Some ‘butts’ about McCrory

Ian Oglesby | Contributing Writer

Welcome to North Carolina, home of the first operational public university, where professors and administrators are under attack for being liberal artists-wait, that’s not it.

Universities are under attack for trying to graduate holistic global citizens rather than highly efficient robots. Shame on them.

As the public learned in Gov. McCrory’s nationally broadcasted radio interview with Bill Bennett, a liberal arts college education is great – McCrory got one-but ultimately, many students are not worth it.

McCrory said higher education funding should “not [be] based on how many butts are in seats but how many of those butts can get jobs” and, as a public university student, I might be one of those “butts,” but I also have a great personality.

Jokes aside, only a real “butt” is shallow enough to make face-value judgments of a student’s value to society upon graduation.

Math and science degrees might be all the rage, but the business sector needs people who are going to be intellectually curious with a broad perspective.

While a select few students (whose “butts” deserve a liberal arts college degree) go into careers that require innovative critical thinking, the Tea Party Republican leaders in Raleigh want to make sure those less deserving “butts” are not bogging down the UNC System.

Disguised as a Feel-Goodery pro-schools piece of legislation, Gov. McCrory signed a bill into law which gives the State Board of Education authority to decide which students are fit for a college education and those students who just…bless ‘ere hearts.

North Carolina is not immune to the alarming national trend in which Republicans use Soviet-era command-and-control boards to classify students as “college ready” or “career ready” or both – because then at least colleges would know what kind of person a student is, right?

Imagine an educational McCrommunistic state in which you are a high school freshman in a low-income neighborhood. Your teacher or guidance counselor says, “You should probably get a ‘career ready’ diploma” with an “if you know what I mean” for good measure. Read between the lines.

Believe me, I know exactly what that kid feels like-in eighth grade I had a teacher who did not believe in me and decided I was bad at mathematics. I was put in what felt like the “stupid track,” and I have been “behind” in math ever since.

No student in my home state should have to feel ashamed because their diploma says “career” or “college” on it.

Higher education is a right under the North Carolina constitution, not a superior market good.The Tar Heel State does not need an education system with institutional impediments to success.

North Carolina’s children of the future should not be branded “good enough for college” and “not good enough for college” simply because McCrory wants to cozy up to his big business lobby friends. He shouldn’t have to-Art Pope works just down the hall.