[MD] Education... Again

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
But Browne is certainly right about education. "Perhaps the greatest 
mistake made in American history was in allowing government to 
educate our children."

[Arlo]
Sorry to hear you were educated by government. I was educated by some 
really phenomenal teaches. And I encountered some bad ones along the 
way. But if you mean the government support in providing education to 
all its citizens, well, this has been working great for all the 
leading countries regarding educational success. Finnish and Japanese 
public schools routinely outperform American private schools, which 
leads me to conclude that the educational problems we face in America 
are not based on the "government", but in our society's lack of real 
commitment and investiture in a community-supported educational 
framework. Blaming that ol' gov'ment for failures in education is 
just ridiculous talk-radio nonsense.

[Platt]
We are now witnessing the deplorable results

[Arlo]
And yet Finland's public schools are rocking the world. The 
"deplorability" of our system is in how we, as a society, undervalue 
education and have adopted (for many decades) a Fordist assembly-line 
approach to schooling. This has nothing to do with public funding of 
education, and everything to do with us.

When was the last time you volunteered at a local school, Platt? 
Whether to read to kids, or share your stories while chaperoning a 
field-trip, or teaching a session on something you are skilled at? Hmm??