There was a rule, back when I was an education lawyer in Alabama, about visiting public schools: always go on a rainy day so you can see how badly the roofs leak.
I had the benefit of going to a really good high school on Long Island. I went to Shoreham-Wading River High School, which kind of started as an experimental public school back in the 60s and 70s. It had a bunch of teachers there with a unique teaching philosophy.
When my kids were growing up, I wanted their teachers to teach them science, reading, math and history. I also wanted them to care about my kids. But I did not want my children's public school teachers teaching them religion. That was my job as a parent and the job of our church, Sunday school, and youth group.
In America our public schools are intended to be religiously neutral. Our teachers and schools are neither to endorse nor to inhibit religion. I believe this is a very good thing.
I'm convinced many of America's heroes are public school teachers and administrators. Many of these people do what they do because of their faith.
Art shouldn't be prohibited in public schools when kids in private schools always get it.
I was in public school until third or fourth grade, and after that, I was homeschooled. I was homeschooled until I was 14, and then when I was 14, I began attending college. Mom was not playing about that education.
I don't really think I got the full high school experience, only because when I got to high school for the first year, it was grades 9-10. We didn't have older grades. But besides that, it was normal. It was a regular public school. We didn't have much going on. It wasn't too crazy.
Public schools in the late '80s and early '90s were a total mess... we felt that if I was going to have a good educational option in my life, I would have to go to a public school district that actually served its children.
I've always felt, with 'The Iliad,' a real frustration that it's read wrong. That it's turned into this public school poem, which I don't think it is. That glamorising of war, and white-limbed, flowing-haired Greek heroes - it's become a cliched, British empire part of our culture.
