I wrote the following last summer and I continue to stand by it. It’s radical. It’s a little crazy. It is most definitely illegal. In short, it’s a reflection of my thinking in general. I thought to re-post it after following the Occupy Education turn that Occupy Wall Street has taken this week. If your children are turned into commodities doesn’t that finally give the powerless some power?
As I read and re-read Darling-Hammond this summer I’m morphing its lessons with another read from this summer: Marable’s biography of Malcolm X. Throw in a little of PBS’ “Freedom Riders” watching and I’m ready to start the revolution in this piece.
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It’s clear that the Supreme Court isn’t interested in forcing states to adequately fund all of their districts. It’s also clear that civil disobedience works. Crazy thought: what if poor, black, brown, and first generation parents just took their kids out of school? I mean, it’s not doing some of them much good to go anyway and it seems that many are making that choice piecemeal (as judged by drop out and push out rates).
If they build crappy schools, poor kids will come, people will get paid and systems will sustain themselves and the inequities they perpetuate. That’s been the deal for a long time. Well, what if they build the crappy schools and the kids don’t come? They can’t lock up every parent or fine them all. The system isn’t set up to make kids go to school. It’s designed to make them STOP going to school. Use that against itself.
Communities can time share babysitting and round the clock care. All the concerned entities can subsidize breakfast and lunch. /shrug If the government wants kids to go to school they’ll have to step up and make it worth their while. And if all the education consultants and market folks want to make kids into consumers and products? Let’s make them service the little widgets.
Just a little free-market-meets-civil-disobedience-meets-end-of-times thinking going on over here. Nothing to see…unless you want to see it…