There is so much to be said on this topic. But Alice made a good point when she said that what can make a school good is often unquantifiable. Did I spell that write? Not sure if my school was any good.

Here is the dead truth about what I think is wrong with most public schools that NO ONE talks about: architecture. Seriously. One of the reasons I hustled and graduated early is because public school buildings are NOT built to the environment. They are created by the same people who build prisons. They are beat, yucky, not a place you want to matriculate, let alone take a dump. Sorry, but it’s true. I used to hold my sphincter in till after 3 in high school because of the gross bathrooms.

Architecture does affect people. One of my first reporting assignments I did in radio was to interview high schoolers from South Central in the aftermath of the LA Riots. These were the good kids. Not rioters. They were seniors who would graduate. But they said, basically, look, where we live is ugly. There are no trees; there are mostly liquor stores. It makes us feel disrespected that we live in this environment, so while we don’t think it’s a good idea to burn this place down, we understand why someone would.

I often think of that.

I mention my mother’s high school in this piece. It’s called Venture School. Her school is small, but she has helped many people over the years. But, you know, I’m biased.