I think that many of our educators, and school board members, could be very successful at raising mushrooms.

Mushrooms come in three basic varieties. Tasty, but not particularly nutritious, hallucinogenic, and poisonous. I think that all three types of these are to be found in some of the statements we hear from our educational “experts.”

Let’s look at how you grow mushrooms. The basic material for this is horse manure which is spread out onto flats that are then sprinkled with mushroom spores. These flats are then placed in cool, dark, places. Caves are a significant place of the production of mushrooms.

Fed horse manure and kept in the dark, makes for some excellent, tasty, sometimes hallucinogenic, and sometimes poisonous mushrooms.

We hear from our educators about the “progress” that our students, usually a small sample, are making in schools. Perhaps these are the “Tasty but not nutritious” kind of mushrooms. We hear about how our students are now being measured by “World Class Standards.”

Those saying this must be raising the hallucinogenic mushrooms as they seem to be seeing light where it doesn’t exist. How can Washington “Develop world class standards when they try to make the standards “Suitable for Washington’s Students?” If you want “World Class Standards” you need to look at those countries that have leadership in achievement.

Finally we often hear from educators about the “Importance of Technology” in educating children. We have had, in Federal Way a group of kids who have spent their entire high school time using a laptop, and there isn’t any evidence that they have excelled in school.

This group seems to be convinced that there is some “Magic Bullet” that can eliminate the need for study and practice to gain mastery. Clearly some poisonous mushrooms here!

Remember the rules for successful mushroom farming. Feed them horse manure, keep then in a cool, dark place and hope for something that “Tastes good.”

What do you get? Some that taste good but aren’t that nutritious, some that will allow you to live in a fantasy, some that will kill you.

Sadly this is very similar to what we are getting in education! A state that is 43rd in the nation in high school completion, 50th in the nation in third year college students; we seem to be eating the hallucinogenic mushrooms as there doesn’t seem to be any real concern about this.

The nation is considered 26th in the developed world in mathematics achievement and we were discussing “World Class Standards?” “If we had World Class Standards” in our high schools, the schools would be nearly empty! More hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Would these educators make successful cabbage farmers? I don’t think so. While cabbage is clearly more nutritious than mushrooms, it may not taste as good. I am unaware of any hallucinogenic properties in cabbage.

What does it take to be a successful cabbage farmer? First of all you need to plant them in a field, not a cave, where there is an abundance of sunlight, not darkness, and you want to be sure that it’s warm, not cool, in order to get good cabbage growth.

Horse manure is not a required basic ingredient. Next you need to be sure that there aren’t any rabbits, goats, or other herbivores that can get into your cabbage patch.

In education the rabbits might be characterized as “Distractions.” While successful cabbage farmers have some very bad news for the “Bunnies,” educators seem to believe that they can “grow” their crop of students with rabbits running wild in the patch.

Attempts to eradicate the distractions from the learning patch are, at best, feeble. As for the goats, parents in this case, successful farmers are quick to put up an electric fence to provide “Shock Therapy” to the goats. There isn’t an attempt to “Educate” the goats about “Selective Eating.”

In short to be a successful cabbage farmer you have to plant your crop, then take very aggressive measures against those things that will reduce your output of marketable cabbages.

What if educators were to follow the basic plans of successful cabbage farmers? In some education systems in this country, and in many educational systems elsewhere in the world they seem to do this with greater success than our feeble efforts.

Here we like our mushrooms, at least two of the kinds, and we are trying to raise cabbage among the rabbits and goats. We are starving, but the goats and rabbits are doing pretty well.