NYC Educator managed to derail my early evening by digging up memories of some regional country/old-time albums from the late 1970’s, as well as introducing me to Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper.

I’ll try to co-opt that welcome distraction for this site’s purposes.

There is a surprising number of country songs that address education explicitly or implicitly. Though the social justice crowd would disagree with me, Hannah Arendt wouldn’t - education is inherently conservative, and a musical tradition that draws deeply from its own annals, even when describing the present and speculating about the future, is a musical tradition that is largely educational.

But fear not, social justice crowd, I’ll never leave you out - hip-hop and rap are two of the more conservative genres in recent musical history. I’ll save that argument for another day on this website, for a book deal with Teachers College Press, or, better yet, for the next time I’m sipping lattes with Mr. Ayers. [These are arranged in order of “possible” to “no chance in Hell,” by the way.]

We can look seriously at music, be it country, hip-hop or anything else, but we can also relax and have a little fun with it.

In 1968, Jeannie C. Riley topped the charts with Harper Valley PTA, the story of a single [widowed] mother dressed down by the PTA at her daughter’s school. It came in the form of a note:

Mrs. Johnson,

You’re wearing your dresses way too high. It’s reported you’ve been drinking and running around with men and going wild. We don’t believe you ought to be bringing up your little girl this way.

Secretary, Harper Valley PTA

A proud Mrs. Johnson addressed the PTA that very afternoon. They were, as the song recounts, a remarkable [and entertaining] collection of hypocrites. That mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA.

So, have fun with the video [RSS readers, click here], but don’t forget that in small/rural schools like Harper Valley’s - those in Otsego County, NY, for example - this laughable contempt for parents by school officials and their minions is still reality 40 years later.