Read my friend Marjorie's words about what's happening in her kids' NYC public elementary school. Due to horrible budget cuts that are following draconian budget cuts which themselves followed devastating budget cuts, the library - the heart of their school - will be closed, and the PTA is doing all it can to forestall that. This is not Providence, the place that I usually focus on in terms of doing what needs to be done to preserve meaningfulness in schools. If you're looking for a connection, Marjorie is from Providence, grew up here, went to Classical.
Up to you to respond - whether you do or not, we all need to come together to say ENOUGH to destroying our schools and the souls of our kids. This will be us soon enough if we don't all figure out a way to insist that we stop underfunding schools. There is no way that our kids can bear the punishment, no way that our society can in the long run. No dollar saved today is worth it.
Update: several people have asked where to go to donate. Go here: http://tnsny.org/savethelibrary! You are excellent.
And we're so foolish with the money we do have: test booklets, consultants, endless zeroxing, packaged curricula which changes every three years. In my fourteen years in Providence, I have taught 5 different reading programs, and taught to three different sets of standards. Math has changed every year for the last three years, and is changing again next year. training us all to make these changes costs $40.00 an hour per teacher! For all the money we've thrown at improvement, we could have simply reduced class size. It's not rocket science. Put a few kids in a room with someone who has time to love them, establish a real relationship with them and respond to what's actually going on. Imagine that.
ReplyDeleteYES. I want to do more than imagine that. I want that for everyone even though the distance from here to there seems vast. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Jill! You're the best.
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