What I personally hate about this bidding culture is that it sets one community, one group, one school, against another. If one wins, the other loses. I’ve always hated it. It started coming in when I left the teaching profession 25 years ago, and I could see the way things were going then. In a way it’s an abdication of responsibility. We elect people to decide things, and they don’t really want to decide, so they set up this bidding nonsense and then they aren’t really responsible for the outcome. “Well, if the community really wanted it, they would have put in a better bid … Nothing I can do about it … My hands are tied …”
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
On competing for federal money
You may have read Philip Pullman's stirring words in defense of the libraries of Oxfordshire (if you haven't, please do!). The following, on the eve of Worcester's vote on accepting Race to the Top funds, seemed appropriate:
In the era of personal responsibility and radical individualism it's not wonder that public schools and libraries are in danger. "I got mine, you get your's." Some people can afford to buy private education and personal libraries and they don't see why they should be forced to pay for those who can't. It's their money and why should they share? They earned it and they should keep it. When liberalism collapsed in the 1970s we started down this path and we're going to accellerate. Public education and public libraries are two of the most liberal concepts out there.
ReplyDeleteCharles Dickens is the roadmap of our future.