I wonder if this was part of a 1-2 punch? I've said all along that it was an inefficient use of resources (among other things) for Cosby (worth a few hundred million himself) to travel to various cities on his Smackdown Tour. Will he now travel to those same cities to mobilize support for his initiative?
(As an aside, usually projects like this are not so much co-authored as they are branded. Cosby probably wrote the introduction. I can't imagine him writing much else. Cornel West has done the same thing with many of his "co-authored" works.)
Calls for a new primary and secondary education paradigm are fine and (obviously) overdue. The challenge is persuading the general public to pay via additional taxes. I haven't read the book, but I presume Cosby and Allen's initiative is predicated upon public financing. I have no problem with paying, say, additional sales, income or property taxes for underwriting such an initiative and/or supporting a reorganization of local & state resources to prioritize education reform. But the economics of those school districts in most dire circumstances are already strained and conventional financial approaches are sure to be problematic. Perhaps the book addresses these concerns.
Posted by: MIB at July 19, 2005 12:57 PMPeople are already reluctant to increase their perceived tax burden. Think they would increase this burden for people they already perceive to be shiftless, lazy, and irresponsible? Again, Cosby is doing this bass ackwards.
Posted by: Lester Spence at July 19, 2005 07:57 PMlks, i feel you on this...the only thing $100 billion could do would be significantly increase teacher/administrator salaries...the dollar attrition on new school construction would piss away more cash than anyone but Gates and the Sultan of Brunei will see in this life...Paul Allen might get a peek.
the politics are so intimately linked to real estate and jobs that using the children as a smokescreen for these adult issues is a mere replication of the limitations of the CRM...as much as we owe to the CRM, the issue should have been resolved 100 years earlier and the CRM did not resolve the issue and its legacy has been to cloud the issue, rather than elucidate...
it's a grown up issue that shouldn't be pawned off on the next generation. keep your loot in your pocket.
Posted by: Temple3 at July 19, 2005 08:50 PMWhere does Cosby get off talking about 100 billion dollars? Nobody in their right mind talks about 100 billion dollars. He's like Dr. Evil in reverse. Hell, it took a year of destruction in Iraq to spend 100 billion dollars.
Posted by: Cobb at July 22, 2005 01:31 AMIsn't this a symptom of the grasping at straws approach? Frustration breeding simple solutions to not so simple problems? Then again, I haven't read the book either...
Posted by: delro at July 24, 2005 12:26 AM
Now will the conservatives still sing his praises?
Posted by: DarkStar at July 18, 2005 06:37 PM