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Friday, May 19, 2006

Public Schools

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I've made a new friend here but I didn't say too much else. We "met" when I emailed him about one of his articles that I was afraid might be misconstrued. It was and flack followed. We meet for coffee once a week and talk mostly about local issues. Last week he invited me to lunch and to see "Elvis". He's a free lance writer who submits articles to the local paper but he's not a reporter.

Today, he wrote about public schools here. He could have been talking about almost any city in the country.

His final paragraph grabbed me. At a time when this city is growing rapidly, we're laying off 63 educational workers.

We could do so much better.

4 comments:

ipodmomma said...

amazing... and so true that it could be anywhere...

Sothis said...

No Child Left Behind, don't ya know...

Strange, looks like lots of them are being left behind.

Anvilcloud said...

We tend to see education as a cost and not an investment, which is what it is.

mo-wo said...

P-man asked me tonight about what we should expect for our kids in the public school system. As an school board staff member I am supposed to be able to answer this question.

I told him I don't know how I feel about our kids going to public school. I expect by the time they hit high school only half of the time will even be spent in the classroom. I greatly value our schools as educational institutions, but also as building blocks of community. I honestly don't know if I'll be happy with what they face for school choices.

But if virtual school is going to take over in 10 years would I, a blogger, by a hypocrite not to value it? Just sort of another thought...

Doesn't change the facts that you could not pay me enough to do the work that our teachers do. It much more than a job and half.