Category: Mondays I am irritable, or, Chad Orzel’s recent cantankery is infectious

So, this past fall the school Arianna attended sent around several memos notifying us that all but the core requirements (color by number, word searches..) were being cut due to funding shortages. We were told that the cynical special needs programs were being cut back, that the $500 per student identified with a “disorder,” would be lumped into the district’s general fund to help offset the $242 million statewide shortfall.

Today it was announced the federal government is giving the schools $310 million – 30% more than the “shortfall” – but it’s unlikely we’ll see a reinvestment in the curriculum, music, the arts or professional development.

More likely a reinvestment in asphalt, orthopaedic chairs and cutting edge a/v equipment while the students share dated textbooks, grade their own work for teachers that shun them away dare they ask for help in subjects wherewith they struggle – say, a math class led by a teacher who has created her own unique, incomprehensible mathematical expression.

It’s very discouraging, especially as someone who clearly had a deluded view as to the purpose of schools, having led an apparently sheltered youth in parochial and exceptional institutions wherein most instructors had some semblance of interest beyond tabulating numbers, and at least tried to teach even the most doltish slugs. They may have failed! But at least they generally tried.

Most parents I speak with are not happy with the public schools and are willing to invest to improve them – as demonstrated by the repeated approval of millage increases to help fund the schools. Those, however, are just investments in brick and mortar and state of the art toilets, for the special use addition to the multi-purpose room for use in conjunction with the secondary gymnasium with the state of the art score keeping system designed to be used in the programs that are no longer funded.

I don’t doubt, if legislation was proposed to improve the curriculum, teaching methods and teacher quality the community would approve the funding.

But between the NEA, politics and school districts that embrace The Castle as the definitive how-to guide for bureaucratic efficiency, that’s never going to happen.