Even public education is held hostage by corporate greed.

It’s always about the money.

Photo by Alexander Mila on Unsplash

I recall the idea that public education should be available in free to every child. Regardless of your social or economic status.

Both my parents were teachers in a time when teachers were supported and revered and education was something everyone could count on at some level.

For those of us who couldn’t afford private school, we could at least count on the availability of solid educational foundation for our children.

As my children entered kindergarten, the onslaught of fundraising requests began. Even before day one cute little flyers and sign-up sheets made what should have been a simple enrollment packet thicker than a copy of Moby Dick.

At one of my children’s schools, they would put out a newsletter with everybody’s name who had “donated”, if your name wasn’t on that list, everybody, at least in your classroom, knew about it.

Let the shame games begin.

There were times, as a full time single mother, where I was able to give, and there were times when I just could not. And so I would find other ways to be supportive, lucky enough to have the ability to volunteer in classrooms and on committees.

But I always wondered about the full-time working parents who didn’t have time to show up for reading group or volunteer for field trips and also couldn’t afford the ever growing list of supplies teachers required to teach our children in free public school.

I never blame the teacher, just a system that seems to get billions of dollars every year to support “free public education” and yet somehow we were always digging in our pockets for more.

Recently, my son had to change schools, as I was filling out the forms of the new school, we sent a request for his transcripts. Three weeks ago and still nothing.

I finally received an email from my son’s former school informing me that they will not send his transcripts until I pay $35 for a supposedly lost computer cable.

How is it possible that a child’s educational and academic records are held hostage due to a potentially lost item?

Schools don’t even pay for these items, or even if they do, it’s money given to them by the state education system, which got it from the Federal government, which then went to the corporation and got the items for free and then gave the corporation a tax credit for giving those items for free and then charges the students for them. I paid $50 a year for insuring this computer. All of this in the name of giving children free access to technology. Free my ass.

So me being me, when I received this email, I responded questioning why my son’s records had anything to do with the potentially lost cord. I was informed that this was “school policy”.

So I responded, I don’t think that’s legal. What happens to a child who can’t afford to replace a lost book or item, and it’s not like this child intentionally lost something, I might take issue with that. But it should never have anything to do with their ability to obtain their academic records. Those records are what allow them to move forward farther into the educational process. For my son specifically, whether or not he can attend university.

Essentially, they are holding the child hostage for something that is technically their parent’s responsibility.

I absolutely refuse to pay the $35 on principle. Firstly, because I had no real validation that the cable was actually lost. We returned everything we had. And secondly, at some point all this money that goes to the schools through our tax dollars and even those without children’s tax dollars must be held accountable for. It’s entirely too easy to turn around and demand the parents, who are placing their children in a free public educational system, keep forking out their hard earned money. Especially since in many ways they’ve already paid for it.

For all our bragging about being the greatest nation on earth, no other first world country does this to their students.  In many of those countries all the way through higher education is free.

And No… this isn’t a plea for vouchers so that the government can further take away our rights to free education. And yes, I do believe Free education should be a right for everyone, just like I believe healthcare should be free.

While we fund billions and billions of dollars to the military industrial complex, and corporations exist basically tax-free bleeding the middle class dry and further alienating lower income families.

All while we vilify the poor and homeless and destitute because “they’re lazy”.

The problem isn’t necessarily even taxes, it’s priorities.

I seem to recall the Pentagon losing something like $28 billion in the last few years. I wonder if the generals and leadership in the military had their records held up or any sort of consequence at all.

Over and over again, it seems the lower 99% are held accountable in ways that the one percent just aren’t.

My son did get his transcript. Because no, it wasn’t legal. It was just a policy. Unfortunately there are a lot of parents out there who are afraid to push back against these “policies”.

I hope more and more people start doing just that.