Spring Break
Public education continuously declines
Furrah Qureshi
Issue date: 10/26/07 Section: Ed-Op
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In the interview I gave a representative from Haverford University last year (during that awful three month period of trial and error that is called college interviews), I lied and told him I learned logic, reason, rhetoric, penmanship, creativity, culture, skill in writing, persuasion, vocabulary, mathematics, and cold hard facts from my stint in high school. Which, the ones that I actually learned (which are all of them except skill in math) I learned of my own volition.
Public high schools are glorified pigpens. From the metaphorical slop we got for lunch to the mindless exercises we practiced daily, classes were an unwelcome holding ground for the distraught. Nothing kills the desire to read more than being assigned books in class. Nothing makes you stutter more than being forced to publicly speak. No one is more illogical than a math teacher. And no one is more incoherent than an English teacher. Nowhere is anything more intellectually stifling than a high school library. And nowhere is anything more lethargic than a high school gym. However, we accept these contradictions as part of the absurdity of life. Only has it become egregious when the state of public education spiraled down to the low it has reached recently.
My personal anecdote doesn't quantify an inaccurate niche either. I spent four years in AP classes and advanced electives. Even while taking the most challenging courses offered at my school, I ended up adding independent studies as well.
So what happened? Well, it's strictly a matter of expenditure. There is not enough money to pay teachers adequately to venture into dangerous areas to bring literature to schools lacking an adequate library. There is not enough money for an adequate library. Learning is an expensive ordeal. Here's the ugly truth: if you're poor, of minority status, and go to school in an inner city school, the system is designed to make you fail. When a distant war racks up hundreds of billions of dollars a year under a president who refuses to garner enough tax money, the money comes from somewhere - that somewhere being the future of the poor.
Public high schools are glorified pigpens. From the metaphorical slop we got for lunch to the mindless exercises we practiced daily, classes were an unwelcome holding ground for the distraught. Nothing kills the desire to read more than being assigned books in class. Nothing makes you stutter more than being forced to publicly speak. No one is more illogical than a math teacher. And no one is more incoherent than an English teacher. Nowhere is anything more intellectually stifling than a high school library. And nowhere is anything more lethargic than a high school gym. However, we accept these contradictions as part of the absurdity of life. Only has it become egregious when the state of public education spiraled down to the low it has reached recently.
My personal anecdote doesn't quantify an inaccurate niche either. I spent four years in AP classes and advanced electives. Even while taking the most challenging courses offered at my school, I ended up adding independent studies as well.
So what happened? Well, it's strictly a matter of expenditure. There is not enough money to pay teachers adequately to venture into dangerous areas to bring literature to schools lacking an adequate library. There is not enough money for an adequate library. Learning is an expensive ordeal. Here's the ugly truth: if you're poor, of minority status, and go to school in an inner city school, the system is designed to make you fail. When a distant war racks up hundreds of billions of dollars a year under a president who refuses to garner enough tax money, the money comes from somewhere - that somewhere being the future of the poor.
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