The latest craze is for celebrities to become involved in educational reform. There are quite a few recent examples, including Campbell Brown and Whoopi Goldberg, castigating tenure with little-to-no understanding of its benefits as championed by even the best teachers. One of the more famous celebrity reformers must be Andre Agassi with his very own charter school. Since everybody has spent time in school, everybody has some personal experience in education. (For Agassi, it was up until his tennis career took over in ninth grade.) Thus, everyone feels justified in putting in his or her two cents, or in some cases millions, towards school reform.
Given the trend, I asked myself which celebrity I might enjoy seeing the most as chief CEO of a newly founded reform group. Naturally, I chose Animal.
Sure, Animal has some anger or hunger issues, but this might give him some insight into kids with similar issues. Furthermore, despite the challenges of anger management, he has still crafted a professionally successful career for himself and formed rewarding friendships with colleagues as well as audiences worldwide.
Animal might as well become a charter-school CEO. Why not? There are stranger things known to educational reform. Only the school must be careful that Animal doesn't eat all of its supplies.
I do know if Animal had a school, he wouldn't over-suspend kids and counsel others out. Although he might scare a few away, I'm sure his school would be open to a far broader enrollment than the most "successful" charter schools. His school would serve society, not a segmented part of it. And, I feel sure, rather than being run as a business, it would be run like a happy family.
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