History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
How to do the right thing in a system that is wrong?
- 07-22-2011
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Guest blog by Marion Brady/Washington Post
A summer evening. 1990. Perfect weather. My wife and I are with Hungarian friends, eating at a sidewalk café on a tree-lined street in Budapest. They’re troubled. He’s a college professor, teaching math at two universities in the city. She’s a pediatrician. But life is hard. Professionals don’t necessarily fare well in Communist countries. His two paychecks don’t equal one good one, her salary is the same as that of a street cleaner, and they have three young daughters, one of whom is disabled. But they’re not complaining about being poor. What they want to talk about is an ethical dilemma. The deep pockmarks stitched diagonally up the wall of a three-story building across the street from where we’re sitting — the signature of heavy machine gun fire during the failed 1956 revolt against Soviet occupation—relate to their problem. The dilemma: They can’t get by without making use of the black market. Do they teach their daughters to be honest and maybe end up on the street, or do they condone dishonesty in order for the girls to have some semblance of a life? Deciding what’s right in a system that’s wrong can be difficult. The current thrust of education “reform” in the United States and much of the rest of the world presents educators with this dilemma. (more...)
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