Education: It's Only A Game

Three-time Super Bowl loser Fran Tarkington has someone sign his name to an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal wondering what would happen if the National Football League was run like public education.

Well, you'd probably have washed-up school teachers writing uninformed, and untruthful, articles for the Wall Street Journal about how the NFL works. The NFL would have at least one team for every 20,000 residents in the country, and every team would have to give the same coaching time and the same playing time to each player within the geographic area. Revenue wouldn't be shared among the teams, so that players from francishes within wealthy districts would have an immense competitive advantage over those from poor districts. With so many teams, the players would make far less, would play until they reached 67, and wouldn't be drug tested, except maybe in Florida. &c.

And if all these changes caused the NFL to disappear, it wouldn't make one bit of difference.

The purpose of public education is to give every child the benefits of an education, and the opportunities that go with such an education. Its purpose isn't to provide entertainment to drunk and promote the sale of boner pills and junk food. Not every teacher can become third-banana to John Davidson and Cathy Lee Crosby, but they can provide something of value to the nation.