Almost Worse Than Nothing

Over dinner this evening with a couple first-years on their way back from Oxford, where we each ordered huge, bloody steaks and whiskey, and where my view of whatever college basketball game happened to be showing on TV was obstructed by the three large boars’ heads mounted on the wall, the question came up as to whether we “believe in Teacher Corps.” My answer, anyway, is no. I don’t believe in Teacher Corps, not because it does no good at all, but because it is too minuscule for such an enormous problem. We have a problem with education in this country that we need to solve. Programs like Teacher Corps allow legislatures and the general public to salve their collective conscience, reassuring themselves that they are doing something about a problem which in fact requires several orders of magnitude more investment than they are willing to sacrifice. This is like that TV commercial where the engineer tries to patch a leak in a dam with a wad of gum, followed by the admonition, “Assuming you’ve done enough for retirement doesn’t make much sense either.” When public education fails, the apathy and selfish, conceited ignorance of the voting public is ultimately to blame, and no Mississippi Teacher Corps can solve the problem or absolve the responsibility.