Conghaileach
12th March 2003, 19:12
NY Times
March 6, 2003
The War on Schools
By BOB HERBERT
There's something surreal about the fact that the United States of America, the richest, most powerful nation in history, can't provide a basic public school education for all of its children.
Actually, that's wrong. Strike the word "can't." The correct word is more damning, more reflective of the motives of the people in power. The correct word is "won't."
Without giving the costs much thought, we'll spend hundreds of billions of dollars on an oil-powered misadventure in the Middle East. But we won't scrape together the money for sufficient textbooks and teachers, or even, in some cases, to keep the doors open at public schools in struggling districts from Boston on the East Coast to Portland on the West.
Full Story (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/06/opinion/06HERB.html)
March 6, 2003
The War on Schools
By BOB HERBERT
There's something surreal about the fact that the United States of America, the richest, most powerful nation in history, can't provide a basic public school education for all of its children.
Actually, that's wrong. Strike the word "can't." The correct word is more damning, more reflective of the motives of the people in power. The correct word is "won't."
Without giving the costs much thought, we'll spend hundreds of billions of dollars on an oil-powered misadventure in the Middle East. But we won't scrape together the money for sufficient textbooks and teachers, or even, in some cases, to keep the doors open at public schools in struggling districts from Boston on the East Coast to Portland on the West.
Full Story (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/06/opinion/06HERB.html)