There is just no other way to put it.  I attended a school board meeting right before I graduated college, and it just happened to be on the same night as their discussion of the budget.  I am glad that I finally saw firsthand what goes into the planning for the upcoming school year. However, I am dismayed to admit that our schools are running on scraps.  There is barely enough money to sustain, let alone enhance, the current condition of the schools.  Children should have the height of technology at their disposal, and the teachers deserve to be rewarded for a job that forever touches the soul of another person.

Finally, the constant barrage of memorize and test, memorize and test, has got to end.  Some of my favorite times in school were spent in small groups, performing experiments and sharing ideas.  Instead of reading five books a day to take mini tests on, the class as a whole would read the same book and spend days dissecting and discussing the author, the literature...every last detail.  It wasn't the volume of tests that counted, or percentages that determined a school's worthiness.  It was all about providing the presumption of dilemma and the need of assistance in order to further a child's understanding.  Isn't that what education is supposed to be about?  Don't we learn from practical experience and mistakes more than anything else?  One hundred lines of multiple choice never did anything except inspire the occasional artist.

I am thankful that my son is enrolled at the very same school that I attended.  We many not have much in the way of money, but an education still means something there, and everyone that works so hard to make it so should be applauded.