I didn’t attend college until I was well into my 30s. Prior to my college experience, I was so sure about everything. Of course I was wrong about many things, but my certainty left little room for doubt. There was black, and there was white. That all changed once I started educating myself and now everything (well nearly everything) seems gray.
More money for education, pretty please. Especially after Sen. McCain said, not once but twice at the debate, that Obama frivolously asked for $3m to replace the intricate projector for the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, a place where thousands of children are encouraged to develop a love of science. Available from Bumper Art
Today is the first day of school in my community. As a child I loved school and some of my fondest memories, growing up in Wisconsin, are of back-to-school shopping with my mom and learning the identity of my new teacher.
A few weeks ago I saw an ad in the Sunday newspaper that listed some startling facts about the state of education in this country:
These are startling statistics and show how little has changed under the No Child Left Behind policies. The sources for these figures can be found at the Great Schools website along with a host of other information including toolkits for parents, educators, and communities.
Whether we have school-age children or not, this is a problem that we should all take seriously. As a retired librarian, perhaps I can tutor some school kids in reading this next school year. Too bad our Silky Terrier is such a terror – kids love reading to dogs, something I discovered when supervising the children’s department of the local library.
