Matt Miller pointed out earlier this week that the cost of a public school college education has gone from 12% of the median wage in 1980 to 26% today. By the time my kids go to college 12 years from now that bill will be even higher. And as we all know state and federal public school budgets are being slashed. School districts across the country are considering laying off teachers, shuttering school days and closing schools to keep the budget in check.

Like so many things in this country right now, we need to completely rethink the way we are providing education. The Obama administration announced a plan to get all students on digital textbooks in the next five years. Personally, I find this disappointing, incrementalist thinking. The administration claims it will save $600 per student per year but that strikes me as some pretty fishy math predicated on wishful thinking (lower drop out rate, for instance).

While changing textbooks is a start (and Noah Millman wrote a fascinating article on the topic here — thanks Fred Wilson!), it is not the end-all-be-all to a revamped system that can support 21st century students and can bring costs under control.

Fundamentally I believe we need to change the way we think about the student and the teacher and their relationship to each other. Traditionally the teacher has been the holder of all knowledge, imparting it on her young and impressionable students. Thus why we need small class sizes. But in order for the relationship to be sustainable moving forward, I believe we need to move to a model where teachers are guiding the students through the learning experience, using internal and external resources to do so. This especially can happen as the students move into middle and high school.

By changing our approach and treating teachers as educational guides I believe we can accomplish two things:

1. Increase class size without compromising learning integrity
2. Make students responsible for their own education

This second part is critical. As a nation we need to move back to a mentality where we can all succeed if we try and the government’s job is to give us all a chance to succeed. Teaching us how to be self-sufficient, teaching us how to be responsible for our lives and actions, should be part of the experience.

And as all of us who run start-ups know, there is nothing more liberating than feeling like we have some control over our destinies.

Great post from Brian Lam (through MG Siegler):

Happiness is the most important metric in personal tech. If it improves lives, it is important. I’ve always suspected that sitting around on the internet was a sort of rot, but I had no proof until I read this piece on the Stanford study. … People think I’m crazy for complaining about tech news and how stupid and boring the mass media internet has become, but I think they’re wrong. And I think most are writing about the wrong things.

If you are unfamiliar, Brian Lam was the Editorial Directory for gadget site Gizmodo before retiring mid-2011. He has tons of experience with this problem.

He’s right, of course. I have been guilty of this myself from time to time, caring more about my online reputation than the impact I’m having, and even wrote about it and made some significant personal changes last July.

I am 38 now with two young daughters (5 and 3). I have been watching a steady stream of my biggest influencers die over the past six years. The passage of time is only accelerating and it is time I can’t get back. So I made some decisions before the New Year.

I haven’t been happy with my health so I decided to do something about it. I have been going to the gym almost every day.

I have cut back on my hours working in front of the computer. By nature I am a work-aholic so put me in a start-up situation and I literally will work until I pass out, I’ll dream about work and then rest just long enough to start again. I can’t keep that pace up anymore and am working hard to be more efficient with my time so I can get my work done.

In connection I am giving myself more time to think about this business and the impact technology has on it, part of why I am writing more than ever before. I am also trying to stay focused on writing about the things I care about and things I think you should care about, things that might help your business, and caring less about finding new people to read my work.

I still read a lot but have cut down on the minutia of tech, trying to keep my reading focused on bigger and broader themes about the world, tech and business. I am reading less news — giving myself permission to skim — and reading more books.

And most important I am trying hard to take time for my daughters. We eat dinner as a family almost every night where we always discuss the days’ events. The weekend mornings are for me and my girls, too. We make breakfast together and talk a while and play a little. I hope this is a foundation I can keep in place as they get older. I have an open door policy here in my home office. The girls can come in and talk to me any time during the day and I often take breaks to check on them.

I know that this mentality doesn’t jive with starting (or re-starting) a business. But I’ve never believed in conventional wisdom anyway so I’m not about to start now. Here’s hoping I have the strength to keep with these much healthier practices.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The Congressional oath of office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

The Presidential oath of office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution of these United States is only as strong as those defending it. And when money can buy off the Constitution our trust in this government ends. SOPA and PIPA are full scale assaults aimed at purchasing the Preamble to the Constitution and Chris Dodd’s blatant bribe money is an indication that we are no longer afraid to even have the perception of bastardizing the Constitution for our own personal gain.

On the heals of Chris Dodd’s, the MPAA’s and RIAA’s blatant destruction of the Constitution, the Administration was rebuffed by the Supreme Court, denied the ability to place a GPS tracking system on a vehicle without a warrant. The Obama Administration defended this action, which was clearly a direct assault on the Fourth Amendment.

At what point do we recognize that our government — Presidents, Senators and Congressman — is no longer upholding their oaths of office, the sworn statement to defend this nation from threats and uphold the Constitution? The oaths don’t say uphold the Constitution from threats but only if they don’t pay well. It says all threats, foreign and domestic.

We have lost our trust in our government to do what is right. This is a very precarious position. And if We The People don’t take back government by exercising our Constitutional right of voting this trash out of office and fixing the Constitution so money can’t own our government, then we are as complicit as they are.

• A text book costs around $200 a piece and weighs as much as a Volkswagon Bug. Each student needs 5-7 of these, at least, per year. They must store them and carry them. In the case of colleges, students must afford them. In the case of middle and high schools, the schools must.
• The content of the average text book is written for the state standards of Texas, California and New York. This both enlarges the books to cover multiple state standards and makes parts of the books unusable by 47 states whose standards are not covered.
• For the first time, investors are seeing education companies as a money-making play.
• Computers in K-12 primarily sit in a corner, mostly unused, but kids today are born with a mouse (or touch device) in their hands.
• School budgets are being decimated. We could argue about this one all day, whether it is overspending when times were good, too much administration, excessive assessment. It doesn’t matter. School budgets are decimated. And this is causing a complete re-prioritization about what public education mean.
• The ranks of those being educated outside of formal education is growing exponentially. When I started in education, around 2002, there was about one million home schooled kids. Last I saw numbers, around 2007, we were near two million. That has only grown in the past five years.
• The only class that requires a computer is high school math. Everyone carries a TI and they cost around $100. For $100 more, one can buy a Kindle Fire tablet computer or an iPod touch. If it wasn’t for the College Board propping up TI, their education division wouldn’t exist today.
• All of the money being pumped into education doesn’t seem to be making the situation any better. And we all agree that the key to US success is to have better schools.
• Everyone in print media has watched what happened to the newspaper industry and are deathly afraid of what happens next.

Elia

—

Twelve and a half years ago, in the fall of 1999, a little kitten showed up on my front door step. We had just moved into Grant Street about 6 months before. I had no idea where he had come from (or even that he was a he). He was so young he didn’t meow yet. Just a little, throaty croak to tell you that he was there.

At first, for a few weeks, I wouldn’t feed him or let him inside. After a few weeks, the weather started changing so I brought him some food. And a week or so after that he started coming in the house. Where did he come from? We soon thereafter found out that Morning was bought at a pet store by the strange neighbors in the rental house next door. The neighbors named him. They thought he was a girl and would make a fine lap cat. Boy, were they wrong on both accounts.

The relationship with Morning remained that way until the summer of 2000 when we found out the neighbors were moving. We were going to ask but the neighbors had already offered. Morning came to live with us full-time.

Live with us “full-time” is a funny thing to say about Morning, though. He never was much of an indoor cat, especially at night. Sure, he would come in when he wanted food or a cool place to sleep, but for the most part Morning preferred being outside. We would find him sleeping on the patio furniture, under the roof tucked up against the house in the bark dust, on the skylight (nothing weirder than seeing a cat staring down at you), under the Japanese maples in the front, and when it was cold on the heating ducts into the house (our furnace was outside). Even though we brushed him regularly, that long fur of his would get knotted together in the winter so badly we would practically have to shave him naked in the spring. And every morning he would drag an assortment of bark dust and slugs and worms and bugs into the house that had nestled in his fur at night to keep warm. (When I say every morning, by the way, I mean it. By 7am every day Morning was at the back door waiting to come in to get some breakfast.)

The rest of the time he disappeared into the neighborhood. I came to call him the Godfather because, for a while there, we would see him patrolling a three-house radius with other neighborhood cats coming up to talk to him, giving him the latest scoop, we imagined, on a rival gang. And like any good cat mafia member, he got in his share of scrapes.

We tried to keep him inside sometimes at night but there was no winning that fight. He would cry all night and if you didn’t react, he would mark his territory even though he was neutered. One time he peed in the heel of one of my flip flops so perfectly that he didn’t leave a single splash on the ground around it. He had a way of telling you when he wasn’t happy. Even when we would leave on vacation, Morning would be content outside with a big bowl of food and Greg across the street keeping an eye on him. He’d be perfectly fine for the week (although he would torture us endlessly when we got home, walking around the house crying for no reason, crying to go out, crying to come in).

In the evenings Morning would love to climb on my lap and get scratched behind the ears or under the chin. Sometimes, if he was really happy, he would drool up a storm. When he was young he loved to hide under the bed and attack your feet when you walked by. A few times he would climb on the bed when we were asleep, ever so gently, and touch his nose to yours. He only did that a couple of times, though, as he kept finding himself clear across the room after doing it.

He slowed as he got older, lost his Godfather street-cred, lost his ability to jump up on the couch, but he never lost his zeal for the outdoors. Even after he was hit by the car one and a half years ago, only making it with a surgery and a few weeks in the hospital. He was supposed to stay inside for two weeks. He made it three days. (Although afterward he was a lot more affectionate, clearly realizing we saved his life.)

We were worried about him and the move to the new house. The old neighborhood was his neighborhood for twelve years of his life. But he adjusted very quickly to the new circumstances. We tried to keep him in at night but again he rebelled so we let him out again. He really loved the new doggy door that let him come and go as he pleased. At first he didn’t wander as much, preferring to stay in the backyard or sit on the fence and watch out into the field behind the house. (He wasn’t much of a birder or mouser but he loved sitting under the bird feeder, making little kitty noises as he murmured at the birds overhead.) Eventually we would find him exploring the front yard and he kept coming home all banged up, a scratch here, a little blood there. He even had a couple of abscesses that just didn’t want to heal.

One night about three in the morning, shortly after we moved in, Grace our dog started going crazy in her kennel and Morning started moaning outside. I let Grace out and she charged toward the front fence. Morning went the other way, cowering under some plants and eventually getting over his fear enough to come inside for the rest of the night. There are coyotes, foxes and bobcats all over up here. There are even pumas in the more sparse areas. We are guessing one of those spooked him.

Maybe he should have remembered the fear some animal put in him that night, but it didn’t work. His nature was to wander and that’s what he did, definitely traveling north of our house, past the neighbor’s, closer to where coyotes and bobcats are known to live. It was probably inevitable that he would disappear eventually.

And three nights ago he did.

In the end he left as he came: mysteriously, one day. And after knowing him for all of his life and one-third of mine, I think that’s exactly how he would have wanted it.