Give me liberty, or give me death.

Patrick Henry made this statement early in 1775. These words may be used today to describe the feeling some have about education. As a person devoted to public education, I often struggle with the need to defend what we do, and the realization that sometimes it fails. For, certainly, it is responible to admit that not everything in the world of public education makes sense or works.
Even as I read "The Education Revolution America Needs," the dichotomy within me began to do battle. Competition makes sense to me. Why shouldn't families have the right to choose where their children go to school? But when Hickok asks, "Why should we feel comfortable with the government making such a fundamentally important decision?," I thought, well why shouldn't they? Aren't they the ones funding education?
It shouldn't be so complicated, this matter of educating students. Does it go back to Animal Farm's notion that power corrupts and absolut power corrupts absolutely? The truth is we've all made a mess of the process. Parents who view it as daycare. Students who view it as hell. Teachers who view it as a stand and deliver job. Administrators who become office fixtures. Districts who flutter off after every fad. Politicians who haven't spent time in a classroom for fifty years. It really is a shame.
Maybe it is time for a revolution--a revolt of like minded people.