密歇根新闻广播 公共教育时代已经结束

When I was a child, there was this widespread quaint¹ notion that children ought to attend the public schools where they lived. Except for a few kids that went to Catholic schools, and one who won a scholarship to Cranbrook, everybody did.

This was a middle-class to working-class suburban² Detroit district, virtually all white, in the era shortly before busing was first considered as a remedy for de facto segregation³. There were no very rich people, but some doctors and lawyer's kids did go to school with the children of shop rats and assembly line workers. There was concern about quality, but as far as I remember, nobody talked about pulling their kids out and sending them to a better district.

Charter schools hadn't been invented. Private schools were not only beyond most people's means, they seemed somehow vaguely⁴ unpatriotic, at least to those of us who grew up on a diet of World War II movies, where O'Malley was in school with Rosenberg and D'Annunzio and Lowell and all four wound up in the same landing craft headed for Okinawa.

There was concern about quality, and conscientious⁵ mothers lobbied their neighbors to support proposals raising millage rates.

Property taxes were the main source of school funding before Proposal A came in 1994, and communities had considerable latitude⁶ over what they spent. But you wanted a public education, and if your parents moved to a different district, you had to change schools.

Well, we are in a different world, with a bewildering array of options. Some districts have become nightmares that any parent who can is attempting to flee. They often can escape, since for the last twenty years, Michigan has had a Schools of Choice program, which enables parents in dubious⁷ districts to shop for better ones.

Not surprisingly, the Grosse Pointe Public Schools are much in demand. For many years, the five Grosse Pointes refused to participate in Schools of Choice. But times change. Even the Pointes have been hit with budget cuts and significantly declining enrollment⁸.

So now the Grosse Pointe Board of Education is considering charging students from outside the district a whopping $13,000 tuition fee. Any student from, say, Detroit who wanted to come there would have to plunk that much down, and have a clean school record and at least a 2.0 grade average. The school board hasn't definitely decided⁹ to do this.

One member said she thought some parents who live in the district might pull their kids out in protest. Some wonder if it would be legal, not to mention ethical¹⁰, to charge tuition for public, state-supported education. Grosse Pointe hasn't finally decided.

But if they do this, and it is allowed to stand, it will likely be the end of public education. If Grosse Pointe can charge $13,000, maybe Okemos can get away with charging an $8,000 fee. And if we can get outsiders to pay, why not charge those who live there something, too?

Anyone too poor to afford to pay the local public school can go to an inferior unregulated charter in someone's basement. We might ask ourselves if this is the future we really want. Or whether it might make more sense to do the right thing and just fix the public schools instead.

1 quaint   

adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的

参考例句：

• There were many small lanes in the quaint village.在这古香古色的村庄里，有很多小巷。
• They still keep some quaint old customs.他们仍然保留着一些稀奇古怪的旧风俗。

2 suburban   

adj.城郊的，在郊区的

参考例句：

• Suburban shopping centers were springing up all over America. 效区的商业中心在美国如雨后春笋般地兴起。
• There's a lot of good things about suburban living.郊区生活是有许多优点。

3 segregation   

n.隔离，种族隔离

参考例句：

• Many school boards found segregation a hot potato in the early 1960s.在60年代初，许多学校部门都觉得按水平分班是一个棘手的问题。
• They were tired to death of segregation and of being kicked around.他们十分厌恶种族隔离和总是被人踢来踢去。

4 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

5 conscientious   

adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的

参考例句：

• He is a conscientious man and knows his job.他很认真负责，也很懂行。
• He is very conscientious in the performance of his duties.他非常认真地履行职责。

6 latitude   

n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区

参考例句：

• The latitude of the island is 20 degrees south.该岛的纬度是南纬20度。
• The two cities are at approximately the same latitude.这两个城市差不多位于同一纬度上。

7 dubious   

adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的

参考例句：

• What he said yesterday was dubious.他昨天说的话很含糊。
• He uses some dubious shifts to get money.他用一些可疑的手段去赚钱。

8 enrollment   

n.注册或登记的人数；登记

参考例句：

• You will be given a reading list at enrollment.注册时你会收到一份阅读书目。
• I just got the enrollment notice from Fudan University.我刚刚接到复旦大学的入学通知书。

9 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

10 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。