Laura, this post has lots to recommend it, including the recounting of how-when-where you wrote.
I especially like the big point that Education (with a capital E) needs to be rebuilt. It was too much of a shambles before the pandemic, and it's become a wreck, especially for "our" kids. I trust some smart people will track the cohorts of learners who had their education so substantially disrupted...and their teachers.
Like you, I started skiing too late in life--I was 27 and learned on a ski trip to Austria with my soon to be wife--she'd been once before. We both got pretty good at it, in part because we were stationed at West Point for three years soon after that, and the Military Academy ski slope was open all winter and very cheap. No trip required--we could just drive out the back gate and be on the slope in under 15 minutes. But we gave it up after seeing so many folks our age (70+) injuring themselves.
I think you're right that schools are in deep trouble now. Sadly, most of the debate here in the midwest is banning "CRT," parental rights, public funds spent on private schools (money following the student), and public money being diverted to religious schools. In other words, no one is taking the children's needs into account. Rural areas don't have enough kids to maintain two school systems, one private (or parochial or charter) and one public. And no one anywhere has enough access for kids with IEPs. But CRT and these other issues are all any Republican legislator in Missouri (where I live), Arkansas, Iowa, and Kansas are interested in.
On another note, over half the 50-something charter schools that have opened in the St Louis area over the last 20 years have closed, usually mid-term without warning. Not all charters take students with IEPs, either. I don't see them as a panacea. I hope that parents will eventually start pushing back on legislators who are exploiting children for their own political gain.
Laura, this post has lots to recommend it, including the recounting of how-when-where you wrote.
I especially like the big point that Education (with a capital E) needs to be rebuilt. It was too much of a shambles before the pandemic, and it's become a wreck, especially for "our" kids. I trust some smart people will track the cohorts of learners who had their education so substantially disrupted...and their teachers.
Like you, I started skiing too late in life--I was 27 and learned on a ski trip to Austria with my soon to be wife--she'd been once before. We both got pretty good at it, in part because we were stationed at West Point for three years soon after that, and the Military Academy ski slope was open all winter and very cheap. No trip required--we could just drive out the back gate and be on the slope in under 15 minutes. But we gave it up after seeing so many folks our age (70+) injuring themselves.
I think you're right that schools are in deep trouble now. Sadly, most of the debate here in the midwest is banning "CRT," parental rights, public funds spent on private schools (money following the student), and public money being diverted to religious schools. In other words, no one is taking the children's needs into account. Rural areas don't have enough kids to maintain two school systems, one private (or parochial or charter) and one public. And no one anywhere has enough access for kids with IEPs. But CRT and these other issues are all any Republican legislator in Missouri (where I live), Arkansas, Iowa, and Kansas are interested in.
On another note, over half the 50-something charter schools that have opened in the St Louis area over the last 20 years have closed, usually mid-term without warning. Not all charters take students with IEPs, either. I don't see them as a panacea. I hope that parents will eventually start pushing back on legislators who are exploiting children for their own political gain.