I’ve got a bit of a love/hate relationship with politics; I have yet to decide how I ought to interact with it as a Christian. Regardless, I do find the intersection of economics, policy, and politics interesting.

Since I’ve started my own career transition, I have been particularly interested in the arena of education. If I remember my Steven Covey correctly, education is one of those Quadrent 2 activities: Important but not Urgent. These are the kinds of things that are easy to cut when time or money get tight.

Back in the summer when state library funding was threatened, I actually wrote a letter (email) to my state representatives. My first. I argued then was that education is essential to any recovery and libraries play an important role in education. Now is not the time to cut back on these services.

Today I read this statistic via Robert Reich’s Blog: Addendum: The Job Numbers for September:

State governments, meanwhile, continue to shed employees. Here’s one of the most depressing statistics I’ve seen (if you need any additional ones): Some 15,600 teachers didn’t return to work in September. They were laid off. So our classrooms are bigger, we have fewer teachers, and our students are presumably learning less — at the very time when they need to be learning more than ever.

Unfortunately, I am not surprised. Here’s hoping for some change in the next twelve months… and not just because I’ll be looking for a teaching position next summer.