Old Greenwich, CT 9-11-08

Miles since last blog:  37.5

Last night after I arrived I had walked 37.5 miles. My feet hurt, in spite of or because of, my new insoles. I have small bumps all over my feet, I think they may be hives. A tendon in my ankle felt like it had been hurt badly after I got my shoes off for a minute. As per normal, the back of my calves were splotchy and molted like a rash and I couldn't get warm for a little while after I stopped walking. Glamorous, no?

I have the day off again today to rest and recover and this gives my time to think. I haven't yet talked about the charity in my blog, so here it goes.

37.5 miles. At the end of the day it feels like a great accomplishment. After all, I'm in a pair of 3 year old running shoes, pushing 90 lbs of equipment, just a paper with scribbled directions on it and often I run out of water for periods. Meanwhile, cars pass me all day long. They have GPS, they have AC, they can accomplish what I take all day to do in a mere half an hour.

This is how I feel about our education system. I was lucky enough to be a car, with all the tools and gadgets. I went to good public schools and my parents always checked to make sure that that was true. That 37.5 miles, that's learning to read. I breezed right through it, something many of of take for granted and do everyday. For children in underfunded, under-resourced schools where the faculty is constantly inexperienced and shifting off to "better" schools, learning to read is not that easy. For them it is like walking that 37.5 miles. It is a great accomplishment, that is incredibly difficult.

PFEE.org is committed to finding community based educational programs and schools that need help. Whether that help is funding or resources, PFEE is dedicated to leveling the playing field for millions of children who are falling through the chasms (they are no longer cracks) in our educational system. The simple fact is that the system will not fix itself. A large protion of funding for public schools comes from property taxes and thus the rich schools continually are improved while the poor schools continually degrade.

Please visit PFEE.org and donate.