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Three Pro-Public School Posts to Make You Smile


A parent-artist painted this mural in my neighborhood public school. What have you done for your public school lately?

“If progressives want to improve schools, we shouldn’t empty them out. We ought to flood them with our kids, and then debate vociferously what they ought to be doing.”

These are the concluding lines of Dana Goldstein’s inspection of the progressive credentials of politically liberal homeschoolers in Slate (Liberals, Don’t Homeschool Your Kids, February 16, 2012). While there’s a lot to argue about in that piece, right now I’m content to praise it for promoting public schooling as a political virtue. Which it is.

Here are two more pro-public school pieces that brought a smile to my face this week:

I also like this last one, though only tenuously connected to schooling, because it recognizes a trend that will only help neighborhood public schools thrive (with your help, of course):

Happy reading! And if you live in Baltimore, register to volunteer in a Baltimore City Public School today!


Posted on February 18, 2012 at 9:53 am in Open Conversations   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL

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4 Comments to “Three Pro-Public School Posts to Make You Smile”

    
  1. Morna McDermott
    February 23, 2012 at 6:00 am

    thank you Edit for this piece-I love the beginning quote and all the work you’re doing to help remind all of us that PUBLIC education-and I mean GOOD , meaningful PUBLIC education-is central to a flourishing, no the survival of, our democracy
    Pleasew joins us at http://www.unitedopt.out.com in defense of public education and our Occupy the DOE in DC event March 30th-April 2nd

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  2. Shereese Maynard (@AuthorShereeseM)
    February 20, 2012 at 4:25 am

    Great post Edit. Is the mural a recent edition? I’m assuming its at Hampden Elementary. My daughter volunteers as a tutor there every Thursday. I was teaching Singapore Math at Mt Washington on a volunteer basis until my daughter graduated. I wish more parents would give at least an hour a week to our public schools. The engagement alone would spawn much improvement.

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    • Edit Barry
      February 20, 2012 at 8:40 am

      Thanks, Shereese. The mural is in Hampden Elementary/Middle and it’s a few years old. Beppi painted it, with student assistance. She’s a local artist whose silkscreened T-shirts are on sale at Minas Gallery on The Avenue. Your daughter’s tutoring project is great, and the principal is SO appreciative. The more volunteers the better.

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  3. John Bosley
    February 19, 2012 at 12:26 pm

    Thanks for calling for school volunteers, Edit! “Our” neighborhood school (the one with the beautiful parent-produced mural of a herd of the school’s mascots) desperately needs volunteers. I claim part ownership of the school because even in my eighth decade of life, I care deeply what happens to the kids in our neighborhood–and with nearly 3/4 of the school population meeting Title I guidelines they need all the community support they can get, and then some. Low income families (one of the critical factors in Title I eligibility) do not have the time or resources to give their kids a private education, much less “home school” them (personally I find home-schooling an arrogant and stultifying cop-out by parents who ought to know they’re cheating their kids by such cocooning–but that’s just me). Public schools–that monstrous imitation of a human, Rick Santorum’s “factories,” are their only choice. Let’s not ape Santorum–even factories can become humanized, as the Scandanavian experience shows.

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