Public Education's Forgotten Excellence - Perdaily.com

Public Education's Forgotten Excellence - Perdaily.com

Public Education's Forgotten Excellence

by Leonard

As I get older, often I find myself mentioning a great movie or actor, a book, or an important event from the past, while getting a quizzical look on the young face that I am trying to share my passionate memories with. While I am old enough to realize that nothing lasts, I also realize that in the relay race that is life, education must function as the bridge between the past and the future where what one generation has valued can be presented to the next generation for their scrutiny, possible approval, and as a point of reference in determining where they want to go.

In the Professor Stanley Fish's New York Times blog today entitled A Classic Education: Back to the Future, Professor Fish reminisces about Classical High School in Providence, Rhode Island where he went over 55 years ago. The academic rigor he describes from that time seems much further removed than its actual 55 years, when juxtaposed with an LAUSD of today which doesn't see this level of academic excellence as even a possible goal in anything but rhetoric. Much like LAUSD of today, Classical High was "A student body made up of the children of immigrants or first generation Americans; many, like [Professor Fish], the first in their families to finish high