Interesting Article About Education

I live in the Orlando, Florida area and receive the local newspaper, the Orlando Sentinel. We have several opinion columnists who write about local issues but Mike Thomas is probably my favorite. Now I don't always agree with him, although one MAY think he was a Libertarian once you read a few of his columns, but today's column was quite interesting. He talks about education in general and then specifically Florida education, but he makes the point that our brightest students are being left in the dust to boredom and ennui. What a surprise! I could have mentioned that from my own memory of high school back in the 70's! I am the product of a progressive Long Island, NY high school program where we were pretty much left to our own devices. We were so overcrowded that we were encouraged to LEAVE the school when we had no classes. There was no room for something called "study hall." Consequently we had students sprawled all over the campus smoking cigarettes and pot, right out in the open and from the grapevine, a principal who "did lines" of coke with some of the students. Now I don't mean lining up cans of Coca Cola either.

It was an "inner city" type of school out in the burbs where race relations were sketchy at best and all out race wars were not uncommon. I only felt protected by the crowd I ran with, which was not the most scholarly, to say the least. Education was an afterthought at this school and I am amazed that any of us actually left the school and did well in life. I graduated in 1977 and went on to an upstate NY state college where I met my husband and began the process of learning how to learn. I was a good student in high school but after going to college I could see that I was totally unprepared.

Please read the article by Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel.