Public Schools

["Sally Perrine" <sperrine@potlatch.com>]

Oh man, I didn't plan to respond to this discussion.  I am a recent enrollee
to vision2020 ( less than 2 weeks), and have been increasingly frustrated
about the public/private school debate.  So here goes.

I guess my main concern about private/home schools is that they are not
available to most of our area's children.  So here's what the rest of us do.
We pay our taxes, we vote for bond levies, and when problems arise with our
kids' educations (as they do.nobody is deluded enough to believe that public
education is perfect.  It just is what we have!) we drive down to the
school, we meet with the teachers, we attend school board meetings, we
PARTICIPATE.  What we can't do (most of us) is afford private schools or the
option of home schooling.  You see, in order to home school you need to have
a HOME.  And that generally means two incomes.  Or at least 1 ½.   Yeah,
yeah, yeah, I know the arguments.  There are poor home school families.  I
know that!  My point is, we can either have a system in which a few kids get
an excellent education and many get little or none, or we can try to provide
a good education for all our kids and work together to that end.

But here's another little tidbit (now come the book reviews!).  There are a
lot of minimum wage earners in Latah county.  I don't know how many of you
have read Barbara Ehrenrich's excellent book, Nickle and Dimed, but if you
haven't, run, do not walk, to Bookpeople or your local library and pick up a
copy.  Because this woman eloquently shows how amazingly difficult it is to
live on or near minimum wage, as many of us know by experience or contact
with struggling local families.  Another wonderful resource is Jonathan
Kozol.  All his books are excellent, but the one that speaks to this issue
is called Savage Inequalities, and is about the difference money makes in
education.  Give it a try.

Now, I'm going to end this rant the way Bob Hoffman does (thanks Bob) by
providing full name and address.

Sally Perrine
980 Larch
Potlatch
875-0535
sperrine@potlatch.com