Monday, September 24, 2012

What ever happened to an apple on the desk?

Teachers at my daughters' school wrote down items they needed on paper cut-outs shaped like apples and attached them to a tree. Now I'm sitting on the couch watching Storage Wars and staring at two paper sacks filled with items such as ziplock bags, kleenex, adhesive hooks and the like.

Thank you, Rick Perry. For all your talk about lowering taxes you have succeeded in shifting more of the burden of public education on the public without anyone the wiser.

Seems there was a day when public education was viewed as a benefit to society at large. That is, until the libertarians, Ayn Rand worshipers and other wingnuts came into positions of power and influence in the 1980's. All of a sudden public education became the bogeyman for the evils of big government.

Thus began the assault on universal public education.

And, when the Texas economy began to bottom out, the first casualty was public education. School districts were required to lay off teachers and increase class sizes to meet budgetary demands. So here we are, reduced to parents providing items that should have been provided by the school.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

And now, Texas offers online school for all ages and pays private corporations to provide this at the cost of the tax payer. They are promoting keeping the kids at home and paying private corporations instead of teachers! My teachers changed my life. From first grade to 11th grade; my teachers helped me in ways that none can do now. I feel for the children facing these corrupt changes in our education system! Bring the teachers back and keep the children in the classroom learning and communicating together! Thank you for bringing attention to this!