Representative Congress: Elected According to Their Constituents’ Intelligence?

Perhaps the poor state of America education can be understood in the context of a “cause and effect” relationship. Most things in the world and in life can be understood in such a context. The actual difficult is finding the factor or factors that are actually involved in those relationships, not in understanding how the process plays out once the factors are recognized. And it is not surprising that after the process is identified and explained that everyone will tell you that they always knew the relationships and that it is obvious to the most casual observer. So how do we link the cause and effect between elected politicians and the American education system? Nothing could be so simple!

Our own assessment and the assessment of other leading industrial nations, is that Americans are falling behind in educational achievements. The scientific, technical, industrial and economic consequences from the ever increasing drop of our ranked position amongst our peers is talked about by persons of every ilk; and is pitched in terms of America falling behind competitively. Our leaders tell us that we must improve our educational system or we will lose our America dream, our future and our freedom.

And we talk about who to blame, because it cannot be ourselves. We all want the best education for our children, not the worst. So we blame the teachers, school systems, school boards, school administrators, the Department of Education (state or federal), and some even blame Congress. There are sides that say we spend too little, some say too much. We blame the poor, the rich, the children, and the parents. But all the blaming doesn’t explain anything. There is no cause-effect that makes this understandable. The forces at the core of our failing are not categories of people. Rather the causes are those elusive factors that push or pull the educational process in one direction or another, the actions that move the pea from one cup to another, and the rewards and punishments that induce one type of behavior over another.

What then does this have to do with Congress? Let’s consider the following ‘cause’ and consider its ‘effect’. If the public that elects each and every congressional representative is, well let’s say: not overly informed and knowledgeable, then the politician doesn’t have to worry about an informed constituency. Politicians don’t have to even be marginally smart. They just need to be able to understand what pushes the buttons of their constituents. Not what is a meaningful or important issue that impinges upon the lives and well-being of the voters; but only what will grab their attention and stimulate their reaction of going with the flow. It’s easier for the politician if they don’t have to know facts, to be able to talk knowledgeably about a topic, or to be able to comprehend or assess information required to understand a problem.

If the general public is unable to recognize that the politician is an idiot, a buffoon, or a self-serving con-artist then the politician can avoid having any substance or any gravitas when it comes to being a qualified representative leader.

So political success would motivate politicians to seek and undertake actions that prevent quality and efficiency in our educational process. The larger portion of the population that is competent to choose qualified leaders the worse it is for them. Continue to apply the principle of degrading education from year to year and politician to politician and you get an electorate that is well suited for selecting the type of Congressional representatives we seem to persistently wind up with.

Now I don’t say that this is the only factor influencing the quality of education in the US, but can you deny that it is an important factor? I guess that would depend upon the effectiveness of the education that you received from the system, now wouldn’t it?