Reply #5: The most important outcome of universal public education, to me at least, is the [View All]

teaching of a commonality, a shared interest toward a common good.

Teaching us that we are all equal under the law and that no matter how much or how little money you have you are still considered a citizen with the same rights and the same responsibility is essential to what it means to be an American.

I am aware that this may seem naive to some, especially given the less than tenacious hold our collective ideal of what being an American is all about. But I strongly believe that it is a good public education system that will save us in the end.

If that is shattered by "privatization", we will establish an entrenched caste system that promises to destroy our country from within.

The more hope we take away from the public at large, the less those folks will be willing to remain loyal to a political system that has abandoned them.