Feeling a lot like a curmudgeon as the year winds down. Here is one more idea I have a problem with: public school's with development departments! Here is the story:
First, what I am not saying. I am not saying that all of us who received a public school education do not owe a debt greater than money to our teachers. We do. When I look back on my coaches and teachers at Mt. Vernon High School, I am so thankful for them. This is not because our school was perfect, but that they invested in me. They were good people and I was blessed by this investment.
I am saying this: the system is broken and this sort of thing masks the problem instead of revealing it. We have been bombarded recently with ads form Exxon (among others) about how we will be blessed by deeper investment in public education. The facts, however, do not fit with the ads. The problem is an economic problem (at least). In Lancaster County, we are spending $14,200 per student on primary and secondary education. This is unsustainable and untenable. We would do much better just sending them to college and letting them remediate them. We have to solve this problem (at least). Having (obviously very well meaning) people give money to cover the "part that is lacking" seems nice, but it like putting a bandage on broken bone.
In the end, it will not work. The system is broken. It is not even doing what it should which is handing a necessary skills and a cultural heritage (along with gratitude for this heritage) to its students. Infinite money cannot do this. Doing this effectively with an extraordinary faculty costs about half of this. (I know because I do it!) Our problems is this: we really don't care to do this and we have built a society in which investing oneself in an education is economically dangerous (see recent posts on college debt). We have become of a culture full of scams (see posts on lower Hell and The Divine Comedy). Love is growing cold in our culture. Money can not fix that. Love is the first step investing in good things needs to happen, but it happens when the right loves have been restored.
Anyway, I am going to make a resolution to be more hopeful in the New Year!
