But public schools are going in the opposite direction. California s class sizes are now among the highest in the nation, and the obsession with test scores is narrowing our schools focus. Arts, sciences, and vocational education classes are being abandoned because they are expenses that don t pay off in higher test scores. The result is disengaged students in overcrowded classrooms, and more students labeled with learning or behavior disorders. Corporations such as Exxon and Pepsi claim to support education, but pay no taxes to fund public education.
Pharmaceutical companies profit from students in even more insidious ways.
The lawsuit alleges a conspiracy between the three to create a new medical diagnosis that will ensure that increasing numbers of children are diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Ritalin. When students ask me if I think they should take their prescriptions for such drugs, I have no answer for them. But she has fresh cuts on her arm, and is too vulnerable to wait for a society that works for her and that she can believe in. Another student, a mischievous daredevil who is miserable and trouble at school, has told me that he has been prescribed both Ritalin and Adderall, but that he won t take them because he feels they excise an essential part of his character, and that it hurts him that his parents and teachers like him better when he is not himself. His mother has researched foods and nutritional supplements that are recommended to aid concentration or relieve depression, but most health care plans cover only pharmaceuticals.