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In fact, I think that if public schools weren’t
run by said assholes, they’d probably be a happier
lot, as well. It’s also not meant to imply that
I believe all school administrators are assholes,
because I’ve come across quite a few in my time
that were truly exceptional human beings (in a good
way).
Then again, fuck it. Naughty words don’t hurt
anyone. At some point, someone just decided that they
would somehow, for some reason, be bad to say. Especially
in school. It would be hypocritical of me to blast,
while simultaneously supporting, this little bizarro
version of reality.
The fact of the matter is that it takes a long line
of assholes — from local administrators all
the way up to the Federal Government and quite probably
the Antichrist him- or herself — to make public
schools the bizarre little universe that they are.
In fact, the alternate universe that is the public
school system has only one link to reality: It is
a magnified example of how humans construct and live
by sets of rules and beliefs that have little, if
any, basis in reality.
President Bush claimed during the 2000 election that
his “Leave No Child Behind” program had
lowered the dropout rate to just 1.5 percent in Houston
High Schools. It seems that standardized testing can
do more than just show his own IQ to be a mere five
points above the legal level for adult retardation;
it also scares lazy teachers into spurring children
to their fullest potential. Of course, when that number
was adjusted after the election to include all the
kids forced into alternative schools or even just
G.E.D. programs so that educators didn’t have
to deal with them, it skyrocketed to a staggering
40 percent. As an added insult, Bush underfunded this
program by millions of dollars while simultaneously
racking up the biggest deficit in the nation’s
history.
But the irony doesn’t end there, folks. Massachusetts
superintendent of schools Wilfredo T. Laboy suspended
a whopping 24 teachers in 2003 for failing English
proficiency tests. He then failed basic reading and
writing tests himself three times before finally having
to bow out entirely.
And the assholism doesn’t stop with the political
higher-ups, either. Courtney Glowczewski, a 13-year-old
Denver girl who was threatened at knifepoint before
having her hair set on fire by other students (allegedly
because of disabilities brought on by her cerebral
palsy). As a result, she was instructed to stay home
for the remainder of the school year. Her alleged
attacker isn't even under investigation. I’d
really love to believe that there’s more to
the story, but somehow, I doubt it.
“Eliminate our problem the fastest, easiest
way” seems to be the prevailing philosophy among
public school administrators. I’m sure we’ve
all heard about Harvey Milk High School in New York.
It seems that gay students were getting picked on
so much that some well-meaning dullard decided that
they needed their own school. Of course, it’s
not just for gay students. Since it focuses on performing
arts (I’m not kidding,) it’s open to all
students interested in learning how to tell the difference
between early art deco and that ’80s revival
crap.
Here’s a thought: If administrators were really
interested in protecting these students, why didn’t
they just deal with the bullies? Either they’re
just incredibly lazy or they fear that any attempt
to point out the obvious — that while there
is plenty of evidence that homosexuality is physiological
in roots and none to support the laughably idiotic
conservative insistence that it’s a choice that
can and should be changed — in public schools
sends conservative lawmakers into a foaming-at-the-mouth,
God-fearin’ rant about the “Homosexual
agenda.”
(On a side note, if anyone out there has a copy of
the homosexual agenda, please, for the love of God,
send a copy to Jerry Falwell. He seems obsessed with
knowing what goes on between episodes of “Queer
Eye.”) Unfortunately, deciding what goes in
textbooks is a political, not a scientific, process.
Promotion of a dangerous level of ignorance in the
name of sexual purity (which for some reason is a
national priority,) has also become national policy.
When Bush took office, he made it one of his first
orders of business to eliminate federal funding to
all but abstinence-only sex education programs. Isn’t
abstinence-only sex education an oxymoronic phrase?
How can you teach sex education without the sex? By
2003, only California teachers were able to tell a
tenth grader that condoms, not Christ’s love,
might be the only thing standing between them and
a raging case of gonorrhea. Or worse.
A study of HIV-positive teens in Georgia (the state,
not the nation) showed that only two percent had requested
their HIV test for health concerns. Most of the others
didn't even know that they were at risk, even though
nearly a third of them had another STD, more than
half of the boys “regularly” had unprotected
sex with men, and a full third of the girls were pregnant.
Make no mistake about it: these kids are dying because
they didn’t know to use condoms if they chose
to have vaginal or anal sex.
Meanwhile, OSHA is pounding down the doors at porn
studios, demanding the actors wear protection. Talk
about inconsistent policy. Save the porn stars! But,
if your kids can’t keep it in their pants, well
I guess they deserve to die. Maybe we should let OSHA
run the schools.
Backwards sexual morality seems to be a most pressing
concern among school administrators. About a year
ago, I had to make a visit to my old high school.
In the office, I saw a girl awaiting discipline because
her shirt was somehow too revealing. Exactly how,
I don't know, because it looked like a normal T-shirt
to me. But, then, how seeing the human body harms
anyone is completely beyond me. School officials argue
that girls in revealing clothing cause boys to behave
inappropriately — a rip-off of the old seemingly
accepted rationale for rape: she was asking for it.
Suddenly our high schools are a trip to the Dark Ages,
where girls are punished for tempting men to sin.
Out of fairness, I should also note that school is
in many ways a very nurturing environment. If you
fail a class, you take it over. Try getting your boss
to agree to that kind of arrangement. If my column
sucks, I’m screwed. I get look stupid, get hate
mail, and my work decreases in monetary value. If
my book tanks, I can’t write it again and expect
readers or critics to give it a second try. The reality
is that we live in a world where people get run over
for forgetting to hold the pickles.
More great news from Georgia, this time on a more
level, socially speaking: Toombs County High School
now holds three proms. There’s one for white
students, one for black students and now (to show
how truly diverse they are) one for hispanics. Students
are technically free to attend any one of the three,
which they say are held due to cultural differences
between the groups. You know, so white kids can listen
to Frankie Valli while black kids jump around to that
crazy voodoo jungle music they love so much.
If they were really trying to serve students by taste,
I think the lineup would be a little different. First,
there would be what I like to call the “Date
Rape Prom,” for the popular crowd that was so
crassly stigmatized in 1980s college movies as the
jocks and cheerleaders. These are the kids who will
suffer most when they face the real world and realize
that high school is not entirely the real-world microcosm
it claimed to be. They’d play some of that rap/rage-rock
crossover stuff, and a little country.
The next would be the “White Chocolate”
dance for the more mainstream kids, which would have
slightly better music and a bit more hip-hop. Finally,
there would be a “Fetish Ball” for all
of the nerds, goths, punks and emo kids. They’ll
play all the cool music at that one.
Although these social castes (or, rather, their status
on the social ladder) quickly change after graduation,
public schools do teach at least one other important
social lesson: the rich and poor in this country are
not created (or treated as) equal. Most states fund
schools with local property taxes. That means rich
neighborhoods get rich schools, and poor neighborhoods
(especially those in densely populated areas) get
poor schools. And the teachers, who we expect so much
of, including the ability to command respect and admiration
from our children? They get paid less than the average
corporate P.A.
Still, the biggest problem with the real world is
that many people achieve only a high school education.
These people actually believe that most of what they
learned in grades K-12 was true. And that includes
things like “every vote counts” and “voting
is your duty as a citizen.”
So how do they vote? For people who will further
this system. In a word, assholes.
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