Thank you bonddad for your diaries. I hope you realize what a great service you are providing by blogging about the facts, figures, and analyses of the government hype versus reality. And I really mean thank you!
I must explain how I could get so excited over what you are doing. I am a business education teacher. Up until two years ago, I was a business education teacher in a public inner-city high school. There I taught a vocational business program and also taught things like personal finance, which became my mission.
As I am sure you are aware, public education has always been in the position of asking for a hand-out from the public to keep it rolling, but under the Bush Administration the situation has now passed dire and gone directly to pathetic. Two years ago, all business education was removed from our high school, due to both lack of funds and ultimately due to lack of support by the current White House.
In Ohio, I know that as funds for public schools have diminished, programs such as mine, along with art, music, and career/technical education have been cut so that districts may continue scrambling to meet the unfunded No Child Left Behind (which is leaving civilization behind) standards. Districts really are now in a bind and I try not to be bitter as I sit at home "smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo." Business used to be taught in every public school in Ohio. This summer there was one position open for the coming school year in the whole state.
Of course, the real losers are the students. It was my great honor to bring to them the knowledge that you have to balance your checkbook, that Rent Center may not be the deal you believe, that interest works both ways. It was my great addiction to see lightbulbs start to turn on over heads and students murmur to one another, "I have to go home and tell my mother this!" Because upon whom do credit lenders prey the most? Yes, they prey on us all, but the poor suffer the most because knowledge is power. MY STUDENTS NEEDED WHAT I KNEW, and ultimately so did their parents.
So, you keep blogging bonddad! And I will keep blogging and preaching to everyone who will listen because one begins to wonder if it is any accident that programs like business education, along with art and music which stimulate brain function and facilitate learning, are falling by the wayside. After all, it is easier to lead sheep than bulls.