Education is a reflection of society.  The values of the government and the people are the values of their teachers, administrators, and, ultimately, students.  For many decades, the American Dream has been that every generation would have a higher standard of living than the one before it.  A chicken in every pot was not enough.  It had to be a Revere Ware pot on the newest stove, to be served in a bigger house.  The field of advertising either led this charge, or responded to it, I'm not sure which, but the goal of "Keeping Up With The Jones's" became a high priority to the citizens of this country.

It has taken these decades for the problem of this philosophy to catch up with us, but catch up with us it has.  More Americans feel as if the right to wealth is written into the Constitution, or the right to a perpetually growing standard of living, than at any previous point in our history.  How and why are not at issue, nor is the cost.  These beliefs are expressed at all levels of politics - from the White House to State House to Town Hall.

We have a president who can afford several residences, who vetoes extended unemployment benefits during a recession while approving five airplanes, each of which would cost as much as those benefits.  We have a chief executive who wants money for Federal Emergency Assistance to be taken out of low income housing and other social services' budgets.

In the Massachusetts State House, the Governor eliminated a $150 clothing allowance for welfare children, and has presided over the continuing reduction of state aid for education.  He has, on the other hand, produced a budget surplus.

In Brookline, the school committee has decided not to participate in the school choice plan that might allow too many non-resident children into its schools, and would threaten to reduce the reputed quality of its education.  Brookline does allow a certain small number of them to pay tuition, but that's different.

People without children say "Why should I support the schools?  I don't have any children."

People with children, in affluent communities, say "Why should I support the schools in other towns?  My children don't go there, they go here (or to private school)."

People with children in poor communities, or in the urban areas say "Why should I support the schools?  My children aren't going to college."

People everywhere say "Why should we support the schools at all?  They aren't doing the job.  Not like when I was a child!"

WAKE UP!

So long as the criterion upon which the schools are measured is when you were a child, they will never measure up.  Memories are impossible to match.

So long as your child's future is your sole criterion, your grandchildren will have no future, either.

If the basis for your decision to support other community's schools is your own town's school's success, your school is failing, and your town is at risk.

If a lack of children brings you to decide not to support the schools, you might as well die now.  You are not a part of the future of the human race.

Society is a reflection of our schools.  If our schools become places in which a person's behavior is more important than that person's wealth, in which a person's health is more important than that person's grades, and in which a person's self-esteem is more important than that person's academic knowledge, then society will reflect that caring.

But, what's in it for me?