EDUCATION!!!

This week's case study is on Education, specifically in DC.

DC's education is historically one of the worst in the country. There has been controversy over Chancellor and Superintendent of DC public schools, Michelle Rhee. In her first 18 months she shut down 21 schools,  and fired 270 teachers and about 20 principles. She fired many teachers after she had them agree to revoke their tenure, which I think is unethical.

Yesterday, Tuesday, we had a visit from a guy who does diversity-work in schools. He had us do some different exercises which were very interesting regarding race, racism, class, and classism. The exercises were very hands-on which I liked. We talked about illegal immigration and similar issues too. My belief that race should not be a forbidden subject was reaffirmed by the speaker and the exercises. I am white, that's a fact. To become sober, you first have to recognize that you have a problem. To become more tolerant, I also believe you have to recognize other races, and not hide the fact, because there is nothing to hide or be ashamed of (I'm not saying race is an issue like addiction). We can't make progress if we keep race a forbidden subject. (Sorry if that's a bad analogy)
Yesterday was also the mayorial elections, and the mayor who hand-picked Chancellor Rhee lost, so she probably won't be around for much longer.

Today we visited 2 DC schools. One is one of the top schools in the country, National Cathedral School (NCS) which is an all girls private school in DC. The school was unbelievably nice, state of the art everything, and I mean EVERYTHING! It was like college. Although it was nice, I felt very uncomfortable there, just a gut feeling, I can't really describe it. Maybe because of the wealth of the school, but I don't know for sure.
     We then went to a charter school, Thurgood Marshall, in DC. A former SEGL student goes there and he gave us a tour which was really nice. I really liked the school. 100% of seniors there get accepted to college which is awesome! They also do the best on tests out of every other school in the area.

We had a bunch of interesting conversations about private schools, and these schools, so far. These schools are so nice, but at the same time the public schools in DC aren't doing well at all, there's about a 30% graduation rate. This case study made me think alot about how I go to a public school, and many people here go to private schools. Is there a difference in our education? Would I be different if I was always in a private school? I just don't know, but I can live with that.