There's No School Like the Old School
Five for Friday, May 30, 2025
Sometime this summer, I’ll exit my fifth decade. Periodically, I get a little freaked out by that number. I’m on the ground floor of old age. My husband is younger than I am, so I’ll be in the old age building by myself for three years. I really hate when he’s in a different decade than I am.
But it doesn’t bother me too much. I ran my first 10K race last week. I’ve got a new job. I’m rewriting my future.
I’m not quite a dinosaur yet.
Gatekeeping Information
With the rise of the internet, people were all rah-rah about the proliferation of information. Wikipedia! Google! A billion websites! AI! Any question could be answered after a few clicks.
But it’s actually hard to get access to useful information. Every day, I inform moms about autism. They need to know what autism is, what kind of help they should get, and how to pay for it. They need to know why their kids need speech therapy and how to get summer camp paid for. They need to know how to get help for their adult children. Surprisingly, they can’t find those answers on the Internet, and they want an actual person to deliver that information to them.
Today, I spent an hour reviewing resources on New Jersey’s website for adults with disabilities. There were dozens of pages of resources on the website, but no information about the amount of a disability check. They probably hide that information because they don’t want too many people applying for disability support.
Information about the disability check wasn’t easily accessible anywhere else on the Internet. I tried twenty different Google searches and came up empty. That’s why parents are coming into our offices and hiring me to answer their questions. It’s so old school.
Education News Continues to Be Depressing
More schools are embracing a four-day school week. And it’s nothing but bad news for students. From the Hechinger Report:
Montana first allowed the four-day school week in 2005, replacing a requirement for a 180-day school year with a 1,080-hour minimum to allow for “greater flexibility in the school calendar.” A three-part study from the University of Montana painted a grim picture of the four-day school week’s outcomes for both students and their schools.
With test scores on the downward slope and nothing but bad changes like a four-day school week, I have to ask: Is the golden age of public education over?
Modern Travel
In the 1980s, a million college students put on their backpacks, got Eurrail passes, and bummed around Europe. Back then, my friends Sandra, Sue, and I did six countries in six weeks. Without a cellphone, my parents had no idea where we were all that time.
Now, kids go to Europe through various organized programs at their colleges. Their trips are supervised. Parents can keep in constant contact. It’s safer, but more boring.
My 25-year-old is flying to New Zealand in two weeks. In some ways, his trip is a modernized version of my old adventure.
His backpack is already ready to go. He used Reddit and AI to help him come up with a list of supplies. Because he’s planning on staying for nearly a year, he bought temporary health insurance, which he found online. He’s paying for this whole adventure on his own, so he’s already registered with agencies that employ travelers like himself.
He will stay in hostels, but they are much cooler than the old school hostels with rows of bunk beds. Check out this place in Auckland. People sleep in pods!
Things I Love
Watching: Hacks, The Last of Us, Thunderbolts (we loved it, too)
Listening: Prof G on Marketing: Rebranding the Democratic Party
Shopping: LMNT Zero Sugar Electrolytes, Veja sneakers
Travel: With Ian back at home for the summer, we’re back to taking him places on the weekend. Last weekend, we went to the Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Photo Dump:
More of Me
Dark Times in Higher Education
College admissions is serious business out here in the upper-middle-class suburbs. Parents hire college advisors and tutors to increase the odds that their child will get into a school with the “right fit.” Thousands are spent guiding their children through the admission process, even before the first tuition bill.
"Is the golden age of public education over?"
Serious question, Laura, for which I would love to hear your thoughts: when do you think the "golden age of public education" actually existed? And for whom?