Few public school districts anywhere enjoy complete immunity from these conditions, however, and their occurrence almost everywhere is convincing evidence that these problems are linked to a common source. These afflictions of the public education system are not the only links to the complex variety of social ailments that permeate the country. The quality of education itself is in decline, and that decline has nothing whatever to do with the capacities of teachers to teach or of children to learn. Teachers today are as skilled and devoted to their trade as workers are in any other industry, but their skills and motivation are being subverted in much the same way that the skills and motivation of workers in other industries are being undermined. The same is true of the children, who start to school as bright and eager as children ever did.
Socialists believe that common link is the capitalist system.
Some suggest teachers are to blame, or even the children themselves. In truth, however, none of these things can be taken as causes of what ails the public education system. They explain the breakdown in public education no more than a cough explains a sneeze, or a stuffy nose explains a raspy throat. The crisis in America's public schools reflects the crisis of capitalist society. Historically, the movement for universal public education was supported by the working class.