Be Cruel To Your School?

Steve Stajich
Mirror contributing writer

   Every once and a while, I get the feeling that public education is becoming a character from Dickens. Let’s call him “Ned Tuppence”… a down but determined urchin standing before the fat, healthy master and in a paper-thin voice pleading, “Please, sir, I want some more.” And then being struck with a ladle.
   It shouldn’t be, but it’s become a tiresome thing to compare America’s spending on public education to what we dole out for the military, or now, corporate bailouts. But one of the central chapters in “The Big Book of Liberal Angst” is the one dealing with these very comparisons. (As any of my friends might joke about this book, “Know it? I wrote it!”) The comparisons keep coming back because, blessedly, durable Ned Tuppence may sometimes be down, but he’s never out.
   Do the Republicans really intend to end public education? I’d love it if their alleged “leadership” would gather and address the nation on that for even half an hour. If they do destroy public schools, that would just about cinch it for democracy in America. For how do you have a dream of equality and opportunity for all when the very means to that end is slowly put to sleep by mad doctors wielding horrific, social strata-separating tools like “vouchers”?
   In the meantime, the schools themselves have any number of on-going battles to fight. Last week there was a skirmish in one of those battles: Vandalism.
   Vandals raged through two Orange County schools late at night, causing the worst damage in school district’s history. The toll tops $50,000. You can divide that any way that you want. Say, in terms of textbooks that might be needed. Or computers. Or simple, necessary year-round maintenance.
   Don’t be hopeful that I have some ideas on how to stop young people from striking out and physically destroying the very buildings and facilities trying to impact and change their lives. I do not. Vandalism seems to play by its own set of rules, since it’s destruction for the sake of destruction. I’m always at a loss when some geek strikes out at a great work of art, although I suspect that, in the big picture, LeRoi Neiman is to blame.
   While property crimes at schools have been down lately, the attacks in Orange County were described as “malicious.” At the Del Obispo Elementary School, the most disheartening damage was to hand-made planter boxes that had been built by students and staff and were “especially meaningful,” in the words of one school official. The boxes decorated some portable classrooms, possibly bringing a feeling of place to otherwise generic temporary facilities.
   Yes, that’s all sad. But what’s really tragic is that the suspects were all teens. It appears they obtained the weapons for their spree from a tool shed at the school one of them attended. Then they moved out into the night, attacking an elementary and middle school.
   School District Police commented that there’s a trend in vandalism at schools during the holidays. Vandals know the buildings are empty, dark. Cameras have been installed at schools, but that only helps to nail the culprits after the fact.
   What we’d all like to know is, “What’s the goddam point, junior?”
   Once, in high school, I was particularly frustrated with a geometry test. My desk featured a fine Formica finish, a simulated plastic wood glued to real wood. At one edge, the plastic sheathing was coming unglued. Nervous and concerned I would have to repeat the course during summer school, I kept yanking on that loose edge until at one point it snapped. Oh, man, I defaced something! Never mind dealing with the cops… this was bound to end up in my permanent record!
   The teacher, a generous younger man who somehow understood my torture, came round and quietly took the liberated piece of desk from my hand. He made a face, but nothing ever came of it. Somehow he knew of my fresh hell. Or he was packing wood cement, knowing this kind of thing happened all the time.
   But I wasn’t swinging an axe that day; the way three young men in Orange County were. I didn’t make large, gaping holes in the walls of the schoolroom. I didn’t smash roof tiles, water fountains, windows and light fixtures. I didn’t go after those hand made planter boxes. I wasn’t actually out to destroy the school.
   There is, in male youth, a kind of destruction period. Most men my age will remember smashing model kits or setting fire to various discarded toys just to see how they would burn. In every red-blooded American male’s past there is some regrettable incident of testing the tensile strength of some household item with firecrackers. I am apologizing here and now on behalf of all of us. I know the cat will never forgive me, but that’s another story.
   Maybe some of that mixes into school vandalism, but you have to wonder if there’s something else larger and more powerful at work when you read that in 1999 the costs associated with school theft, arson and vandalism were $24 million. That’s a considerable amount of anger, frustration or communication breakdown that’s hard to ignore. Sure, if you’re an ailing airline, you can get that kind of chump change from the feds in a second. But it’s an amount that Ned Tuppence would be delighted to have back, if he could please, sir.

This Week’s “Know Your News” Quiz

1) DMV is ordering the surrender of vanity license plates that are
   a) offensive to Native Americans.
   b) offensive to the world of puns.
   c) 2 STUPID
2) A court decision has halted the installation of
   a) Barbara Streisand’s Laser Light Shrine.
   b) billboards along LA freeways.
   c) Dick Cheney as King.
3) Revelation of inconsistencies in the state lottery came as
   a) the Tooth Fairy was found dead.
   b) the Easter Bunny was struck by a car.
   c) the Green Giant quit “the produce game”.
   d) the Pillsbury Doughboy was baked.
   e) the contest for governor was heating up.

Answer Key

(a) “Hello, Atlanta Braves?”
(b) “Hello, Angelyne?”
(e) “Hello, entire city of Las Vegas?”