Throughout America people are disappointed and angry about the dismal state of public education. Parents-–especially in economically hard-hit cities where education has failed noticeably--want something better for their children and are in turmoil about so-called solutions through vouchers, charter schools and the drive to privatize public schools. Why is this happening and what does it mean? 

As a person who feels passion-ately that every child deserves the best education possible, I want you to know what I learned about this from Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy founded in 1941 by the American poet Eli Siegel, the greatest, kindest educator ever to live. 

Aesthetic Realism is based on these principles:  1) “The deepest desire of every person is to like the world through knowing it”--this is respect for reality; 2) The cause of all injustice is contempt, “the addition to self through the lessening of something else.”  In her commentaries in the inter-national journal, The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, Ellen Reiss, Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism, writes about public education and why every American should be proud its meaning: 
 

This is clearly something we should proudly uphold. So why is there now a huge effort to dismantle public education? 

The answer is in the explanation of what is really going on in the economy. In 1970 Mr. Siegel was the one economist to see that the profit system–-the contemptuous use of many people to provide wealth for a few--had failed, never to recover, until economics “becomes ethical, is based on good will rather than on the ill will that has been predominant for centuries.” 

Underlying the hype these years about our “booming” economy, are increasingly brutal ways to revive this ugly system: including corporate welfare, moving U.S. factories overseas where people, many of them children, are paid pitifully – which have not saved profit economics. But attempts to do so are becoming more desperate and include, as Ellen Reiss explains: 
 

It is a glorious, verifiable fact that for 25 years, in class-rooms throughout New York City, from Bensonhurst to East Harlem, the Lower East Side to the South Bronx, in those classrooms where teachers use the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method, students eagerly learn, and racial prejudice ends. This is the most important news in education! What occurs in these classrooms, from kindergarten through college, could by now have been standard everywhere. 

The Aesthetic Realism Method enables students to learn as never before and to be kinder. Through this principle, every subject is a means of seeing that the world, with its confusion -and pain, can be honestly liked: "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites." As -students successfully learn subjects -- math, history, reading -- they see that the structure of the world makes sense. I know this is the education every child was born for and deserves! 

The way Aesthetic Realism sees education and children is beautiful and needed. To learn more, contact the not-for-profit Aesthetic Realism Foundation, 141 Greene St., NYC 10012 (212) 777-4490. 

Ellen Reiss represents our children and nation truly when she says: “The meaning of public education should make for a great pride in America... [and] should be dealt with lovingly, as a treasure of civilization.”