by Sufjan Stevens » 7/26/2003, 9:14 pm
I have a question. Why should everyone be made to pay for public schooling? Since I started attending school, I've been in a private school where the money my parents paid in their taxes could have been used to improve the school that I went to. My school had problems that needed to be fixed, it could have used new text books, it could have used the money to fund a lot of programs. But all the money did was go away to a school that I had no connections with to pay for a new classroom with computers for every kid. Everything at my school had to be either donated or covered in the tuition, which explains why the tuition at my high school went up $2000 in the four years I was there, and went up another $1000 since I left. If you don't have kids in public schools, then why should one be forced to pay for it? If you send your kids to a private school, you should be paying for your kid's education and improving his or her surroundings, not the surroundings of some punk bitch stranger that couldn't care less about going to school, let alone how it gets fixed up or where the money comes from.
I faced death. I went in with my arms swinging. But I heard my own breath and had to face that I'm still living. I'm still flesh. I hold on to awful feelings. I'm not dead... My chest still draws breath. I hold it. I'm buoyant. There's no end.