The Slow Death of Public Education Is Going To Be A Huge Pain In The Ass For You And Me
If you have dealt with finding daycare, you know that shit absolutely sucks.
It’s expensive. And even if cost isn’t an issue for you, there are no spots available. People get on waitlists before they even conceive. You might have to drive across town to find a place. Sometimes you don’t feel comfortable with a certain place, so you have to make a change.
It’s a complete and absolute nightmare.
When you find a place that has a spot, you like, and can afford, you hold on to it for dear life.
Most of the childcare in this country is not publicly funded. It’s a patchwork of providers, big and small and most are greatly underpaid despite the cost to families. It’s fragmented, hard to navigate, and the quality varies greatly from one spot to the other.
When I see what is happening to public education, particularly in Kansas and Missouri, I see the childcare train wreck heading straight toward K-12.
Simply put, the assault and attempted privatization of public education is going to be a huge pain in the ass for you, me, and every normal person.
The Kansas City Star has been doing a good job of highlighting what is being proposed for public schools in the state legislatures, except that one article that highlighted the women with the t shirt depicting a gun aimed at school boards. (Yeah…let’s not give domestic terrorists a platform.)
The current barrage of legislation related to “Parent’s Bill of Rights,” “Critical Race Theory” which no one is sure what that actually means, and other changes is looking to radically change public education.
Those new initiatives coupled with the decades long attempt at defunding public education, creating a voucher system, and promoting charter schools has put public education as we know it with its back up against the wall.
We could go round and round about the ideological debates around public education, what should be taught, and how much does the public have input on but that’s not what I want to talk about today.
The onslaught of changes whether they are good or bad in your eyes is doing two big things.
Bringing distrust to the entire system and driving parents on all sides of the debates away.
It is burdening an already overburdened system and burning out teachers and staff.
This situation is creating a prime wedge to speed up the privatization or semi-privatization of public education.
Privatization of an entire system no matter how incremental is hugely disruptive.
One of the best things about public education is how convenient it is.
And if we know anything about people is that they want and need convenience. Our lives are too busy to navigate complex systems for necessities like education. Just look how awful our health insurance system is. You practically need a specialized degree to understand how everything works and you still get screwed.
Public education is free at point of service, available to everyone, often close to where you live, and provides a quality education.
Even with a partially or semi-privatized education system, that convenience goes away.
Do you have your voucher?
Does it cover all the tuition?
The school isn’t near your home or work, so you add commute time?
What if you don’t have a car?
Why are these kids roaming the streets?
How do I know this is a quality education?
Why does that school system have that program but mine doesn’t?
And so on.
I don’t know about you but that sounds exhausting.
Education is always in need of reform, but it needs to measured, thoughtful, mindful of teachers and staff, and aim to keep quality and convenience for families.
The current trajectory of public education reform driven by fringe elements is doing none of those things.
And while we work on constantly reforming and debating public education, we need to keep maintain fundamental convenience and accessibility for everyone.
To quote Ali Wong, the alternative doesn’t make me want to lean in, it makes me want to lie down.
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