"It is a sad commentary that today we face a choice between having schools that are a monument to our past - or schools that will be the lifeblood of our future. But since that is our choice, let us resolve to choose wisely"
About this Quote
Kulongoski frames education policy as a moral referendum, not a budget line: you can preserve schools as museums to yesterday or build them as the circulatory system of tomorrow. The move is rhetorically neat because it collapses the usual tangle of curriculum fights, tax politics, and district inequities into a single, almost parental obligation. Nobody wants to be the person voting for “monuments” while the future bleeds out.
The subtext is a critique of complacency and nostalgia dressed up as prudence. “Monument to our past” doesn’t just mean old buildings; it implies an entire approach to schooling that treats tradition as a substitute for investment, and standardized routines as proof of seriousness. It’s a quietly barbed way of saying: we’re confusing maintenance with progress, and calling it responsibility. By contrast, “lifeblood of our future” borrows the language of survival. Education isn’t framed as enrichment but as infrastructure, the thing without which everything else (jobs, civic stability, competitiveness) goes anemic.
The line “It is a sad commentary” signals frustration with the political conditions that made this an either/or choice in the first place. Politicians love “choices,” but Kulongoski mourns having to make one at all, suggesting chronic underfunding or short-term thinking has forced a false scarcity. The closing call, “let us resolve to choose wisely,” is classic gubernatorial persuasion: collective pronoun, gentle imperative, moral high ground. It invites consensus while cornering opponents into defending the past as a destination rather than a resource.
The subtext is a critique of complacency and nostalgia dressed up as prudence. “Monument to our past” doesn’t just mean old buildings; it implies an entire approach to schooling that treats tradition as a substitute for investment, and standardized routines as proof of seriousness. It’s a quietly barbed way of saying: we’re confusing maintenance with progress, and calling it responsibility. By contrast, “lifeblood of our future” borrows the language of survival. Education isn’t framed as enrichment but as infrastructure, the thing without which everything else (jobs, civic stability, competitiveness) goes anemic.
The line “It is a sad commentary” signals frustration with the political conditions that made this an either/or choice in the first place. Politicians love “choices,” but Kulongoski mourns having to make one at all, suggesting chronic underfunding or short-term thinking has forced a false scarcity. The closing call, “let us resolve to choose wisely,” is classic gubernatorial persuasion: collective pronoun, gentle imperative, moral high ground. It invites consensus while cornering opponents into defending the past as a destination rather than a resource.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning |
|---|
More Quotes by Ted
Add to List
