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Schools should not be islands

While I am thinking about outdated notions,
some of which always were a bad idea,
let me suggest that the local funding and determination
of curricula for public schools is a bad idea;
one might say, a bad idea what has went.

All right, I will make a few concessions to the history of the idea.
In a static society in which one could expect to stay close to home
all of one's life, allowing the local population to set the curriculum
might work reasonably well. A remnant of that idea is conceding
that special conditions might exist locally that the schools ought to address.
But in a national and international society, in which young people
have to compete with people from all over the world, it is foolish
to rely on a scatterbrained educational system. On that level,
our schools are a disgrace. Performance scores are embarrassing.

As for funding, the only school districts that benefitted from local funding
are the very wealthy school districts. Having the good luck to live
in a wealthy school district will almost surely produce better facilities,
and better teachers who are selected by higher pay.

The only school districts that can sensibly, although short-sightedly,
argue for local funding and local curricula definition are wealthy districts.
Even they cannot sustain themselves in the long run if all of our kids
do not get a first-rate education. Edina, MN is not an island.

Most school districts that argue for local funding and standards
are shooting themselves in their pencil boxes, when they should
be arguing for computers and competent science teachers
and music teachers and a program to raise the value of education.

The harness makers of the world should not set the curriculum.
Doddering old fools like me who can no longer remember
their kids names because it happened so long ago, ought not
to determine how much to invest in the next generation.
Our best and most astute analysts of what is happening
in the world, and what we need to do to be prepared for
productive and competitive and satisfying lives in it,
ought to be heard clearly, and we ought to insist emphatically,
that all of our nation's schools provide first-rate education,
with funding and curriculum and standards appropriate
to our goals for ourselves and for the whole country.

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