Think Educationally, Act Locally
Since last fall, I have spent significantly less time writing and blogging. For one, I started a part-time teaching job. Also, as I wrote about here, in light of recent destructive parent trigger-type actions, I wanted to get more meaningfully and positively involved as a parent. Finally, as you may recall, I had decided to make a concerted effort to act less from behind a computer screen and more locally and face-to-face. So, mostly my writing has been in the form of PTA meeting minutes and e-mails, letters, and public statements to my local decision makers.Besides the school-level work, during winter break I got (unfortunately) the perfect opportunity to be more active in local education matters. We're in year five of devastating budget cuts in my county. Some of this is due to budget constraints as a result of the economic downturn but it's also due to ideology which has taken a hold of our local governing body which says that 1) no matter how small or efficient already, government is too big and 2) all services belong on a magical free market. Paradoxically, many people who seem to support this ideology also want roads and services, like education, and a decent quality of life. It seems they just don't want to pay for it and they certainly don't want to pay for them for anyone else--see here for a good example of what I'm talking about.
Besides serving on the boards of two PTAs, I joined up with a group called Friends of Hanover Schools which is dedicated to advocating for enough funding (but coupled with smart budgeting) for our schools to be great and to electing pro-public education local and state decisions makers.
Volunteering and being an active part of our schools' PTA has given me humbling insights into how much work it is to run a school. On the one hand there are little tasks that can get big rewards and on the other hand there are big tasks that