Kenjie Sakaie: Public schools deserve your support. I know. I attend one.
Kenjie Sakaie attends Cleveland Heights High School, another of the schools in Ohio that are supposedly failing. Sakaie sent this short but pointed letter to the editor at cleveland.com.
As a student at a reputedly failing school, I will say emphatically that our public schools deserve support. As we look to determine the future of education, we must take a step back and decide what we want out of the system. There is more to education than an ill-conceived system of state testing. Public education exists to instill republican virtues in our people. We need this now more than ever.
Public schools have been branded as failing and stripped of funding by bizarre school-choice schemes. If a man has a broken leg, you don’t get him walking again by breaking the other leg. EdChoice, under the pretense of rescuing students from failing schools, has instead defunded those same schools rather than supporting vouchers directly. Our lawmakers must consider: If we focused instead on making meaningful improvements to the public education system which has served our state so well, would there be a need for EdChoice?
Visit Cleveland Heights High School. It is not failing. Nor is it perfect, for the vouchers have made sure of that. It is time that America rediscovers its republican virtues, the source of our strength, and the schools which gave them to us.
Kenji Sakaie,
Cleveland Heights