Today is Monday.

For a majority of Americans, this particular Monday used to be called a holiday.

Yes; Columbus Day. Banks were closed. Post Offices were, too. And, all public school students and teachers had the day off.

Given any number of geo-social arguments that have ensued in the past couple decades, Christopher Columbus has become relegated to a lesser ran hero of American history.

Meantime, let’s ask a more important question: How many students will be going to school, today, and how many will be staying home….for school?

The first cyber school students I met were from the Southwest. Their parents had moved to the area to study osteopathic medicine at the local college. Brother and sister, they were the most outstanding students in their entire class of music students, singing in the mixed chorus, playing in the ensemble, and acting in the school drama production. They only attended public school for these sessions, because cyber education offered them no interactive, musically creative experiences.

Many friends of mine from childhood, women, mothers all, have chosen to home school their children. I trust each and every one of them to both follow their manual instructions to the letter, and complete all the requirements with implicit honesty. And, that is neither a pandering nor condescending statement.

But, what of the loopholes in these fledgling systems, designed to break public education and feed those whose first motive is protection of their children from the evils of “bad teachers” and “bad neighborhoods”?

How many, parents or children, have figured out how to game them?

I wonder.

Christopher Columbus, explorer, trader. He didn’t get here first, but he ended up with the largest chunk of historical credit, to date.

Here’s hoping we don’t lose yet another chunk of our history to educational fraud.

Happy Columbus Day.

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© Ruth Ann Scanzillo   10/10/16    All rights reserved.  Thank you.

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