Dude, you’re lucky to have gone to school in “the before times.” This crap really kicked into high gear 5 or 6 years ago.

And don’t get me started on smartphones in school. Kids these days really don’t have a chance to learn undistracted and un-overwhelmed, or have a hint of privacy (to be dumb kids without things getting on the internet), or respite at home from their peers and their weird drama (the group chats are always blowin’ up).

And then there are the Resource Officers (how many school shootings have they stopped, again?!), whose sole mission it seems is to convert normal childhood and teenage shenanigans into legal issues. Did you carve your name into the bleachers during study hall? That’s not a detention, that’s misdemeanor destruction of public property, so off to a juvenile detention judge you go. Have a small Swiss army knife in your pocket at 17 years old? That’s not a day’s in-school suspension for breaking a rule, that’s possession of a deadly weapon, so off to jail you go. Maybe you’ll be tried as an adult.

The future is here, and it fucking sucks. I’m so glad I came of age in the ’90s, before we all went fucking nuts. I feel bad for these kids and the world they’re growing up in, so I try to help ’em have a sensible, fun upbringing as best I can.

Anyhow, it’ll get worse. Now that the Fascists are taking control, they’ve cut off federal funding to our state’s already-underfunded public schools. That’ll hit hard next year. And I never did love Common Core, sure, but now our (deep red) state is eliminating all adherence to federal guidelines for curriculum (however imperfect), and now redirecting funds to a voucher system toward private (and costly) wingnut religious schools, where objective facts about biology and history don’t have to be taught at all. Cool.