Nicholas Tyler
Staff Writer

It’s a shame that public schools get such a bad rap. Either on the left or the right, you’ll find plenty who think very little of them. It seems part of the American Dream that you needn’t send your children to a public school. Yet that austere environment, forcing as it does so many classes, races and ethnicities together, is arguably the true forge of modern America. Education doesn’t improve solely through money, but through the sense that teacher and student are competent, vested members of society. Young people have to learn what good argument is. We can’t depend on emotional response to bolster a weak argument; we can’t close ourselves to new ideas; and by truthfully anticipating the ideas and perspectives of others, we resolve the weaknesses in our own thinking. If education doesn’t provide for these then it’s only an expensive vanity and a tool for evil folk: consider that Richard Spencer was a doctoral candidate at Duke.