Nation, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told CBS's Bob Schieffer that the U.S. public school system is the nation's largest problem.

"Because with the failing public schools, I worry that the way that my grandparents got out of poverty," Rice said. "The way that my parents became educated, is just not gonna be there for a whole bunch of kids."

Rice went on to say the system's shortcomings, combined with poverty and racial divide, will cause serious problems in the future.

"I think it's gonna drive us into class warfare like we've never seen," she said. "Because education, even in the segregated South, was always the way that you got out."

Also on the program last week, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul highlighted his criticisms of the system, and offered a solution: limiting the federal role in public education.

"The money isn't there. These are departments that are doing too much. The American people are sick and tired of our educational system," Paul told Schieffer.

Similarly, Texas Gov. Rick Perry recently spoke out on his proposed plan to get rid of the entire Department of Education.

"We'll eliminate agencies that perform redundant functions," the Republican candidate said. "Get rid of the Department of Commerce, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy." Perry said in a speech in Bettendorf, Iowa.

Perry shares this view with other GOP hopeful Michele Bachmann.

"The Constitution does not specifically enumerate nor does it give to the federal government the role and duty to superintend over education," Bachmann said at the Palmetto Freedom Forum in South Carolina in September.

"That historically has been held by the parents and by local communities and by state government. To put that into the federal government as we saw a Department of Education in the late 1970s has eviscerated the constitutional understanding that the control of education truly lies with the parents."

Comments

[l78lancer]

07:25 PM on 12/04/2011

Times have changed tremendously from the late 1890s and early 1900s to now. Gone are the days of the huge factories, rows and rows of telegraph and telephone wires on poles lining streets, rail cars pulling up to loading docks at the back of facilities and stock being loaded directly into warehouses, cities with smoke filled skies from stacks high above, and hundreds of people working on thousands of factory floors across the nation.

Back then perhaps only a few needed high levels of education while workers carried out instructions. In business today, most employees have their own work stations, May work in an office, from home or from an internet cafe, are expected to think and function independently, be able to solve problems and create new opportunites. That requires critical thinking skills. Critical thinking was not valued in the work environment of 100 years ago, yet many of the GOP presidential cantidates endorse the return to that kind of economic environment. Consequently no value will be placed on education with that kind of mind set.

If the US is to never regain a foothold as a viable economic force, producer of technology, or be a purveyor of medicine and pharmaceuticals all we, as a nation, have to do is follow the regressive education proprosal and ideas of the GOP conservatives.

[l78lancer]

06:55 PM on 12/04/2011

While there is a great deal of wisdom in Condi's concern, I'm afraid that her point of view will get lost in they budget cutting hype and hysteria.

So many people play down the role of the Department of Education, but it fills in holes that are otherwise left vacant. In addition, while there is disagreement about:

-how testing should be handled across the nation,
-how teachers should be evaluated across the nation,
-how schools and school districts should be managed across the nation,
-and how curriculum development should happen across the nation,

that unless until there is some standardization, quality control and verifcation of what works and what doesn't across the nation there will be a great deal of variation and disparity across the country and the US will continue to lag behind the rest of the educated world. Standardization and general improvement is difficult to achieve with the current Department of Education. It will be impossible to achieve without any department at all. If the right wants to kill the public school system eliminating the department goes a long way in that direction. That will adversely affect the quality of our college students and will ultimately affect our ability compete internationally.

Thus the educational problems have the potential to adversely affect national security and our economic viability.

[mrsL]

08:22 AM on 12/01/2011

The answer is to give the schools back to the communities and have then run locally. Homeschools can give a good education at the kitchen table on a shoestring budget. Clearly it's not the money and all the stuff that makes for a good education.

[lele215]

06:42 PM on 11/30/2011

Condi is, always has been and always will be a follower. She doesn't have the guts or the balls to speak to authority, make waves, or implement change thus she will NEVER run for office. She does what she is told and doesn't ask any questions. While those characteristics make her an excellent employee, they also make me question any opinions she may have.

Seriously, I wonder who instructed her to make a statement on education.

[mrsL]

08:21 AM on 12/01/2011

So if we follow that line of logic, you would only take the opinion of a CEO and never one from any one who works as any sort of subordinate.

wow.

[TheTightwireGuy]

05:24 PM on 11/30/2011

Dear Dr. Rice:

There already is are a number of class wars going on. And as mentioned by Warren Buffet, his class, the ultrarich, is winning by a landslide:

http://classwarchronicles.com/blog/

And a large part of the success has been the ability of the right wing to pit the upwardly aspiring white-collar middle class against blue collar and unskilled workers by (a) vilifying unions and (b) selling the American public on the economic promise of trickle-down economics and the globalization of the economy. I was once one of those fooled by these sales jobs, but no more. And the American people are waking up to these con jobs.

[rpbusmc]

12:11 PM on 11/30/2011

It is all about mis-education. As long as you have a class of people who feel that they are superior to another class of people no matter how dumb they are they will never see the forest for the trees.

[JBDenver]

06:40 PM on 11/30/2011

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Please expand.

[LisaViger]

11:49 AM on 11/30/2011

This isn't about education. It's about the $581 billion we spend on elementary education every year. They want it. And they don't want it going to your kids.

We've seen the results, like the National Heritage Academies ... a chain of 70+ "charter" schools owned by a pair of Koch-like brothers who became billionaires via private waste management. These schools have a right wing curriculum, a "morals" focus, and can decline entry to any child for any reason (race, special needs, opinion, etc). And they're paid for with taxpayer funds.

THAT'S what this witch is talking about. She means they want the money, and couldn't care less about the education.

[Jean Bastien]

05:00 PM on 11/30/2011

Yes how dare we teach our children about "morals"...
You trumpeting a false narrative when you say they decline children over race, etc. Of course they decline students, but usually the most underprivileged get accepted, in general. That';s who receives the tax-payer benefits, which I'm all for. Charter schools have shown to be great for children. It's the unionized public schools who don't want charter schools around. What does THAT say about their intentions for our youth? The PUBLIC schools want all the money so they can waste it on bureaucracy and paying bad teachers and severance packages for failed superintendents. Stop sniffing the Koch and don't call a lady a witch.

[LisaViger]

08:49 PM on 11/30/2011

How about i call her a punt? :)

[LisaViger]

09:01 PM on 11/30/2011

They DO decline children for whatever reason they like, Which is exactly why they shouldn't be able to get their nasty, filthy, thieving, grubbing hands on one thin dime of taxpayer money.

"Morals" is the win.gnut code word for religion. These "charter schools" should be called "American Madrassahs."

[mrsL]

08:23 AM on 12/01/2011

Well what exactly are we getting for the $581 billion we spend on elementary education? Has it made a positive difference?

[LisaViger]

07:14 PM on 12/01/2011

What are we getting? Surely you jest. We're getting a 99% literacy rate, just slightly below but still on par with every other nation that has publicly provided education. When you look at countries without public education, that level drops sharply.

Yes. there are things we can do better re: public eduction. But what seems to be your absolute dissmisal of the value of educating an entire nation is breathtaking in its ignorance.

[dumasjohnj]

08:31 AM on 11/30/2011

If you are not going to the library or online "ON YOUR OWN" after school to find out more about something even one teacher in an entire school has interested you in. The school has FAILED. Look at any failing school and that one teacher is missing. Instead failing schools double down on bureaucratic planned learning and lose even more.

[dumasjohnj]

08:20 AM on 11/30/2011

The US Educational System has become about teaching not learning. There are now education standards, teachers plan lessons.

Alternatively, The best teacher you ever had let you EXPLORE a subject. You LEARNED 10 times more in 1/10th the time.

[darthmaul]

11:55 PM on 11/29/2011

Gee, if we hadn't have gotten involved in Iraq, we could have used some of that trillion dollars on our schools.

[JBDenver]

06:42 PM on 11/30/2011

That or just left it with the taxpayers and let them use their for additional tutoring or developing talents in other areas as needed.

[multiplicity2]

10:53 PM on 11/29/2011

""I think it's gonna drive us into class warfare like we've never seen," she said. "Because education, even in the segregated South, was always the way that you got out.""

This statement needs a serious historical-statistical look-see. When was this time when education "was always the way that you got out"? Aren't there more people than ever being schooled? Is a lower percentage than used to "get out" getting out now? Does Ms. Rice know concretely what she is talking about?

[Jean Bastien]

05:10 PM on 11/30/2011

Of course she knows what she's talking about!
Getting an education was all you could do back then to at least have a chance at a better life...don't you get that? It's not about quantity, it's about the quality of education going on now...it has slumped. Dr. Rice is the ultimate example of how a quality education has benefited a poverty stricken family and elevated them to success.

[multiplicity2]

04:08 PM on 12/01/2011

Anecdotallly, she knows what she's talking about. But to impugn an entire system takes more than anecodote, especially for a public leader whose words carry power.

[mdh461]

09:21 PM on 11/29/2011

Money input, 0 outputs. Status Quo.

[Hugo Stiglitz1]

09:01 PM on 11/29/2011

crawl back under the rock Condi. Bllod on your hands. How do you sleep???

[cmcclarty]

03:59 AM on 11/30/2011

She sleeps just fine.

[LisaViger]

11:50 AM on 11/30/2011

The truly evil always do.

[StephenBP]

08:55 PM on 11/29/2011

Condi appears to have latched on to an ideology that she is comfortable with, but it unfortunately detaches her from normal reality. As a rising star in academia, she was mentored by conservatives, and has never had any reason to look back other than through an ideological filter. She played by the rules, and was very successful in many ways, but she seems to have some real deficits in terms of understanding ordinary humanity. Perfect Republican.

[JBDenver]

06:52 PM on 11/30/2011

Please explain the shortcomings in her understanding of ordinary humanity.

A general indictment does not lead to specifics which can be addressed and corrected, so help my understand what you mean.

[Caplee]

08:22 PM on 11/29/2011

The testing gap is not the achievement gap. Here's the solution http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-design-for-innovative-schools.html