Please make my school a prison
A school superintendent in Michigan has written a public letter to the editor asking Governor Rick Snyder if his school can become a prison instead. The full text is below. What do you think?
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Dear Governor Snyder,
In these tough economic times, schools are hurting. And yes, everyone in Michigan is hurting right now financially, but why aren’t we protecting schools? Schools are the one place on Earth that people look to to “fix” what is wrong with society by educating our youth and preparing them to take on the issues that society has created.
One solution I believe we must do is take a look at our corrections system in Michigan. We rank nationally at the top in the number of people we incarcerate. We also spend the most money per prisoner annually than any other state in the union. Now, I like to be at the top of lists, but this is one ranking that I don’t believe Michigan wants to be on top of.
Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day. Access to free health care. Internet. Cable television. Access to a library. A weight room. Computer lab. They can earn a degree. A roof over their heads. Clothing. Everything we just listed we DO NOT provide to our school children.
This is why I’m proposing to make my school a prison. The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. I guess we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day. Please give my children access to free health care. Please provide my school district Internet access and computers. Please put books in my library. Please give my students a weight room so we can be big and strong. We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of youth, our future?!
Please provide for my students in my school district the same way we provide for a prisoner. It’s the least we can do to prepare our students for the future...by giving our schools the resources necessary to keep our students OUT of prison.
Respectfully submitted,
Nathan Bootz, Superintendent, Ithaca Public Schools
Via: http://bigthink.com/ideas/38573?lolamericanpriorities
This certainly puts things into perspective. I hope this gets more light.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dustin on -
I'll comment just to hopefully bump it up the list so more people can see it. This is so awesome. =)
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Permalink Reply by Mike Glickman on -
Wow. Like. It really puts things in perspective. Education fuels everything.
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Permalink Reply by Jason Ward on -
What was the movie where all the prisoners wore collars which if they strayed too far from another prisoner (whom they didn't know) the collar would explode?
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Permalink Reply by Shine on -
It wasn't Total Recall. I can't place where I have seen exploding prisoner collars but it sounds really familiar. Google turned up the movie Wedlock/Deadlock but I don't recall ever watching it. Although I do have a habit of passing out the couch with the Sci-Fi (I refuse to write "SyFy") channel on...
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Permalink Reply by Great Dane on -
It is "wedlock" alright. It's a classic Rutger Hauer movies - my favourite :)
Exploding collars - a simple solution - don't spoil the prisoners! haha
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Permalink Reply by Jason Ward on
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That's it, thank you, was driving me nuts.
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Permalink Reply by Shine on
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i think this is that move that I was thinking of. I have such a terrible (or maybe awesome) penchant for old sci-fi movies.
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Permalink Reply by IEatDinosaurMeat on -
As long as they're cheesy and over the top then it's awesome.
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Permalink Reply by Jason Lamar Sorensen on -
Excellent eye opener, I should love to run this by some of my professors. I'm sure we could start a movement here in California. I think this is the most mis-managed state sometimes.....
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Permalink Reply by IEatDinosaurMeat on
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Yeah, because prisoners ought to be afforded more opportunities than students. Students don't need libraries, weight rooms, or internet.
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