One thing I cannot understand - and people are probably going to be upset about this - is why local school boards have control over educational content.
My parents, and especially my mother, encouraged by the director of the local school which I was attending, wanted in spite of everything to send me to a National School of Arts and Crafts so that I could later become an engineer.
The demand that school finances be transferred away from local school districts to the state and/or federal government has been a long-time favorite of the educationist lobbies.
In 2009, I traveled to South Sudan with my organization PSI. While there, I visited a local school and met with a group of children who had formed a water club. The group learned about how to treat their drinking water and use proper hygiene practices, such as washing their hands before eating or after going to the bathroom.
At the federal level, we must help, not hinder, local school boards, parents, teachers and administrators as they make decisions about educating our children.
Allowing flexibility to local school districts to set their own nutritional standards and having parents involved in the process is a win-win for the students.
Local school districts should be free to adapt their academic programs in ways appropriate for their community, but we cannot allow mindless budget shortfalls to force wrongheaded changes to our children's education.
No matter how much you like your local school teacher, he or she is a government agent.
Investing in living-wage jobs and reducing the inequities between local school districts would give young people more, not less, incentive to postpone childbearing and more possibilities for independence.
I completed the first three years of primary school in one year and was admitted to the local school the age of six directly into the fourth year, some two years younger than all my contemporaries.
