The following letter appeared on the web site of the Gratiot (MI) County Herald on May 12, 2011 (Thanks to the Low Brass Correspondent for pointing it out to me):
Dear Governor Snyder,
In these tough economic times, schools are hurting. And yes, everyone in Michigan is hurting right now financially, but why aren’t we protecting schools? Schools are the one place on Earth that people look to to “fix” what is wrong with society by educating our youth and preparing them to take on the issues that society has created.
One solution I believe we must do is take a look at our corrections system in Michigan. We rank nationally at the top in the number of people we incarcerate. We also spend the most money per prisoner annually than any other state in the union. Now, I like to be at the top of lists, but this is one ranking that I don’t believe Michigan wants to be on top of.
Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day. Access to free health care. Internet. Cable television. Access to a library. A weight room. Computer lab. They can earn a degree. A roof over their heads. Clothing. Everything we just listed we DO NOT provide to our school children.
This is why I’m proposing to make my school a prison. The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. I guess we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day. Please give my children access to free health care. Please provide my school district Internet access and computers. Please put books in my library. Please give my students a weight room so we can be big and strong. We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of youth, our future?!
Please provide for my students in my school district the same way we provide for a prisoner. It’s the least we can do to prepare our students for the future...by giving our schools the resources necessary to keep our students OUT of prison.
Respectfully submitted,
Nathan Bootz
Superintendent
Ithaca Public School
This is as well as I have seen the argument for education done, though I hesitated to post it, because I know some asshole is going to miss the point and say it’s a plea to make prisons harsher.
I will be happy to engage in that argument.
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Friday, June 04, 2010
Lowering the Bar
It’s not worrisome enough that people can “earn” a four-year college degree in two years, or work on their Bachelors and Masters at the same time, as some otherwise respectable schools claim. Now you can get college credit while working at Wal-Mart. I don’t mean by taking classes after work; I mean just doing your job.
Here’s my favorite:
Daniel Soto of Hardeeville, S.C., works full time at Wal-Mart as a zone manager supervisor, lending a hand in several departments. He had to give up college to work, but said he could see some of his duties translating to academia, such as the algebraic equations he uses to figure out how much merchandise will fit on a shelf or how much of a product to order.
"I do math all day at Wal-Mart," he said.
(I got that from the Washington Post, not The Onion.)
I’m not suggesting he’s anything but bright. Figuring shelf space is not what many would consider college-level math; this is ninth grade shit. Once it’s on his transcript, though, it might count for any number of degrees that could put him into a key decision-making position where someone actually does have to know college-level math.
The education bar gets lower every year in this country; pretty soon we’ll have to dig a trench for it. The Sole Heir attend the University of Maryland, not APU of one of the other for-profit “universities,” so her degree shouldn’t be cheapened much. What’s troubling is that these degrees will eventually become more commonly accepted, as people not well aware of educational standards just see “Bachelors Degree, XXX University” and think a university is a university.
You’re okay with for-profit colleges? Think about this. There are for-profit nursing schools out there, where the hands-on component of the education consists of watching someone else do it; everything else was online. These are accredited schools, mind you; the credentials of the accrediting agencies is open to conjecture. States, or groups of them, are okay with this standard of nursing, which is another argument for the nationalization of standards in some areas. Do you want to be passing through one of these states, have an accident, and find out your nurse has never actually inserted a catherter?
Here’s my favorite:
Daniel Soto of Hardeeville, S.C., works full time at Wal-Mart as a zone manager supervisor, lending a hand in several departments. He had to give up college to work, but said he could see some of his duties translating to academia, such as the algebraic equations he uses to figure out how much merchandise will fit on a shelf or how much of a product to order.
"I do math all day at Wal-Mart," he said.
(I got that from the Washington Post, not The Onion.)
I’m not suggesting he’s anything but bright. Figuring shelf space is not what many would consider college-level math; this is ninth grade shit. Once it’s on his transcript, though, it might count for any number of degrees that could put him into a key decision-making position where someone actually does have to know college-level math.
The education bar gets lower every year in this country; pretty soon we’ll have to dig a trench for it. The Sole Heir attend the University of Maryland, not APU of one of the other for-profit “universities,” so her degree shouldn’t be cheapened much. What’s troubling is that these degrees will eventually become more commonly accepted, as people not well aware of educational standards just see “Bachelors Degree, XXX University” and think a university is a university.
You’re okay with for-profit colleges? Think about this. There are for-profit nursing schools out there, where the hands-on component of the education consists of watching someone else do it; everything else was online. These are accredited schools, mind you; the credentials of the accrediting agencies is open to conjecture. States, or groups of them, are okay with this standard of nursing, which is another argument for the nationalization of standards in some areas. Do you want to be passing through one of these states, have an accident, and find out your nurse has never actually inserted a catherter?
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