Public Education is Wonderful: Pay Your Taxes

Public education works.  The following are excerpts from Sunday's Wisconsin State Journal:

Yellow Press co-founder Ben Wikler has been working as a producer on left-wing comedian Al Franken's radio show for almost two years. He met Franken while Wikler was a student at Harvard and he became a research assistant for Franken's book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." ....Peter Koechley is now managing editor of The Onion. Andy Yaco-Mink, who was doing Web work with Air America, is now working for Arianna Huffington on her new Web site The Huffington Post. And Josh Orton is executive producer of "The Majority Report" with actress/activist Janeane  Garofalo... Coincidentally, taking Wikler's place as Franken's producer is Jim Norton, another West High grad. Even more wild is he was editor of The Liberator, a previous underground West paper, published from 93-95. After attending college at UW-Madison, ...

Josh Orton's dad, Barry, joked, "It is something in the water (at West High)."

Well it is.

There is nothing more powerful than peer group pressure and standards.  When students are challenged by teachers who encourage imagination and creativity, this is what you get.  As high school students they encourage one another, even while they may not have attended in the same years.  This is what culture is all about.  The funny thing is they are just a handful of writers, researchers, and journalists.  West High has produced similar success stories in the performing arts, business, and academia. The same is true of Madison's other four high schools, East, La Follette, Memorial and Shabazz.

There are three factors that determine the quality of public education: money, the quality of the teaching staff, and parental involvement.  These kids had all three.

Stop whining and pay your taxes.

Comments

[WIlliam H. Hughes]

There are three factors that determine the quality of public education: money, the quality of the teaching staff, and parental involvement. These kids had all three.

Stop whining and pay your taxes.
A GREAT COMMENT FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND PAYING TAXES: A COMMUNITY GETS THE KIND OF SCHOOLS IT WANTS. WHEN WE LOOK CLOSELY AT OUR TAX BILL IN WISCONSIN, WE SEE THAT THE OVERALL LEVEL OF SPENDING IN SCHOOL DISTRICTS ON THE LOCAL TAX BILL OR LEVY HAS DECLINED. IN THE COMMUNITY I LIVE THE ACUTAL PERCENTAGE HAS DECLINED FROM NEARLY 60% TO ABOUT 44%. WHILE MANY BELIEVE IT IS DIRECTLY RELATED TO INCREASED STATE AID, IT IS ALSO A FUNCITON OF A DROP IN SPENDING AND PUBLIC WILL. WE NEED MORE VOICES LIKE YOURS IN SUPPORT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN MADISON BUT ACTUALLY ACROSS WISCONSIN. BILL HUGHES (Superintendent of the Greendale School District in Suburban Milwaukee & a former Madison resident)

[Paul]

Thanks for the feedback Bill. It is funny how so many American Patriots forget what made this country great. It was public investment in infrastructure (railroads, highways, unversity and military research, etc.) accompanied by public investment in our schools ('human capital' if you will).
Pubic education is what separated us from the rest of the world for the past 200 years. Now as the rest of the world catches up, we have leaders who want to close the gap by running this nation backwards!

[Ex-pat cheesehead]

More than anything else, the old saying that "a budget is a statement of priorities" rings true in public education.

Until we see education as an investment in our nation's future, not a hand out to the poor, we will not be serving our children's (and our own) futures adequately.