It is becoming the prevailing thought among educators that children belong to the collective. Here is is what MSNBC host and Tulane professor Melissa Harris-Perry said:
“We have never invested as much in public education as we should have, because we’ve always kind of had a private notion of children. Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children. So part of it is we have to break through our private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities. Once it’s everybody’s responsibility and not just the households, then we start making better investments.”
Ms. Harris-Perry defended her statements on her weekend show describing her remarks as “relatively benign.” See her further comments. Sadly, education institutions and social service organizations are increasingly taking a collectivist view and feel they own our children.
(Update: Unfortunately, an accompanying video is no longer available.)