That's quite the generalization there, Trad. I have several friends who are fine arts teachers and they aren't "crap" and they certainly are not uninspired. I would agree that more money could be spent on Arts education in schools to give our kids more opportunities to express themselves but at the same time I could do a lot of cool stuff if my yearly budget for the Science program was increased from the pittance it is right now.
I can tell you are passionate about what you are discussing but when you say things like "we give them crap music classes in crap schools run by totally uninspired crap music teachers", it doesn't really help make your point because it's insulting and untrue. I hate to bring education rants in here but if you could see the energy put in by the majority of teachers in our schools there is no way you'd be saying that. Teachers complain about coaching which is - at most - a 2 month committment ... being a band teacher in our school is an investment in time every single day, before school, at lunch, and going to after school recitals for our kids to perform. Really, really disappointing comments.
I'd love to see the money invested in the huge backlog of school infrastructure, just including the schools that need to be maintained or brought up to safety standards. Also I'd like to see some investment in mass transit, and a lot of this surplus going into the Heritage Fund. I'd love to see some kind of legislation that says 1/2 of all surpluses must go into that fund.
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