Public schools are failing. I was able to protect my kids during Covid in a top ranked private, conservative Christian school that stayed open, without forced masking, in person since mid August 2020, and the school demands excellence.
It’s not unfair we can afford it and others can’t. It’s unfair parents who protect their kids pay twice and it’s unfair the system blocks families who can’t afford to pay twice from deciding how to spend the funding purported to be for their kids’ education. The outcome is trapping most of the vast middle in failing schools (though parents are finding ways out). It’s unfair that so many kids were so unnecessarily damaged. The world would not be better off if only more kids were more damaged in the name of “fairness.”
School choice is the civil rights issue of our time. As a society we are going to fund education in some manner, no matter how much that irritates the libertarians. Solutions aren’t found in ideological fantasies. The funding is there, children are living humans who don’t have decades for trial and error, the solutions are evident, and progress is really as simple as a law change.
The guardrails are also simple - like the cash for school, the guardrails follow the kids. Every other year kids not tested in their schooling choice should have to take a standardized tests for basic skills in reading, writing, arithmetic. If the child is highly deficient in demonstrated skills, not subject matter curriculums but demonstrated skills, two tests in a row then the child’s school money must go to a school where a majority of students are proficient. No accrediting individual schools or necessary, nor is some state written curriculums guidance. But it is fair to have guardrails on skill sets that are assessed at the student level.
I love these two pieces. As a mother to an 11 year old I’m completely on board. Have been reading people like John Taylor Gatto for years. It’s clear how utterly bankrupt the system is. The things that “aren’t working” actually are working. They’re features, not bugs.
Let families decide what works for our children. The vast majority of parents of all income and educational levels are capable of making good choices for our children.
I believe the accreditation issue goes much further than your piece gets into. It's not just accredation of teachers and public school systems that is problematic. Private schools, those outs parents want from public schools that are failing them must be accredited for graduates to be able to attend prestigious colleges. And the accrediting boards now push as much garbage indoctrination as requirements for accreditation on privates and parochial as they do on public schools.
So if parents want the university path to remain open for their children they must still pass their children through the indoctrination system that the accrediting boards colleges recognize construct. Maybe a "lite" version of it in private and parochial schools, but still inescapable for higher academic achievement. And few parents will pay for private schooling that doesn't gain entrance to college.
And since most employers, public and private, require degrees from those same colleges for jobs in managerial and bureaucratic oversight only those who've gone through the indoctrination requirements of accrediting boards will be sitting atop society. Making the sorts of laws and rules we've suffered the past 2.5 years (more before we were awake) and enforcing compliance on workers and customers alike.
Take a knee for Floyd. Repent your privilege. Wear a mask. Get the jab. Ignore the penis on "her." Don't question elections. Don't question, just do as you're told. All brought to society by graduates of an education system with indoctrination required by inescapable accreditation boards as currently constructed.
Until higher education no longer requires enrollment of students from ideological accrediting boards, and employers, public and private, no longer require degrees from institutions that meet the approval of ideological accrediting boards nothing will be meaningfully fixed. The boards, the seal of approval they confer are the tip of the spear pressed on the throat of free people's with free thought and free speech values today.
What if education itself is a bad idea? That is, one of the best argument for school choice is that kids in choice have fewer mental health issues, so, even if their education was worse in some say, they're happier & happier is worth something, no?
But what if we extend that a bit - what if education itself is the problem & school choice only alleviates, but doesn't solve the problem.
If you take "multiple intelligences" seriously, it's reasonable to believe that people are simply too diverse for education. You and I might enjoy//benefit from sitting around in school til our mid 20s, but for many people that's a disaster. They'd probably learn more & better by just going to work at 12 (before that there'd be some serious physical/mental limits). They'd learn whatever it was they wanted to learn & they'd learn it in the way the best suited them.
So, if you want to be an electrician or a baker, shouldn't you just be an apprentice? Heck, I have serious doubts about medical school and law school - seems like apprenticeships work best there too. Academia seems like the best preparation for academia, but little else. There's little evidence that the concept of education makes any sense at all - most of us learn best by doing, and - in many instances - learning by doing is about the only way to learn it.
We keep pouring in $ with little results - maybe we need to change our ideas entirely. If you spent a year apprenticed to a baker, then a year apprenticed to an electrician, then a year apprenticed to a doctor, then a year apprenticed to a store owner, wouldn't that be a better high school for most of us? Other than the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, what do we really need to learn that you can't learn as an apprentice?
I often wonder if the well-documented benefits of homeschooling are the result of eliminating the schooling (or greatly reducing it). I loved school, but I know I'm unusual, eccentric even. Not sure why everyone should be forced to do what I love - might be better to let people try something else.
The idea that Shakespeare makes you a better person or that "science" makes you a better citizen sure has taken a hit these last few years - I see no evidence that "well-rounded" people handled COVID better than others. If anything, it's clearly been the opposite.
Let's rethink "education" entirely. It's about maximizing human potential, not test scores. I think the happy apprentice is more likely to read & more likely to benefit from Shakespeare than the bored high school student, so I think - ironically - less education will lead to more education. Hamlet means more to someone who's watched their master struggle w/ a real world decision than someone who's only read about indecision in books.
Indeed, Shakespeare's original audience wasn't high schoolers, but apprentices & former apprentices. Real world experience works - it's likely the best education for many people. It should be an option at least.
You nailed pretty much every objection I could think of, but all of them were me sincerely trying to make devil's advocate points.
I stood up and applauded your takedown of credentialism about halfway through.
Your "red team this for me" paragraph answers its own question, though: the only people it truly threatens are entrenched interests. But some of those interests are very, VERY nasty. Which is why we don't have this or anything like it, and why we won't have it as long as those people are around. They will not "give it to the people" if demanded, because it's demanding that they essentially end their own careers and abolish their own power structure.
Thank you. As a retired teacher, mom of 3 and grandmother of 5 …. All I have is gratitude for your observations, thoughts and musings .
I have been saying for decades that the educational system in USA is broken beyond being “ fixed.” It does not serve our country, our families and their children. It certainly does not nurture, support or encourage our children to grow into their beat selves l. Quite the contrary!!
I am thrilled that we are in the difficult, scary and exhilarating place of beginning, fingers crossed 🤞 ….. a national dialogue on what’s next …..
At this point in time there is no other way forward. Our society depends on all of us to take ownership, offer transparency and kick the state and government out of education,PERIOD.
“ public school was designed as a tool for public indoctrination.”
Sounds a lot like John Taylor Gatto. We homeschooled for this reason and other reasons. Main reason was because my kid wanted to be an engineer and it was clear the established schools weren’t capable of making that happen.
The true evil is how we've destroyed the chances for non-credentialled people to earn a decent living on their own smarts.
My lifelong friend was pissed as hell, 30 years ago, to learn that I was out-earning her in my job as the office indentured servant for a well-endowed charitable foundation. At the time she was a civil servant accountant. I'm a HS grad with maybe a year's worth of college credits mostly earned at night. She has two master's degrees.
(Narrator: She's still better off now but that's a long story...)
When I stopped full-time employment I got a part-time seasonal job as a tour guide in a children's petting farm in NYC where most of our visitors came from the NYC public schools and I can testify, as long and as detailed as you want, how them schools are nothing more than gang factories and they take little kids who are the most enthusiastic learners you ever want to see and turn 'em into delinquents by third grade, and the most viciously culpable teachers are the ones "who look like them."
If you're revolted by the daily flashmobs looting your local pharmacy chains and the gangs kicking old ladies in the head for laughs--take it from me. They didn't start out that way. They were manufactured in our public schools and there ain't enough gibbets in the world to dispatch everyone guilty of destroying our most vulnerable children.
Biggest problems in the way that I see are 1)teacher's unions (parents? What's that?), 2)The DOE (which hasn't done a single thing to help since it's inception) and 3) politicians (who love to fund raise from these issues). I'm kind of digging AZ right now where they let the family choose where to spend their allotted monies for education. Kind of went around all 3 of those groups...
There is no incentive for greatness in todays teaching world. Do a good job and you get to teach the same thing next year with a $500 raise. Do a shitty job, do the same thing next year with a $500 raise.
Oh and by the way you don’t even get a teaching job if you don’t coach something.
And after 5 years you get tenure. And by definition lazier than you were before..
Did I say I spent 13 years in education as a second career?
the reason why the teachers' unions are so terrified of school choice is that it would put most of them out of work. parents talk. everybody wants their kid to go to the magnet school.
the other big barrier that needs to be overcome is helicopter parenting. terrified that little sparky's gonna burn down the house. well, he will if the only person teaching him is a public schoolteacher.
Former professor here. I used to be a big proponent of higher education - now I believe it's a waste of time. Vocational Ed is the way to go in most cases.
Higher Ed is required if you want to be a doctor, lawyer, professor, or a few other things. Even Computer Programmer want ads have stated for years, "Wanted 4-year degree or equivalent work experience."
Hint: if you graduate from a 4-year college with no intention of further education, and can't do anything but flip burgers, you've made a very bad choice.
With the expense and debt incurred by higher education, no one should go unless there is a definitive reason. The illustration (degreed vs apprentice) in your article was perfect. Surprisingly, the workers coming to my house are having a very difficult time finding apprentices.
As a comparison to what students are required to know these days:
Arron Burr applied to Princeton at age eleven but was told he was too young. He studied for two years, reapplied, and was admitted as a sophomore at thirteen and graduated in 1772 at sixteen.
Hamilton, at eighteen, was considered to be too old to enter Princeton as the standard age for entrance was fourteen or fifteen. To better his chances of admission, Hamilton lied and said he was sixteen when he applied in 1773.
Students applying to Princeton were required to undergo an oral examination in which they were required to demonstrate proficiency in many subject areas including advanced mathematics, Latin grammar and Greek. They were required to know Virgil and Cicero’s orations and be so well acquainted with Greek as to render any part of the four Evangelists in that language into Latin or English.
Hamilton did not attend Princeton because the Trustees denied his request to take as many classes as he wanted which would have enabled him to graduate sooner.
In December 1773, he entered King’s College (now Columbia University) in Manhattan. At the time, King’s College offered a solid classical curriculum of Greek and Latin literature, rhetoric, geography, history, philosophy, math, science and law.
I agree completely in theory; I think the biggest problem you’re going to run into with a (non) system like this is that it’s currently cultural anathema to allow any kind of genuine competition. We’ve essentially—without directly saying so—decided to become a Harrison Bergeron society where if individuals are not handicapped already, we handicap them on purpose, “because equity.” You talk about schools failing to raise the low achievers to the high achiever standards but instead pull everyone down…I got my first degree in special education, and from my own observation that phenomenon is actually the goal. Think of how much of the “We Cannot Possibly Go Back To Normal!” Covid movement sustains itself on the plight of the supposed “vulnerable”….the same psychology applies here. If parents have choice but schools can still have the power to reject students…what happens to the kids with severe non-verbal, violent outburst autism? The fetal alcohol syndrome kids? The profoundly physically disabled kids? By definition these children will never “achieve” to any meaningful degree, and it’s that reality (that everyone knows implicitly, but no one is allowed to say) that fuels much of the “race to the bottom” that public schools have become. Objectively speaking, a child who cannot function above infant level has no business in school…but the law says they have the right to “full inclusion” nonetheless.
I think that continues to be one of the biggest psychological hurdles that keeps public schools limping along: the idea of guaranteed equal access, merit be damned. I’m 36 and I take a client of mine to school. I am *astounded* at what behaviors are now tolerated in elementary schools: screaming, running away, throwing things, swearing at the teacher, kindergartners routinely not toilet trained…etc. *This* is the type of student that comprises much of the US educational demographic, and it’s only getting larger as more and more parents decide their child has “special needs.”
If, as you say, a school under a choice system can kick out the kids who aren’t achieving….yikes. That is going to be a HELL of a pill to swallow for our woke, equal-access-for-all, equity-obsessed education culture (and in this peculiar case I’m not even talking about the teachers; most of them would secretly love to teach a roomful of overachievers—or even normal achievers. I’m talking about the PARENTS—the ones who have a “high risk” or “special needs” child. The ones who brought us lawsuits to keep the whole school in masks because little Breighton is “immunocompromised”.)
Basically, given that IDEA exists, I’m not sure how you square the guarantee of equal access with the idea of two-way school and parent choice. It seems like it would inevitably land back in separate schools “for the disabled,” which was already rejected by the US back in 1974 and has only gotten MORE unpopular since then. Perhaps there are solutions I’m just not thinking of though, so I’m curious to hear thoughts on this.
Public schools are failing. I was able to protect my kids during Covid in a top ranked private, conservative Christian school that stayed open, without forced masking, in person since mid August 2020, and the school demands excellence.
It’s not unfair we can afford it and others can’t. It’s unfair parents who protect their kids pay twice and it’s unfair the system blocks families who can’t afford to pay twice from deciding how to spend the funding purported to be for their kids’ education. The outcome is trapping most of the vast middle in failing schools (though parents are finding ways out). It’s unfair that so many kids were so unnecessarily damaged. The world would not be better off if only more kids were more damaged in the name of “fairness.”
School choice is the civil rights issue of our time. As a society we are going to fund education in some manner, no matter how much that irritates the libertarians. Solutions aren’t found in ideological fantasies. The funding is there, children are living humans who don’t have decades for trial and error, the solutions are evident, and progress is really as simple as a law change.
The guardrails are also simple - like the cash for school, the guardrails follow the kids. Every other year kids not tested in their schooling choice should have to take a standardized tests for basic skills in reading, writing, arithmetic. If the child is highly deficient in demonstrated skills, not subject matter curriculums but demonstrated skills, two tests in a row then the child’s school money must go to a school where a majority of students are proficient. No accrediting individual schools or necessary, nor is some state written curriculums guidance. But it is fair to have guardrails on skill sets that are assessed at the student level.
I love these two pieces. As a mother to an 11 year old I’m completely on board. Have been reading people like John Taylor Gatto for years. It’s clear how utterly bankrupt the system is. The things that “aren’t working” actually are working. They’re features, not bugs.
Let families decide what works for our children. The vast majority of parents of all income and educational levels are capable of making good choices for our children.
I believe the accreditation issue goes much further than your piece gets into. It's not just accredation of teachers and public school systems that is problematic. Private schools, those outs parents want from public schools that are failing them must be accredited for graduates to be able to attend prestigious colleges. And the accrediting boards now push as much garbage indoctrination as requirements for accreditation on privates and parochial as they do on public schools.
So if parents want the university path to remain open for their children they must still pass their children through the indoctrination system that the accrediting boards colleges recognize construct. Maybe a "lite" version of it in private and parochial schools, but still inescapable for higher academic achievement. And few parents will pay for private schooling that doesn't gain entrance to college.
And since most employers, public and private, require degrees from those same colleges for jobs in managerial and bureaucratic oversight only those who've gone through the indoctrination requirements of accrediting boards will be sitting atop society. Making the sorts of laws and rules we've suffered the past 2.5 years (more before we were awake) and enforcing compliance on workers and customers alike.
Take a knee for Floyd. Repent your privilege. Wear a mask. Get the jab. Ignore the penis on "her." Don't question elections. Don't question, just do as you're told. All brought to society by graduates of an education system with indoctrination required by inescapable accreditation boards as currently constructed.
Until higher education no longer requires enrollment of students from ideological accrediting boards, and employers, public and private, no longer require degrees from institutions that meet the approval of ideological accrediting boards nothing will be meaningfully fixed. The boards, the seal of approval they confer are the tip of the spear pressed on the throat of free people's with free thought and free speech values today.
What if education itself is a bad idea? That is, one of the best argument for school choice is that kids in choice have fewer mental health issues, so, even if their education was worse in some say, they're happier & happier is worth something, no?
But what if we extend that a bit - what if education itself is the problem & school choice only alleviates, but doesn't solve the problem.
If you take "multiple intelligences" seriously, it's reasonable to believe that people are simply too diverse for education. You and I might enjoy//benefit from sitting around in school til our mid 20s, but for many people that's a disaster. They'd probably learn more & better by just going to work at 12 (before that there'd be some serious physical/mental limits). They'd learn whatever it was they wanted to learn & they'd learn it in the way the best suited them.
So, if you want to be an electrician or a baker, shouldn't you just be an apprentice? Heck, I have serious doubts about medical school and law school - seems like apprenticeships work best there too. Academia seems like the best preparation for academia, but little else. There's little evidence that the concept of education makes any sense at all - most of us learn best by doing, and - in many instances - learning by doing is about the only way to learn it.
We keep pouring in $ with little results - maybe we need to change our ideas entirely. If you spent a year apprenticed to a baker, then a year apprenticed to an electrician, then a year apprenticed to a doctor, then a year apprenticed to a store owner, wouldn't that be a better high school for most of us? Other than the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, what do we really need to learn that you can't learn as an apprentice?
I often wonder if the well-documented benefits of homeschooling are the result of eliminating the schooling (or greatly reducing it). I loved school, but I know I'm unusual, eccentric even. Not sure why everyone should be forced to do what I love - might be better to let people try something else.
The idea that Shakespeare makes you a better person or that "science" makes you a better citizen sure has taken a hit these last few years - I see no evidence that "well-rounded" people handled COVID better than others. If anything, it's clearly been the opposite.
Let's rethink "education" entirely. It's about maximizing human potential, not test scores. I think the happy apprentice is more likely to read & more likely to benefit from Shakespeare than the bored high school student, so I think - ironically - less education will lead to more education. Hamlet means more to someone who's watched their master struggle w/ a real world decision than someone who's only read about indecision in books.
Indeed, Shakespeare's original audience wasn't high schoolers, but apprentices & former apprentices. Real world experience works - it's likely the best education for many people. It should be an option at least.
You nailed pretty much every objection I could think of, but all of them were me sincerely trying to make devil's advocate points.
I stood up and applauded your takedown of credentialism about halfway through.
Your "red team this for me" paragraph answers its own question, though: the only people it truly threatens are entrenched interests. But some of those interests are very, VERY nasty. Which is why we don't have this or anything like it, and why we won't have it as long as those people are around. They will not "give it to the people" if demanded, because it's demanding that they essentially end their own careers and abolish their own power structure.
It will have to be taken.
Thank you. As a retired teacher, mom of 3 and grandmother of 5 …. All I have is gratitude for your observations, thoughts and musings .
I have been saying for decades that the educational system in USA is broken beyond being “ fixed.” It does not serve our country, our families and their children. It certainly does not nurture, support or encourage our children to grow into their beat selves l. Quite the contrary!!
I am thrilled that we are in the difficult, scary and exhilarating place of beginning, fingers crossed 🤞 ….. a national dialogue on what’s next …..
At this point in time there is no other way forward. Our society depends on all of us to take ownership, offer transparency and kick the state and government out of education,PERIOD.
“ public school was designed as a tool for public indoctrination.”
Sounds a lot like John Taylor Gatto. We homeschooled for this reason and other reasons. Main reason was because my kid wanted to be an engineer and it was clear the established schools weren’t capable of making that happen.
The true evil is how we've destroyed the chances for non-credentialled people to earn a decent living on their own smarts.
My lifelong friend was pissed as hell, 30 years ago, to learn that I was out-earning her in my job as the office indentured servant for a well-endowed charitable foundation. At the time she was a civil servant accountant. I'm a HS grad with maybe a year's worth of college credits mostly earned at night. She has two master's degrees.
(Narrator: She's still better off now but that's a long story...)
When I stopped full-time employment I got a part-time seasonal job as a tour guide in a children's petting farm in NYC where most of our visitors came from the NYC public schools and I can testify, as long and as detailed as you want, how them schools are nothing more than gang factories and they take little kids who are the most enthusiastic learners you ever want to see and turn 'em into delinquents by third grade, and the most viciously culpable teachers are the ones "who look like them."
If you're revolted by the daily flashmobs looting your local pharmacy chains and the gangs kicking old ladies in the head for laughs--take it from me. They didn't start out that way. They were manufactured in our public schools and there ain't enough gibbets in the world to dispatch everyone guilty of destroying our most vulnerable children.
Biggest problems in the way that I see are 1)teacher's unions (parents? What's that?), 2)The DOE (which hasn't done a single thing to help since it's inception) and 3) politicians (who love to fund raise from these issues). I'm kind of digging AZ right now where they let the family choose where to spend their allotted monies for education. Kind of went around all 3 of those groups...
There is no incentive for greatness in todays teaching world. Do a good job and you get to teach the same thing next year with a $500 raise. Do a shitty job, do the same thing next year with a $500 raise.
Oh and by the way you don’t even get a teaching job if you don’t coach something.
And after 5 years you get tenure. And by definition lazier than you were before..
Did I say I spent 13 years in education as a second career?
the reason why the teachers' unions are so terrified of school choice is that it would put most of them out of work. parents talk. everybody wants their kid to go to the magnet school.
the other big barrier that needs to be overcome is helicopter parenting. terrified that little sparky's gonna burn down the house. well, he will if the only person teaching him is a public schoolteacher.
Having this discussion with a family member who said; “they’ll end up sending their children to some whacked religious school.”
Knowing the answer I asked, what private school do your children attend? Yep, religious and noted for great education.
Former professor here. I used to be a big proponent of higher education - now I believe it's a waste of time. Vocational Ed is the way to go in most cases.
Higher Ed is required if you want to be a doctor, lawyer, professor, or a few other things. Even Computer Programmer want ads have stated for years, "Wanted 4-year degree or equivalent work experience."
Hint: if you graduate from a 4-year college with no intention of further education, and can't do anything but flip burgers, you've made a very bad choice.
With the expense and debt incurred by higher education, no one should go unless there is a definitive reason. The illustration (degreed vs apprentice) in your article was perfect. Surprisingly, the workers coming to my house are having a very difficult time finding apprentices.
As a comparison to what students are required to know these days:
Arron Burr applied to Princeton at age eleven but was told he was too young. He studied for two years, reapplied, and was admitted as a sophomore at thirteen and graduated in 1772 at sixteen.
Hamilton, at eighteen, was considered to be too old to enter Princeton as the standard age for entrance was fourteen or fifteen. To better his chances of admission, Hamilton lied and said he was sixteen when he applied in 1773.
Students applying to Princeton were required to undergo an oral examination in which they were required to demonstrate proficiency in many subject areas including advanced mathematics, Latin grammar and Greek. They were required to know Virgil and Cicero’s orations and be so well acquainted with Greek as to render any part of the four Evangelists in that language into Latin or English.
Hamilton did not attend Princeton because the Trustees denied his request to take as many classes as he wanted which would have enabled him to graduate sooner.
In December 1773, he entered King’s College (now Columbia University) in Manhattan. At the time, King’s College offered a solid classical curriculum of Greek and Latin literature, rhetoric, geography, history, philosophy, math, science and law.
I agree completely in theory; I think the biggest problem you’re going to run into with a (non) system like this is that it’s currently cultural anathema to allow any kind of genuine competition. We’ve essentially—without directly saying so—decided to become a Harrison Bergeron society where if individuals are not handicapped already, we handicap them on purpose, “because equity.” You talk about schools failing to raise the low achievers to the high achiever standards but instead pull everyone down…I got my first degree in special education, and from my own observation that phenomenon is actually the goal. Think of how much of the “We Cannot Possibly Go Back To Normal!” Covid movement sustains itself on the plight of the supposed “vulnerable”….the same psychology applies here. If parents have choice but schools can still have the power to reject students…what happens to the kids with severe non-verbal, violent outburst autism? The fetal alcohol syndrome kids? The profoundly physically disabled kids? By definition these children will never “achieve” to any meaningful degree, and it’s that reality (that everyone knows implicitly, but no one is allowed to say) that fuels much of the “race to the bottom” that public schools have become. Objectively speaking, a child who cannot function above infant level has no business in school…but the law says they have the right to “full inclusion” nonetheless.
I think that continues to be one of the biggest psychological hurdles that keeps public schools limping along: the idea of guaranteed equal access, merit be damned. I’m 36 and I take a client of mine to school. I am *astounded* at what behaviors are now tolerated in elementary schools: screaming, running away, throwing things, swearing at the teacher, kindergartners routinely not toilet trained…etc. *This* is the type of student that comprises much of the US educational demographic, and it’s only getting larger as more and more parents decide their child has “special needs.”
If, as you say, a school under a choice system can kick out the kids who aren’t achieving….yikes. That is going to be a HELL of a pill to swallow for our woke, equal-access-for-all, equity-obsessed education culture (and in this peculiar case I’m not even talking about the teachers; most of them would secretly love to teach a roomful of overachievers—or even normal achievers. I’m talking about the PARENTS—the ones who have a “high risk” or “special needs” child. The ones who brought us lawsuits to keep the whole school in masks because little Breighton is “immunocompromised”.)
Basically, given that IDEA exists, I’m not sure how you square the guarantee of equal access with the idea of two-way school and parent choice. It seems like it would inevitably land back in separate schools “for the disabled,” which was already rejected by the US back in 1974 and has only gotten MORE unpopular since then. Perhaps there are solutions I’m just not thinking of though, so I’m curious to hear thoughts on this.
Two spectacular pieces. Many thanks.