The educational system is money-driven, instead of child-driven. The child is the book. We must learn to read him/her. We must recognize that he or she has an identity or role, and that it precedes our goals.
As educators, our mission should be to help prepare students for success in school, work and life by awakening and cultivating a taste for questioning, a passion for knowledge, a healthy curiosity, the joy of creating and the pleasure of risk without which there can be no creation.
I disagree with President Obama's and the Legislature's stimulus of charter schools. It only creates another dual system. We already have a private school system. We are just compounding the failure.
I really don't care about what Texas or any other state is spending on education. I care about how Oklahoman's tax dollars are being used to educate our children. As far as I'm concerned, taxes and fees are out of the question. I can't afford them.
Need more money for public education? I would change lottery laws so that the lion's share of the money would go to the public schools, instead of the universities. The best investment is early childhood education.
"Wilfredo Santos Rivera
Oklahoma City
Rivera, a former District 7 representative on the Oklahoma City Public Schools Board of Education, recently ran as a Democrat in House District 93.
