I certainly hope that I'm not the only central Ohioan who noted that the first place award in The Nation's Student Writing Contest went to Columbus Alternative High School senior Laine Allison Zalac.
An excerpt from Zalac's piece gives you the flavor:
"If the President-elect Obama doesn't address the inequities that exist in education, the United States will continue to see disenfranchised youth who don't vote, don't go on to higher education, don't get ahead and don't have a chance of moving up the socioeconomic ladder. In my school, we have a large population of English as Second Language (ESL) students. They are evaluated on the same tests as the rest of the school population, even though they don't speak English and might have arrived in the United States three months ago.
In the suburbs, most students come from families that don't struggle every day to pay rent or have enough food to eat. How is it fair that less than three miles from my school, there is a school where students eat at fast food restaurants for lunch and sit on benches in their school's courtyard talking about what they will wear to the school dance? Kids in my school are dashing off to work to support their family and to try to pay for basics. We know the differences exist and we wonder why we are treated differently."
Read the whole piece at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081229/zalac
In my reporting days, I visited Alternative High in Columbus as well as several of those country-club suburban high schools she mentioned, and the contrasts in facilities and resources are astounding, just as she states. Still, it's discouraging to read that the quality of education at Alternative -- undoubtedly Columbus' best -- is deteriorating along with the plaster.
Also, in the Jan. 12-19 edition, there are a number of probing essays on the major problems facing the incoming Obama administration.
Plus there's an interesting update on the Obama (campaign) (movement) (administration) attempt to create a new nationwide grassroots organization, a topic we've explored locally in recent weeks. See:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090112/melber
http://www.licopac.org/licking_county_issue_pac/2008/12/moving-on-1.html
We've lost Air America (again) in central Ohio but, despite rising publishing costs and mailing rates, we've still got The Nation. If you don't subscribe, you should. Especially if you live in Licking County where, as a progressive, you can get to feel mighty isolated.
(I wish they were paying us for this ad!)
(Gray Hunter)
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