‘Agenda for the Next Generation’
My wife and I recently elected to put our money where our social conscience is in an “agenda for our next generation.”
By electing to send our 5-year-old daughter to the local elementary school, we will forfeit a substantial sum of money now reserving her a place at a prestigious private school in West Los Angeles.
Our decision was not made without thought; we are convinced that the abandonment of the urban public school system by the strata of the population most economically well off sends it--and the youth of our nation--in a continuing downward spiral of decay and fiscal starvation. While private schools may presently provide a better education in narrow academic skills, their generally homogeneous ethnicity and monocultural environment strike us as inappropriately precious in the marvelously diverse mix of people in Los Angeles.
We are not without our trepidations. We pin our hopes on the beneficial effect of our efforts, together with those of our contemporaries who take heed of your “Agenda for Next Generation,” to improve the resources of the public school system and hence contribute to the fulfillment of our “agenda for our next generation.”
J.W. McCORMICK
Pacific Palisades
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