What the? A high school ROBOTICS CLASS?!

Yesterday, a friend of mine completely blew me away with a description of her high school education. She divulged that she had a high school robotics class. A robotics class. Jeeeesus. Did any of you have a robotics class? I didn't think so. What surprised me even more was how nonchalantly she mentioned this. I wondered what she'd spring on me next. Aircraft design? Alchemy? "Yeah, you know, plain ol' robotics," she almost seemed to say. "I just HAD to complete it before I could get to what really interested me--transmutational logarithms."

I found myself choking back some unexpected envy. I honestly thought that my suburbian refuge was the epitomy of educational opportunity. I thought of how much I could have benefitted from a robotics class. Perhaps the mathematical concepts involved in robotic creation would have helped me with my SAT scores. Hell, at the very least I could have made some ungainly creature that hobbled around. Okay, okay...convulsed violently. I'll admit, I'm not much good with electronics and programming, but the option would still have been nice. It was the principle of the thing.

Then it hit me. If I felt like my exemplary high school education put me at a disadvantage, what was offered to students at low-income schools? That really put things into perspective for me. I was always told that my high school gave me an excellent education, and I certainly don't disapprove of that assertion now that my friend told me about her uberprogram. I'm doing just fine; I made a relatively smooth transition from high school into my freshman year at college. But it is true that I could have had other high school courses to prepare me for the kinds of things I'd do in college.

But what about economically disadvantaged kids? I'd hate to think about their predicament. I know, I know but the Robin Hood clauses really help things out, don't they? Yeah, right. It's no joke that wealthy public school districts have sufficient funding to provide teachers with stipends and incentives that reward specific teaching qualifications or achievements. This is all completely state sanctioned, of course. And just look at what happens when someone wants to buck the trend and teach "undesirables." This disconcerting story makes its way to us from Westlake High School in Austin, Texas. If there's that much hell to pay for helping kids from the other side of the tracks--literally and figuratively--I can see why it's so hard for low-income school districts to recruit high-quality teachers. Not only do they not have the money to offer incentives and update facilities, but the heavy-hitters keep their acquisitions in check, even with legal measures.

Let's face it, folks. All education is not equal. It's getting harder for some districts to find or recruit good teachers and pay for new materials. I think it's kind of sad that some public schools offer high-tech robotics classes while others struggle to come up with enough money for a new set of chemistry books.

Something just doesn't seem right here. For someone with my relatively privileged education, it took the lack of a robotics class to make me feel inadequately prepared. Spurned by the lack of a robotics class. Go figure, eh? Imagine what the kids with broken desks and 30-year-old textbooks feel like...