Focus on real problems

Our K-12 public education system spends $11,334 per student each year, which is twice the amount other nations spend per student, and our student achievement is 29, 22 and 20 nations down from the top nation in math, science and reading, respectively. Such mediocrity does irreparable damage to children and their futures, especially poor children.

The correctable wrong is one of several tax-financed, atrocious wrongs that would justify demonstrative condemnation in public, but demonstrators repeatedly waste their constitutional privilege on trivial matters like the release of President Donald Trump’s tax forms.

For example, if those forms were released, would they reverse the downward trend in education achievement for children who must depend on adults to act responsibly on their behalf? Would they stop one hungry child from crying? Would they eliminate petty ideological differences that ensure mediocrity and juvenile-like conduct in our elected representatives?

Those are only a small sampling of many problems that have waited decades for remedies. Where are the placards and voices of concern? “And the beat goes on, la de da de de,” sang Sonny and Cher in 1967, meaning times change but they stay the same. In 2017, our politicians in Congress continue to prove them right.

This story was originally published May 24, 2017 at 7:28 PM with the headline "Focus on real problems."