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So we wind up with VERY costly public schools, that teach students NOTHING, except liberal propaganda.


You want to know what my reality is? Do you have any notion at all?

In separate conversations this week, I have had to help students cope with such things as helping a kid who has been in the "system" since he was 3 days old understand why he is being kicked out his group home because he turned 18 and they just assumed that he was gonna continue screwing up in school so they gave him the gate. Nevermind that this was the first place that he felt that he had been successful in anything...ever. And it was being taken from him.

I had another kid who wants to go to college but feels like it is already too late for him. His father is serving a life sentence...and there is pressure on him to take up the "family business". He doesn't know how he is going to get into college much less pay for it. He has already been incarcerated himself, and is fearful of getting sucked back in. He wants my help, but is leery of adults because he feels that that have all either let him down, given up on him completely, or have betrayed his trust by expecting things like sexual favors from him in exchange for their help. He is scared to death. I was blown away by all of the things he confided in me. They didn't really go over this stuff in my teacher training classes.

Those classes didn't cover what to do when you have to explain that one of their classmates (and one of my students) decided to celebrate Valentine's Day by putting a bullet through the back of his throat, either.

Nor did they explain what to do when kids come into my classes everyday hungry because they haven't anything since they got their free lunch the day before. How do I move that kid forward in reading? Or the ones who's parents keep them out of school because they have to work and need someone to watch they younger children. Or the kid that I have gone out and bought a sweatshirt for because he is coming to school in the middle of winter in a t-shirt because the one sweatshirt (that I have never seen...ever) he owns is in the wash.

If you want to knock education, fine. If you think you have it all figured out, even better. But I'll be damned if I am going to have you tell me that what I do isn't worthwhile, and let you insult me and my profession. If you think privatization is the answer, great. But I will guarantee you that those kids that I face everyday would be the first one's to be thrown under the bus. It would be underfunded, you would draw the least qualified teachers (hell, I have to put food an my table too.), and these kids who already have the deck stacked against them will get even less.

You go look them in the eye and tell them they aren't worth it. Because they aren't gonna believe it coming from me, I have made damn sure of that. But maybe that is the propaganda that you are speaking of. I am trying to help them learn that can think for themselves...and not just be worker bee's for some fat cat who is going to get rich while they break their backs and can still barely provide for their family.

Amazing that someone who, by his own admission has remained ignorant about education, yet knows everything about how to fix it. That's pretty amazing.