Vote

Conventional wisdom suggests that people often vote with their wallets.  Based on some of last Tuesday’s election results, conventional wisdom seems vindicated.  The selection of Bruce Rauner as the Republican gubernatorial candidate makes sense.  After all, we live in a state that has been broken by politicians, and Mr. Rauner was the only non-politician running.  No one can begrudge a person for choosing a candidate without a Springfield pedigree. 

On another topic, conventional wisdom also suggests that a number of factors contribute to the educational success of a child.  Heredity itself plays an important role, as does parenting and the overall home environment.  Unfortunately, those are also elements that are difficult to quantify.  How much of a role do genetics play, for example?  What about socio-economic status, or the educational experiences of the parents themselves?  It seems that for every convincing theory arguing this way or that, two or three other theories boldly proclaim otherwise.  At the end of the day, education is complicated.  Perhaps that is why we argue about it so much, and perhaps that is why our state and federal legislatures spend so much time paying lip service to the merits of education in the first place.

Try as they might, however, politicians cannot legislate a home environment. They cannot make laws that will lead to a child being raised in a home that values education. 

We can, however, legislate public schools to a certain extent, and we can do that because they are public.  We can influence the classroom environment, because the classrooms belong to us.  We pay for them.

And make sure of this, we will get what we pay for.

Bruce Rauner has not been vague about his disdain for public employee unions.  He has not been coy about his plans for public employee pensions.  That is probably one reason why he won the Republican primary this past week.  People see a broken system and they have decided that some culprits in this mess are the very same unions he has chosen to battle.  Like the border-state governors he hails as heroes, Mr. Rauner has very openly targeted public employee unions as a menace to the pro-business environment he hopes to cultivate.

And perhaps there is logic to that, at least in the short term.  Perhaps if Mr. Rauner’s plans all work out, skittish businesses might be more likely to choose Illinois as a place worth considering.

Perhaps.

Children, however, are not educated in the short term, and children rarely get to choose where they go to school.

 My own child will begin kindergarten in five months.  Like any parent, I pray she enters a classroom each day that is led by a talented, caring, and hard-working teacher.  Fortunately, this community is full of such educators.  Teachers retire, however.  Teachers are replaced.  Each time we, as a public, allow the teaching profession to become a less-attractive option for our college-age generation, students suffer.  Over time, our nation as a whole suffers.

            Before continuing, though, let’s pause and ask ourselves some questions.  We just decided a few paragraphs ago that the predominate indicator of a child’s educational success stems from the home environment and all that that entails:  parenting, heredity, and resources.  Thus, what difference does it make what the child’s classroom environment looks like, particularly if it’s not even your child?  Why should you care if the school across town is falling apart when your children go to the school across the street? 

            At the end of the day, why would we even concern ourselves about what is done unto others and to other’s children, as long as our children are doing fine?

Bruce Rauner has made it very clear that he will take the lead in making public-education a less-attractive option for a generation eager to join the work force.  That is not hyperbole, it is simply a logical extension of his proposed policy.  If you decrease the ability for a profession to earn in the present and retire in the future, you have significantly decreased the likelihood that talented, caring, and hardworking people choose that profession. 

Unfortunately, this is not a scenario that is going to happen someday. This is something that is happening right now. In less than two months, Eastern Illinois University will graduate one of the smallest classes of student teachers in its history.   Considering EIU's reputation as a teacher’s college, this should be alarming.  However, it also makes perfect sense.  After all, a society can only treat a profession unprofessionally for so long before it sees the consequences.

To conclude, we should all vote with our wallets. We should take those wallets out, in fact, and place them next to our ballots.  Before we mark our ballets, however, we really ought to have the guts to open them up and at least glance at the pictures inside.

Hike

Camping is fun.  
Hiking is fun. 
Camping and hiking among feral hogs? 
No thanks.  I’ll pass.
A column about camping or hiking may seem like a curious topic for mid-March.  However, I am tired of winter and have therefore begun to mentally project myself to my favorite season, which is autumn.  I am also tired of feeling guilty about not running on my boring treadmill and have therefore begun to mentally project myself to my favorite autumn pastime, which is hiking.

For those of you who are afraid of trees and do not walk in the woods, hiking in this part of the nation, particularly in the fall, is really nice.  The terrain is reasonable and the scenery is pleasant.  Perhaps most importantly, this part of the country is mostly free from large predators capable of biting you to death.

Or…is it?

A hiking trip this past October to Meramec National Park in Missouri forced me to re-evaluate my PDAC score, which, as none of you know because I am making it up, is an acronym used nowhere in the natural resource community that means Potential for Deadly Animal Contacts.  For most of my life, my PDAC score was a two out of ten.  What kept my score from being a flat zero was that I grew up on a farm and my 4H hog once bit me at the county fair. Considering his short term future, however, I do not blame him.  Also, poisonous snakes do, technically, live in this part of the state, and sometimes dogs bite.  Overall, though, we do not get harassed by wild animals very much in this part of the country.

Recent evidence, however, some of it gathered during the aforementioned hiking trip, suggests that this peaceful trend may soon change.  For starters, the hiking trip in question is a mostly annual event that some old college buddies and I have enjoyed well before we had families that might actually care if we get lost in the woods.  We choose a trail of moderate difficulty, drive to it, put on our unnecessarily cumbersome hiking gear and head into the wild.  One crucial element that has always enhanced this trip for us was that we assumed we would not get eaten.

            Now, granted, we have always known there was a slight chance we could get tusked to death by feral hogs.  These wildest of swine have wreaked havoc throughout rural Missouri for years, and, although they have not been arrested for any human deaths, they do look ferocious and would probably attack if provoked.  Upon picking up the map to Meramec State Park, however, a new potential menace came to light:  timid black bears.  According to the park brochure, “Bears here are not common and are still very timid…The chance of encountering bold bears is very slim and they can be discouraged with capsaicin pepper spray if they are down wind, but mace is not effective.”

            Now, fancy words like “timid,” “slim,” and “capsaicin pepper spray,” are all well and good when you are writing them behind a keyboard or reading them from the safety of your automobile.  However, when you are reflecting on those words in the middle of the forest at night, with the sounds of nature all around you and the only thing you have to defend yourself is a flashlight and an energetic scream, those words get much less comforting.

            Regardless, we did not get mauled by a bear or tusked by feral hogs.  All we suffered were sore muscles from walking ten miles in the woods with camping equipment strapped to our backs.  It took me weeks to recuperate, and when I did finally find enough energy to read a newspaper, what do you think I saw?

            Wolves!  Wisconsin wolves!  According to a recent Associated Press article out of Chicago, Wisconsin wolves may soon infiltrate the northern borders of our once very safe and responsible state.  However, as we say in the newspaper business when column space is tight, that is a topic for another day.  Until then, just be thankful you do not live in a state with timid black bears.

            Yet.