“Education… has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.”
G. M. Trevelyan (1876 - 1962)

So people lie…alot. The sad thing is, in my business I know the urge to lie to make your numbers look better. If the numbers don’t look good than the funding is gone. With graduations coming up again I can’t help but wonder how many people are getting pushed through and how many people just didn’t make it…and how many of that last group got dropped from the roll in time to see that the school got paid for them. I was watching this documentary on The 300 and the lives of Spartans. I thought if we treated the education of our children like this we would be nearing Utopia by now. The only people in Sparta who could have a headstone on their grave was a soldier who died in battle or a mother who’s child became a soldier. From the age of 7 a boys life was dedicated to learning to be a soldier. It wasn’t easy either. However there was also no disparity. No one got special treatment. You could hack it or you couldn’t. These people understood one thing. Each of these children were to be an important part of their country. The numbers they looked at were survivors. Perhaps it seems cruel, but is it more cruel than allowing large portions of society to fall to the side so that they can prop up a smaller portion? Imagine if you will, that the money you were born to didn’t matter. Your families achievements were nothing. Everything rested on what you could accomplish. No one was given an advantage because people realized that the whole was more important. Meanwhile schools in the innercity suck…but we can all pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Oh wait, you don’t have boots? How’s your credit rating?