Scott Folsom's Page

Those of us who went to HHS (or to any school in California in the '60's) were theoretically in the golden age of public education in the golden state.

Those are laurels we must never rest upon - if that was a golden age Pericles and the Athenians need to hire an attorney and sue for slander! Things were not all that wonderful then. Our school, the most famous in the world - and the best school in our world - was overcrowded. There were excellent teachers and there were teachers who shouldn't have been teaching. There were drugs and there was an unpopular war. There was racism. There were school administrators who shouldn't have been allowed within five hundred feet of a curious young mind.

Oh, the music was great and our friends and friendships were the best and we were full of high hope. John Ritter was our student body president, Meredith Baxter walked among us - she was a Breck Girl on a Sunset billboard within a year of graduation. We were going to change the world and for the most part we did. Some of it we made better, some of it we did not.

We were full of high hope and we must never let that go. I have spent the last ten or twelve years of my life trying to reimagine the Golden Age of California Public Education, not to dwell there like some happy yesteryear but to set off on the journey again with the current crop o' kids and help them dream their dreams and imagine the future golden ages for their children.

The golden age, you see is never where we are and must never, never be where we were.

It is and must always be one click beyond the horizon.

EverOnward!

- smf

• Scott Folsom is a parent and parent leader in LAUSD — he is the former president of Los Angeles 10th District PTSA and represents PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee. He publishes the weekly 4LAKids e-newsletter - for parents, teachers, administrators, public policy makers and community members of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)

• To SUBSCRIBE e-mail: 4LAKids-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com - or -TO ADD YOUR OR ANOTHER'S NAME TO THE 4LAKids SUBCRIPTION LIST E-MAIL smfolsom@aol.com with "SUBSCRIBE" AS THE SUBJECT ...and yes, it's even easier to unsubscribe! • CURRENT AND PAST ISSUES CAN be viewed at http://4LAKids@blogspot.com. • Items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, damnable prevarications, rants and amusing anecdotes - about LAUSD and/or public education that didn't - or haven't yet - made it into the weekly e-newsletter can be viewed at http;//4LAKidsNews.blogspot.com . • Thank you.