RE: As a Survivor of a School Shooting, I Suggest That We Ban All Public Schools
Phenomenal read. I honestly didn't think I was going to get very far, and then you pulled me in to the end. I have to comment because although I had a very similar soul crushing experience as a kid in a public school, I waited until I was 40 to have my own kids, and I am really happy to say that everything about their school seems different. They are only in elementary school, and as a coach at our high school I see problems there, but it still seems as though the system has evolved. Now, granted, we chose to live in New Jersey partly for the good public schools, but we also chose to pay the second highest property taxes in the nation to access them! By no means am I trying to imply they are perfect, but I guess personally I am not ready to completely give up on public education, and I am going to do whatever I can locally to support our schools so they can keep evolving.
Yeah I was 39 before having any children, and my child ended up going to some nice schools with strong community involvement, which did feel much different than my old schools. I don't think public education will necessarily be abandoned, but I do see the convenience of the internet and the power of local communities forming their own learning groups, and the centralized schoolhouse might not be seen as practical anymore for numerous reasons.
I agree that the internet will continue to stretch the possibilities. I’ve had a lot of students at my college that graduated from a virtual charter school and for certain kids it’s a god send. More options are the key. A lot of kids are probably fine with what made us crazy. Actually, I think of that often. It really seemed like a lot of my classmates were fine with it all and did well in school. I think the biggest change that has to happen is we need to go back to investing in quality vo-tech (without the stigma of it being something that less smart kids do). It seems like there is some movement there, and there are some great programs scattered around, but it will take a while for it to go mainstream. Thanks again for you post. I woke up thinking about it!