When I Was Young, I Was Religious.

Many Of Us Regard Ourselves As Mildly Liberal Or Centrist Politically, Voice Fairly Pleasant Sentiments About Our Poor Children, Contribute Money To Send Poor Kids To Summer Camp, Feel Benevolent. We're Not Nazis; We're Nice People. We Read Sophisticated Books. We Go To Church. We Go To Synagogue. Meanwhile, We Put Other People's Children Into An Economic And Environmental Death Zone. We Make It Hard For Them To Get Out. We Strip The Place Bare Of Amenities. And We Sit Back And Say To Ourselves, "well, I Hope That They Don't Kill Each Other Off. But If They Do, It's Not My Fault.

What I Tell These Young People Is, The World Is Not As Dangerous As The Older Generation Would Like You To Believe. Anyone I Know Who Has Ever Taken A Risk And Lost A Job Has Ended Up Getting A Better One Two Years Later.

I Encourage Teachers To Speak In Their Own Voices. Don't Use The Gibberish Of The Standards Writers.

I Do Get Scared About The Physical Danger From Drug Dealers. But It's Not In The Same League As The Danger I Feel Eating An $80 Lunch With My Privileged Friends To Discuss Hunger And Poverty. That's When My Soul Feels Imperiled.

But What Is Now Encompassed By The One Word (“school”) Are Two Very Different Kinds Of Institutions That, In Function, Finance And Intention, Serve Entirely Different Roles. Both Are Needed For Our Nation’s Governance. But Children In One Set Of Schools Are Educated To Be Governors; Children In The Other Set Of Schools Are Trained For Being Governed. The Former Are Given The Imaginative Range To Mobilize Ideas For Economic Growth; The Latter Are Provided With The Discipline To Do The Narrow Tasks The First Group Will Prescribe.