Last Call: A Large Side Of Stupid

Ray Canterbury thinks poor kids have it easy. Especially the kids who don't get enough to eat and are suffering at school. A recent bill allows for nonprofit and donations to make sure kids eat enough. Because science, that thing Republicans hate, has shown without a doubt that hunger affects school performance.

"I think it would be a good idea if perhaps we had the kids work for their lunches: trash to be taken out, hallways to be swept, lawns to be mowed, make them earn it," Del. Ray Canterbury (R-Greenbrier) said during floor debate. "If they miss a lunch or they miss a meal they might not, in that class that afternoon, learn to add, they may not learn to diagram a sentence, but they'll learn a more important lesson." 

More important than math and grammar?  What could be more important to a child's future than an education?  Oh right, learning their place in the servant class.  We need to teach these softies that when they don't have enough  money, even though that is in no way their fault (you know, being eight years old and all) that they have to be separated from the kids who have plenty.  They need to sweep the floors and pick up trash, and be singled out for their economic status.  Only the rich kids should get the regular treatment at a public school.

This isn't the first time this has been mentioned.  Apparently, this has become a recurring theme among smug wealthy men who know just what America needs.  Men who see nothing wrong with kids not being able to afford food, but don't see anything wrong with the system that reinforces poverty and guarantees that entire families fail for another generation.  West Virginia has higher poverty than most states, and worse education statistics.  Gee, I wonder why?

Leave me alone with this babbling moron for ten minutes.  Ten minutes, and I'd teach him a lesson he would never forget.

I believe education is the great equalizer.  Men like Canterbury hate equality, because it is a threat to his privilege.  What a great way to make sure a few stay on top at the expense of many.

Signed,

A girl who never had enough to eat in school and had to work twice as hard.