Scott McCleod has inspired me to "get off the bench." In his most recent Dangerously Irrelevant post, he related Barry Glasner's book, The Culture of Fear, to our decisions about education. "We would be much better off as a society if we spent less money and attention on sensationalist issues and instead focused on what matters: improving high school dropout and college completion rates, increasing the number of children who arrive at school ready to learn, reducing the growing segregation of students of color and poverty in urban school districts, more equitable school funding, educating children for their future rather then their past."
To that, I say, "Amen!" I couldn't agree more. And today I will stop being part of the problem and become part of the solution. I will become an advocate for the things that I think need to change in education. I will write to my Congressmen and my state legislators about education initiatives. I will educate other parents.
What will you do? Join your local PTA. Contact your elected representatives (US House, Senate). Attend a local school board meeting. Volunteer in a school. And don't forget to vote next Tuesday.
If we don't get off the bench and into the game for America's school children, who will?
Technorati Tags: activism, McCleod, The Culture of Fear, Glassner, election
1 comment:
Laura, thanks for the link back to my post. I, too, recently decided that I needed to be more politically active and started writing my elected representatives about a few key issues (DOPA, net neutrality, E2T2 funding). I wish I could say I felt like I got a positive response. I received very generic responses - they felt very much like form letters. I know that the people we elect get a lot of mail but it still would have been nice to feel like someone actually read my letters. As an attorney who's pretty familiar with how law and policy get made, this was unsurprising but still frustrating. Good luck on your own journey in this regard.
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