A lot of people traffic this site because for our unique brand of parenting tips (Tip #482 one should never yell directly at a child. Simply waving the gun around their face should do the trick). We feel passionate about child-rearing and we’re especially concerned with the rearing techniques of the vapidly wealthy. So imagine our delight when NYT ran a piece about how Little Sally Warbucks might not be able to attend private school this year because mom and pop are in a pinch with the whole recession thing. Goodie! We believe, as mentors to the younger, sluttier, 3.0 generation that its in every one’s best interest that the saplings of our future go to public school.
Indeed, it’s the trust fund brigade that I blame for so many woes of this country. Now, I gave up on the whole class warfare idea when I hung up my dickies and Operation Ivy shirt (and opened an a Luxe card account at BR!) back in the’90s, but I still get a righteous amount of resentment towards the bubble children of private school. Unlike most other countries, the US is largely free from an obvious caste system so when vestiges of the moneyed class show — first class airline seating, elite private grade schools, and giant gated communities — I’m just incensed like some common prole spat upon by a grubby factory owner.
So, why should soft-as-a-lilly kids go to public school?
Because we did! That’s what we (Ande, Sarah, Matty, Sascha, ME) all have in common. We all went through the rough and tumble expierence of public school and are goddamn better for it. There’s no doubt that public school is baptism by fire. Its populous and brutish but its REAAAALL. Co-mingling with the ethnics, dealing with a bloated institution, competition for resources etc, is what we public school kids were thrown into. Pragmatics aside I think the best argument for sending your kids to public school, and being an active parent in one comes back to my main nigga T. Jefferson: a public school is a “public good” supported by “public revenue” because an educated citizenry is a cornerstone of a functional democracy. That’s what public schools are meant to do: they should not be repositories for the poor.
I sat through a public high school, but opted out to go to a crazy liberal private school freshly stocked with tustafarians. Do I qualify for the hate, or the love?
Public school is where another kid asked me how many bj’s I had given and my response was, “None. I’m 12. And you’re not going to college.” That same year a cholla clocked our P.E. teacher while she was trying to teach us the cha cha cha.
In the tenth grade I had a teacher who asked the class how many bj’s we’d given. It was, apparently, part of the curriculum. Also there were two different backyard petting zoos across the street. No child should be deprived of the chance to pet a llama.
Just found your inter-net site. It’s lovely, don’t get me wrong, but can you sort your RSS feeds out? Please?
tio samuel,
I dropped out of public high school. Just give me the 10-20k/year, and fuck all the over-weight suckers choking down donuts (teachers) & other TV zombies (school kids)…
I’ll give you a fucking ACT score when I’m 18, just write me a check when I score so well; learning mainly from ignoring all the assholes you were paid to teach & stick me w/…
I will devour your essence, and sell it as your existence.
love,
hard gay
We had a narcoleptic history professor who would scream:
“this is HIGH school not LOW school” and then fall asleep.
FUCKING LIAR!!!!
You still repped Op Ivy, Dickies, and bandanas to the hardest of cores up until 2001! Not the ’90’s and don’t you forget it!!
That’s all I have to say about this fabulous article.
p.s. “Mary Park: you’re my favorite park, except for Balboa Park <3″ -JACKIE KOENING
Truer words were never spoken, Natasha. You dropped some mad science - too bad science and art are the first things that are being cut in some Southern California public schools. I went to public school and thank god/goddess/creator for it every freakin’ day. I’d much rather give money back to my public high school than to my spoiled, bloated private law school. Much like WB Mook, I went to a private, liberal arts school with monied Tri-State area private school flunkies. I thought MY school had a drug problem - turns out Exeter and other prep and boarding schools were turning out functioning (and not-so-functioning) junkies. The experience opened my eyes, but painfully, like Clockwork Orange.
here here!