“I know I should just sit on my hands here but it’s been a slow day. Both of my kids graduated from Community and are (or was, in the case of the recent graduate) very successful paper-writers at what I am told is a competitive college.”

I wrote that and posted it to the Ann Arbor school cranks email listserve. I’ve been on that list since it began eight years ago but I hardly every post anything because it’s just about the most contentious listserve on earth. One time people spent about a week bashing Slobodan Milosevic. Yes, that *is* off topic but this listserve was deliberately set up to be a free-for-all and this *is* Ann Arbor. (Y’all can do whatever you want with that. ;-)) The school cranks list is lots of fun but you have to be wearing some pretty heavy duty flame-proof clothing if you decide you want to play. I usually don’t.

Although the list has gone rather dormant in recent years, yesterday it sprang to life when one of the more abrasive participants tried to engage in a little Commie bashing. That’s Community High, not the Communist Party. The claim was that kids who graduate from Commie are not prepared to write acceptable college-level papers. This was misinterpreted from something that happened on the Diane Rehm Show that I can’t even begin to describe.

Say what? Elizabeth: “Moom, I gotta go. I have three 10-page papers to write tonight.” “Moom, I got honors on my SIP.” (huge thesis-like beast) Hmmm. This is a Commie High graduate. Not prepared to write papers? My kids may not be Rhodes Scholars but they are hard-working, conscientious students who get good grades. And despite graduating from Community, they can write papers, fer chrissake. Good ones. Come to think of it, when I got to college so could I, and I graduated from some stoopid ol’ yooper high school. grok GROK!

So I unglued my hands, put on my flameproof suit, and wrote that little reality check, injecting a bit of what I hoped would be interpreted as humour. Held my breath and hit the send button. None of our schools are perfect. They all have the good, the bad, and the ugly. I think there are probably kids in even the “best” high schools who emerge after four years minus the skills to write college-level papers. I don’t know where that woman was coming from. Well actually I think I do but we won’t go there. But she is not gonna let something that ridiculous get by me!

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