Weekly Whack: Fixing Our Public Schools
Fixing Our Public Schools
March 16, 1997

Coming home for spring break this weekend, I was bombarded by news from various sources indicating that the same public school system that produced such an adequately competent citizen as myself is in the midst of a major budget crisis. But my town is definitely not the only school district with a budget problem. It seems that all across the country our public schools are not getting enough money to do all that they want to do. The result is that classrooms are becoming overcrowded since they can't afford to add any more teachers, facilities are falling apart, and valuable programs such as art and music departments and athletic teams are being cut. The major victim in all of this is our children. Of course the people who bring you Feff World (me and that other guy), are dedicated to helping the youth of our nation in any way possible. Thus it is to this end that I sat down and came up with a bunch of ways that our public school can have enough money to finance everything that they want, and more.

First of all I think that high school sports shouldn't be cut. I believe that athletics are very important in the development of children and adolescents, and plus I really don't want to deal with thinking about what most people who play high school sports would be doing if they didn't play high school sports. However I think playing fields have to go. All you have to do is play all your games away at high schools that can afford to have fields just for the sole purpose of athletic competition. It's not like you'll be giving up a huge home-field advantage. The only people actually go to high school sporting events are the parents of the athletes playing, and they will go to all the games no matter where they are. OK, now that you don't need your sport fields anymore, just plow them over and harvest a cash crop on them like tobacco. Or you can just grow wheat and sell it to a third world country. And instead of lifting weights or running laps, high school athletes can keep in shape by working in the fields. Think of all the vast opportunity for profit that this will bring any needy school.

Besides using athletic fields to grow crops, another one of my ideas involves school cafeterias. In comparison to the rest of the real world, lunches bought in school cafeterias are relatively cheap. So why not open them to the public? People would flock from all over to get a cheap lunch at a school cafeteria. I could just imagine a businessman coming to a school cafeteria so he only has to pay a buck for a chicken patty sandwich, french fries, a fruit cup, and a pint of milk. And I think it would be neat to see a bunch of guys in suits trying to eat their lunches while getting hit by spit balls from the kids sitting at the "cool table." Hey, if our public schools want to survive, they have to learn to compete in the free market.

On the subject of ways that public schools can compete in the free market, I think it's about time that shop and home-ec classes are used for more practical purposes. The average high school shop class has enough tools and workers that their own factory. They could make machine parts for cars and what not. And since the students working there wouldn't be getting paid, it would be much cheaper than a factory in Mexico. But don't stop with shop classes, home-ec classes can do the same thing. Get an assembly line going and start making some imitation Levi's jeans. Or how bout home-ec classes marketing their own brand of salad dressing or process soup? Now that I think of it, pretty much all classes can be set up in similar ways. Math students could figure out how to balance people's checkbooks, chemistry students could manufacture toxic chemicals to sell to mad scientists and terrorists, biology students could perform simple operations, and English students... well I guess English students don't really serve any useful purpose.

Talking about ways to make some money, let's talk about some useful ways to make the most out of extracurricular activities and school clubs. The first one that comes to mind is the band. Instead of just having a band that just plays some Sousa for an audience of proud mother and bored fathers, use them for more profitable purposes. Like how bout renting them out for weddings and bar mitzvahs? I'm sure there would be a lot of buyers. And instead of having a school newspaper, all you have to do is use all your little journalist-wannabe's to publish a newsletter for some radical, militant group. Also, if you think you have a good debate team, why not use them to represent people in small claims court? In addition, why not put a swimsuit section in the high school yearbook. If you got some good-looking girls in your high school than that thing would be a hot item at any newsstand.

My final proposal for a way a school can earn some money involves the actual school buildings. If you think about it, school building are virtually empty at night and during the summer. I think that's a waste. I don't think there is anything wrong with renting out school rooms to the general public. Throw in a couple cots in all the classrooms, and you got yourself a nice motel. You figure with the mix between the relatively inexpensive price for staying at a school overnight, and the low cost of eating a lunch at a school cafeteria, any travel guide would have to give a public school four stars.

Well I think it's time to cut the budget on this Whack, so to conclude for this week, high school students should be exploited; let's start growing tobacco in the outfield; and you get exactly what you paid for when you buy a school lunch or go to a public school.

Now for this week's special feature, Feff's top ten favorite crops to grow on a high school football field:

10. Tobacco
9. Wheat
8. Corn
7. Potato
6. Rice
5. Cotton
4. Sorghum
3. Alfalfa
2. Barley
1. Hemp