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Tuesday, October 3, 2017

State alternate history: New Israel education & corrections systems



New Israel has the most authoritarian government schooling system in the entire United States of America, so authoritarian that it would be a nightmare to educators such as:
& other people such as



But, it is a dream for people such as John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, & others, especially future corporatists, war profiteers (for both America's literal wars & the War on Drugs), & government officials.








It started almost immediately after Horace Mann successfully implemented the Prussian schooling philosophy is Massachusetts. The people who were in the State of New Israel Government, who were authoritarians working with corporatists, knew that they had to do something to create a docile, obedient populace who was just smart enough to work for big companies but too dumbed down to question very much, especially with the State Government wondering how much longer it would be before people would have enough of its authoritarianism & corruption.


In the very beginning, the forced schooling program was a slight gamble, especially with people being rather skeptical about having their kids being institutionalized at gunpoint, to say the least. But, people eventually got used to it, & a single generation after this, the state & the big companies it serves is safer from people who would question its power.

Later on, the conditioning especially paid off by creating virtual slaves to the military-industrial complex, big pharma, & factory-farms, all owned by megacorporations, which are the state's largest & only real sources of income.

How did they do this, specifically?



New Israel State Public Schools have the harshest discipline policies of any American schools, with tickets being commonly issued for the most minor infractions, even burping or singing slightly too loud. God help a kid, rather it's their first day of kindergarten, or their last day of 12th grade, if they act anything short of being perfectly obedient to the point of where they are organic robots, not human beings.



Every hour of the minimum 1080 hours & 180 school days a year for individuals aged 5 to 18 years old is nothing short of oppressive.




The barely first five minutes of kindergarten alone is, at the very best of circumstances, even worse than the recruits in the movie Full Metal Jacket meeting Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann, with the addition of the teacher yelling into their face or ear with a red bullhorn.


The first physical education day for kindergartners alone is more like wannabe-military bootcamp than what most people consider physical education.

Corporal punishment is a routine, always used for even the slightest infraction. 

On the outside, concrete walls that are at least 26 feet high, topped with barbed tape, with double-coil razor wire wrapped around the barbed tape, & big barbs on the wire.



Past the wall, one can see almost nothing but dull, cold, hard, concrete all around them. The school building itself will be of brutalist style architecture with influence from totalitarian architecture; cold, hard, & lifeless gray concrete, with no windows. Even doors are generally made out of cold, hard steel & lack windows. 

If you would like to have some help with your imagination, here's some images to use;



The brutalism seen in the 33 Thomas Street building;

Shrunk & widened to something on the scale of SeaTac Federal Detention Center (perhaps smaller).
Inside, Armed Security Service Guards & Officers monitor the campus, looking out for any escape attempts or other disobedient, undesirable behavior, & operate with Fast Action Response Team Officers are on patrol, hunting down truant students to arrest them & their parents/guardians.



Elementary & middle school students get 17 hours worth of homework a school night & 24 hours worth an off day or single holiday day. That translates to 48 hours over the weekend, 720 over the summer, & so on & so forth.



High school students are required to do 1168 hours worth of mandatory school assigned & organized "volunteer" work per quarter, 2336 per semester, & 4672 per school calendar year. 960 are also required over the summer except for the summer after their senior/12th grade year.
The official story for mandatory volunteering was to build the student's character, but in reality, was a source of almost free labor for the government, where students work to clean government properties & making the state seem nice & clean, & to condition the students into obedient subjects, killing two birds with a single stone.



School grounds are fenced in with heavy duty chain-link fences & topped with razor wire, which generally will be electrified. Schools are built to be very spartan, generally built with cheap, poured concrete with no windows.
Classrooms are bare with little more than fixed concrete benches & fixed concrete tables for the students, a raised podium & maybe some matching gray storage cabinets for the teacher.

Student restrooms have stainless-steel toilet-sink combinations (the same as those used in prisons) with no stalls.

Whenever students eat lunch, they must eat in the classroom & are given a maximum of 15 minutes to eat. School lunches are literally the same as prison lunches brought from the prison-industrial complex, which sources the food from big bank-owned farms & the meat from corporate factory-farms. There is no recess, break time or other sorts of free time, which is intended to condition the students into the idea that their time is not their own, & that the state may intrude on it at will.



What may be possessed on school grounds:
Anything that a student possesses on school grounds is considered contraband unless it is specifically brought from their school's commissary, with exceptions narrower than a razor blade. Any student caught breaking this rule would have said contraband confiscated, & the student punished.

Credits system:
For students to buy things in school, they must buy credits, with real money. Credits have roughly the same value as U.S. Dollars, but they have more restrictions. If a student fails to be perfectly obedient, they can have credits taken away as punishment. Also, if a student's grades get too low, they can also have credits taken away as punishment.

Food:

Students:
Literal prison food.
They used to be sold bug-infested "pirate hardtack" (the proper name would be sea biscuit) to eat, but this was changed in the early 20th century to more standard prison food.

High school students doing volunteer work are sold military rations while taking authorized food breaks (for breakfast & dinner). Since the late 20th century, military rations from Israel, Saudi Arabia, & China are available, common in that order.


Enlisted (Teachers, administrators): 
Food used to vary from school to school, but always a bit overpriced. Since the late 20th century, they were sold military rations from Israel, Saudi Arabia, & China are available, common in that order.


Officers & Warrant Officers (Assistant Principals & up, Armed Security Service Warrant Officers & Officers):
They get their own luxurious dining hall & lounge only accessible to them & specifically authorized individuals.

The food is often like what is found in the "Officer's Ration Pack" as depicted in this video (minus the alcohol).

That’s regular public school. The state also runs boarding schools, which run much the same way but buildings are generally literally rented out from private prison companies & students are crammed in dormitories like sardines in a can & get no privacy or free time.



Uniforms:
Under the School System's "Dress For Sucess" policy, both students & staff are required to wear uniforms, which are state government property. The dress code is not conservative; it is authoritarian.



The student's uniform, from the feet up, are;
Dress shoes, oxford style. 
Dress socks.
Dress slacks.
Dress belt.
Dress shirt.
Formal necktie.
Formal waistcoat.
Suit jacket.
Military-style side cap (similar to the Soviet "pilotka" cap).



An acrylic sweater may be worn alternatively to the waistcoat in the winter. It is required that all students in the entire state school system either wear the waistcoat or sweater at the same time on the same day to promote a collectivized appearance.



The clothing has a "classical" fit. The color is all mono-color "lifeless gray", a shade of dull gray. The fabric weight & material for the slacks is 18 oz wool-shoddy polyester, shirt is 10 oz polyester, & waistcoat & jacket is 16 oz wool shoddy & polyester. Alternatively, there are slacks, waistcoats, & jackets that are available that are made out of 14 oz of cheap polyester. Shoes, socks, & belts are black.



If a student has a medical condition that would make their body react in a negative way to wearing the regular school uniform, then their legal guardian(s) may fill special form requesting permission for that individual student to wear a uniform made out of alternate materials. 
Parents may also apply forums to authorize their child to have modifications made to their uniform to comply with their religious beliefs.



The uniform is to be worn to the state school system's specifications, ie, shirt tucked in, pants perfectly at the waist, tie perfectly tied at a full Windsor, no wrinkles, perfectly spotless, shoes are spit-shined, pant hem resting on top of the shoes, etc. All modifications are absolutely prohibited, with the sole exception being a specific order from the Superintendent to make a uniform modification. School spirit pins & pins supporting the state government & schooling system, however, are authorized to be worn.



Failure to follow the full dresscode will result in the student being forced to wear a pocketless jumpsuit, with their school’s name & the words “DRESSCODE VIOLATOR” on the back, & pink if the individual is a male, or black & white stripes if the individual is a female. 



Since the 1960's, for physical education, due to the intensity of the activities, students are authorized to wear school-issue "never again volunteer yourself" (navy) blue collared long sleeve 70%/30% polyester-cotton jumpsuits with "inmate sneakers". A student may also wear an approved school spirit t-shirt purchased from the store, & also have school spirit patches brought from the store on their jumpsuit. On particularly cold days, the School Superintendent may authorize the students to wear sweaters brought from the school store.
It was once proposed to have the jumpsuits colored "baby barf green" instead of "never again volunteer yourself blue", but this wasn't implemented, as the school board thought that the dull green could act as a camouflage color if a student escapes school. 



For high school students, when they are doing "volunteer" work, since the 1950's, they are authorized to wear what are called "Volunteering Utility Uniform" in lieu of the standard uniform. This uniform, from the feet up, consists of:
. Utilitarian Black work boots.
. Socks that match the boots.
. Never again volunteer yourself blue work slacks.
. Web belt that matches slacks.
. Prisoner's blues style pockless long-sleeve work shirt.
. Lifeless gray wannabe-military style bib scarf.
. Never again volunteer yourself blue side cap.



For the VUU, the pants are made out of 16.5 oz polyester twill & the shirt is made out of 10 oz polyester twill. The back of the shirt says "STUDENT" & their number in big letters, with "Dept. of Education" in smaller letters below it, all in black letting. The front right breast has a white patch with the student's number on it in black. On the left sleeve, is the New Israel State Schools patch.
The rules that apply to the wearing of the VUU are the same as the regular uniform (the boots are also required to be spit-shined). However, is a particular job requires it, wearing a prisoner orange hard hat in lieu of the side cap & wearing personal protective equipment over the VUU is authorized. Also, if one is doing a particularly dirty job, they may remove the bib scarf, but must button up the top button of the shirt.
There were proposals to have the uniforms feature lifeless gray pant stripes & shirt shoulder straps/epaulets, but these modifications were judged as "too fancy", which could possibly hint at the students being higher class than their teachers (whose uniforms do not have those features).



It was also proposed to authorize students to wear their VUU's in place of their uniforms on normal school days like United States Marines wear their Combat Utility Uniforms when in garrison on a base & to also authorise the wear of PE jumpsuits while doing "volunteer" work like United States Navy Sailors are permitted to wear coveralls in lieu of their regular Working/Utility Uniforms while on a military installations & ships, but neither of these was implemented, as one school board member said that "They'll look unprofessional... bums, if I'm honest, which will also ruin our public image, & besides, that would be a lowering of standards".



School stores used to sell plain black large military-style rucksacks so students can carry some of their homework in them, but in the 1980's, ostensibly as a safety measure, these were replaced by clear plastic backpacks.



Teachers, Administrators, Vice-Principals & Principles wear a military-style dress uniform, which includes:
Jackboots.
Creased uniform pants.
Coat with U.S. Marine Corps tyle "standing collar" (officers have gold & purple trim, & have epaulets).
Dress belt.
Hats:
Teachers: campaign cover.
Administrators: wannabe-military style peaked cap.
Principal, Vice-principal & assistant principals: big "Russian dimensions" peaked cap (similar to post 1991 Russian peaked caps in dimensions).
Commissars, School Board Members, Vice-Superintendent, & the Superintendent-General: "Commissar Cap".

Badges & color patterns for their rank class (from Smtih & Warren, Model S88):
Enlisted Teacher:



Enlisted (with silver buttons):
Officer (no purple trim or commissar cap):

The post-1991 Russian army cap in the picture below is shown to give you an idea of the dimensions of the Assistant Principal's cap are (albeit all black & plainer looking).
(Under the Red Star - Fakes and Replicas.)

The Commissar cap in the image below is similar in dimensions to the hat that would be worn by Commissars & above:
(Leather Commissar Hat - Warhammer 40k by Renquist-von-Reik on DeviantArt)

Standard Armed Security Service School Security Command Uniform (this example is an is supposed to be an enlisted style, but has gold buttons):

(The images above come from Marlow White's First Responder Uniform Configurator Beta, with the image taken & face blurred using Awesome Screenshot Minus on Google Chrome.)


The purpose of uniforms to establish that there are two classes of people, being controllers & subjects. The lifeless gray uniforms of students symbolize them being subjects, while the black military-style uniforms of the staff symbolize the authority of the staff.
Within the controllers, there are several subclasses, in this pecking order; 
. Lord Officers (Lord Superintendent General)
. Executive officer (Superintendent General).
. General officers (School Board Members).
. Special officers (Educational Commissars. Perhaps roughly equivalent to School manager or Assistant Superintendent in some school systems).
. Commanding officers (Principals).
. Lesser officers (Assistant Principals).
. Non-commissioned officers (Administrators).
. Enlisted guards (Teachers).
. Prisoners (Students).

When it comes to Commissars, they are called "Special officers" for a reason. Commissars control the Armed Security Service's Fast Action Response Team's School Security Command (SchoolSecComm). If a Principal wants the Fast Action Response Team to show up to his school, he must contact a Commissar to do so. They even have their own pecking order, similar to the rank system of Commissars in Warhammer 40000, as follows:
Commissar-General. The highest rank among the Commissars. Reports directly to, & is in contact with, the Superintendent General.
Colonel-Commissar. Slotted between a regular commissar & Commissar-General. Responsible for regional operations.
Commissar-Captain. Responsible for a company of Fast Action Response Team members.
Commissar. The most common rank in the Commissariat. A typical Commissar would be assigned to watch over several schools & a platoon of Fast Action Response Team members.
Junior-Commissar. Subordinate to full Commissars, performing the role as a junior aide in the oversight of the unit assigned to a full Commissar. They primarily perform as adjutants & in an investigatory role as well as carrying out the usual Commissarial duties. It is common for one Junior-Commissar to be assigned to a school to watch over it & the Security Officers stationed at the school.
Cadet Commissar. They are Commissars in training.

New Israel State School uniformed personnel wear United States Military style rank insignia, being Enlisted Army for Teachers & Administrators (Teachers & Administrators with no tenure wear no insignia, & when in training without full certification, are treated as unpaid interns, while tenured teachers wear staff-NCO insignia), while officers being Assistant Principals, Vice Principal & Principal wear Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps "Bars & Train Tracks" style insignia (Assitant Principals may wear up to four, while the Vice-Principal & Principal wear five & six respectively).
Commissars, School Board Members, the Vice Superintendent & Superintendent wear regular U.S. military officer rank insignia. 
Cadet Commissars wear a gold bar, Junior-Commissars wear a silver bar, full Commissars wear two silver bars, Commissar-Captains wear a gold leaf, Colonel-Commissars wear a silver leaf, & the Commissar-General wears an Eagle.
School Board Members wear one star, the Vice-Superintendent wears two stars, & the Superintendent-General wears three stars.
Lord Superintendent-General is a four-star honorable rank, rewarded to "Major contributors to public education". The only people who have been given this rank so far are Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Horace Mann, & John Dewey, & John Dewey is the only one out of these who actually served within the New Israel State Schools system.

The use of different rank insignia & even header between school-level & state-level officers symbolises that the State has the authority over schooling of children, in that it is the State, NOT the locality or the people, that controls the schools, along with what & how things are taught in them, & even what could be done within school grounds.

In slang terms, Administrators, Teachers, & enlisted Security Guards are said to be part of the "scum class", while Assistant Principles & up, & Security Officers & up are said to be part of the "snob class", considering how the latter come from upper-income classes while the former are made up more middle to lower income classes.

Uniform complaints:

The uniforms have been criticised by both staff, & especially students, alike.

The students' biggest complaint with their uniforms is how uncomfortable, & more specifically, how hot & unbreathable they are. Obstensively, the reason for the heavy fabric (16 ounces for the jacket, waistcoat & pants. & 10 oz for the shirt) is to make the clothing durable & look less wrinkled. But, this heavy weight makes the suit hot to wear, which is combined with the traditional use of itchy wool shoddy, & since the 1950's, exacerbated by the use of low-grade polyester.
The build & material quality is low, as that there is no quality control, leading to suits often having poor durability, & it is common for seams to break.
It is common for students to complain en mass about uniforms that are of such low quality, & there are rumors that the uniforms were deliberately made uncomfortable to make the students used to being miserable. This all comes before rather mooted prices for uniform sets. For example, a new uniform set for kindergarten student may cost around $300 as of 2010.
Staff members also share this sentiment, albeit to a lesser degree. While school staff members are given more choices in terms of materials & material weights, they also have to deal with seemingly unfair pricing. For example, a standard-issue polyester-wool dress coat alone would easily set the buyer back $350 as of 2010.

There was also a safety complaint. Becuase the Government of the State of New Israel never replaces vehicles unless it costs more to maintain a vehicle in running order than to purchase a new one or they're forced to do so, many school buses are from the early 1980's & are fueled with gasoline, & many of them are in ramshackle condition. 

As a result of these complaints, ironically, both students & the staff members responsible for imprisoning, conditioning, & indoctrinating them both have uniform issues in common. This is to the point where members from both sides would privately buy their own clothing items & attach markings & accessories to the new clothing items to make it look like a uniform if they had the money to do so, considering how privately brought clothing items are usually more comfortable & of higher-quality than official government-supplied & prison-industrial complex manufactured items. The New Israel state government officially has a rule against this, & regularly pressures businesses to block suspected sales of unofficial uniforms (officially as a safety measure, but in reality, to keep profits from sales), but the practice still is somewhat common.

The uniforms & their accessories are made with labor by the prison-industrial complex, with oil required for their manufacture coming from Saudi Arabian oil, chemicals required for manufacture often coming from Chinese (& sometimes Israeli) companies & the leather for shoes & belts coming from factory farms.

Before 1910, uniforms were made out of heavy, itchy, wool shoddy. After 1910, uniforms were made out of a 55% wool shoddy & 45% viscose blend. Starting in the 1950's, the uniforms were made out of a blend of low-grade polyester & wool-shoddy, & the same material was used ever since.


What happens to one who gets arrested:



With the state's school-to-prison pipeline, the relationship between New Israel's prison system & government schools is actually as close as the relationship between the United States Navy & Marine Corps.

If one is arrested, if they’re both under 16 years old & not charged as an adult, they go to a juvenile detention center. If they’re 16 years old or older, OR under 16 but charged as an adult (& there is no minimum age at which one can be charged as an adult), they go straight to adult prison.

Generally, both juvenile detention centers & prisons are owned & ran by private prison companies with contracts to the state in which that they must be at at least 100% capacity at all times.



In the private prison system, prisoners are also used to do hard labor.

The minimum age for one to go straight to prison is MAYBE 16 (probably less), though if one is charged as an adult, there is no minimum age.
When one goes in, all of their clothing & personal belongings are taken away. The only clothing that they may wear are their bright red or orange jumpsuits & disposable sandals, & the only items that they may possess for themselves are cheap hygiene-related items & specifically approved religious items.
Most prisoners live in a "tent city", which is the same as Sheriff Joe Arpaio's tent city for the Maricopa County jail, BUT instead of using double bunk beds, bare metal triple bunk beds & stackable bunk beds are used, both 27 inches wide & 72 inches long at the largest, are used. Next to each
In cases where "tent city" does not provide enough restraint &/or security, prisoners are crammed into a dormitory that easily holds hundreds of other prisoners. If they're lucky, they'll get to sleep on a bunk bed that is designed to hold at least three individuals at a time, with no mattress or sheets. Again, the bunks are installed not for the benefit of the prisoners, but in an attempt to increase capacity for the dormitory.
Prisoners who are considered too troublesome to be housed with the general population would be housed in smaller cells, or even isolated. It is common for either small groups of prisoners or individual prisoners to be locked into a 35 square windowless cell. In the cell, there is NOTHING but a combination sink-toilet & a triple bunk bed (not that every cell will have multiple prisoners in it, depending on the situation) with no mats or even sheets on it.
It would look something like this, except that it would have a triple bunk bed & being poured concrete gray.
At the beginning of the prisoner's average day, they are woken up, & are given one cheap meal. After the several minute eating opportunity ends, they are sent to work. They do backbreaking work for 16 hours a day with virtually no pay, in often harsh conditions, in their jumpsuit & sandals. When the workday ends, they go back to their dormitory or cell, eat again, sleep, & rinse & repeat.
Prisoners are fed nutraloaf, or if the Federal Government doesn't allow the practice under the rules of cruel & unusual punishment, they are fed bread & meat sourced from the prison-industrial complex.
During a prisoner's institutionalization, the only time off that they have from this are working on their legal case, doing specifically approved religious activities, & that it about it.
The prison system does not offer any type of "halfway house" or like programs.
I'm doing this for some alternate history that I'm doing, where I plan on everything to be the same except for the food (which will contain substantially more meat from factory-farms).

 Trivia:
. The uniform comfort issues was an indirect reference to some of the problems that the United States Air Force's Airman Battle Uniform has, such as a heavy 13 oz fabric weight. The Physical Education uniform being better compared to the standard dress uniform but is only allowed to be worn under limited conditions is almost like how the Airman Battle System-Ground being more comfortable & practical than the standard-issue Airman Battle Uniform, but the wearing of which is also restricted to limited circumstances.

. Both viscose & polyester are sometimes said to be bad materials not only for comfort but also potential health effects; The 6+ Synthetic Fabrics You Most Want to Avoid, and Why

. If you're wondering where I came up with the numbers for Student's uniform fabric weights, I used real-world clothing as realism references. References for the shirt can be found here, the regular pants here, VUU pants here, & uniform waistcoat & jacket here.


. The credits system was inspired by the credits system adopted by manufactorums in Warhammer 40000. If you're not familiar with what I mean, imagine that your workplace pays you in its own currency. Your workplace/employing entity offers you stores & markets to shop in, & the currency that you're given only has value in aforementioned stores & markets, being useless elsewhere.
DISCLAIMER:

None of the images in this article belong to me. They belong to their rightful owners. If you own one or more than these images, please comment below, & I will remove them.
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