Wrapping My Head Around Reality. Or Is It Fiction. We're Crazy.

I was in a K-8 school yesterday on a tour where the principal brought me to the library and said, "The school hasn't had a librarian in 20 years." His first goal was to resolve that and he found a substitute teacher to cover for the year and her first mission has been to sort through the piles and piles of books that were on tables. At the time I entered, books were everywhere, but the shelving units were busted and very unsteady. I brought a team of students with me, thinking in one day we'd be able to help organize the books and fix the shelves. In three hours, we barely put a dent into the labor. Books have not been checked out by students at this school in  years, although it appears that money went into buying them. They all had labels on them (Dewey's decimal would be proud) .

I can't imagine this. I can't imagine our nation would allow for such a thing to happen, but then I talk to teachers, and like cops, veterans, and social workers, they simply are accustomed with having their resources restricted, their wages battled, their hours challenged, and their integrity scrutinized. Why is this? Probably because their salaries come from tax payers. Any profession that gives to the people, for the people, to make America what it is, is simply viewed as burdensome, I guess.

One local district is set to make 9 million in cuts by the end of this school year and it is likely that more librarians, art teachers, music teachers, middle school counselors, and paraprofessionals will be the ones sacrificed.

Meanwhile, a billionaire who made her money through a Pyramid scheme is on the senate floor to run our nation's schools. Pyramids are what Charters are all about, too. They prey on poor, urban districts, syphoning off the limited resources already being drained from urban schools.

The hustle has grown disproportionately unfair. I see it every day. I feel it. And I know it.

Too many do not, including political elites in both parties. It is criminal and shameful. It is unfair and wrong.

There's so much banter going on in our nation right now, but for me the most despicable truth in the United States is the inequality in our school districts. It doesn't surprise me that schools don't have librarians or opportunities to check out books, because cuts aren't anything new.

But it doesn't make it right, especially in a country that used to pride itself on its public schools.

Shed Tears Dearest Nation. We've simply lost our way.