I am sick.  I have a cold.  I haven’t had a cold in a long time, and I’m no good at being sick, especially when it cuts in to my bike riding time.  But alas, I must take it easy and get myself back to healthy.  In the meantime I’m just riding to and from work.  Today I took Loyola home and was surprised that I hadn’t been on this route before, and also by the number of schools along this street.  The first one I passed was the New Orleans Math and Science Charter School.  It’s inside this old school building, but I guess is an entirely new school.  When I first got to New Orleans I was shocked by the many tiers of the educational system.  There are charter schools, New Orleans public schools, Recovery District schools, and, of course, really old and really fancy private schools.

I wonder, for example, what it’s like going to this school when Newman, the fancy private school, is just a few blocks away.  Newman is one of the best schools in the city.  Lots of SUVs line up every afternoon to collect children, and the city is full of fancy cars with the green “N” of Newman affixed on back windows, bumpers, and gas tank doors.  Newman’s facilities are beautiful, and their sign surely isn’t homemade.  Now, I don’t know much at all about NO Math and Science, but riding by today, I felt certain these two are quite different from each other in what and who they teach.  And both are probably much different from Sophie B. Wright, just a dozen more blocks away.  Schools in this town are like their own experiments, but kids shouldn’t be experiments.  I wish there were a public education system here that worked, for everyone.  When I think about it, I feel petulant and then angry, because, frankly this show just isn’t fair.