This is the hardest time of year for those of us who are concerned with high-school placement.  The Ministry of Education oozes self-satisfaction that nine out of ten transitioning students were placed at one of the seven institutions of their ‘choice’.  So, why is it that so many beg, beseech and cajole to be transferred to a school other than one which they supposedly chose? Check for the ministry officials, teachers and civil servants. They know that all placements are not equal and make sure, by any means necessary, that their children survive the lottery. The rest suck salt. Little money, no contacts, indifferent PEP scores, inequality deepens, aspirations which soared in the mirage of graduation festivities, quickly quail. It is a gross but polite understatement that too little is being done to strengthen the 200 weak high schools. Even less is being done to radically alter the dismal outcomes of hundreds of primary schools. The money is the same, leeched by inflation; the teachers remain often dispirited and structurally unaccountable, and most churches appear in retreat from their main opportunities for evangelisation - their schools.MY GIRLShe is a winsome 12 year-old from the inner city. This September ,she must attend 7th Grade in a school where failure to matriculate after five years is the norm, not the exception. She is reading at Grade 3 level – better than many. She has a booklist with 12 items.Her father is “not in the picture”; her mother, barely literate herself, does piece work for marginally above minimum wage. The child is often seen on the street and so one of the big women in the church ‘shubbed’ her into Sunday school. “Please Fadda, like how she a come church now, you could get her inna one Cattalic school”? is the earnest plea.Unlikely. The ‘better’ schools have 20 and more transfer applicants for every available place.  Those go to kids with better PEP profiles. Can’t blame them. Most schools have no facilities to effectively remediate my girl and her type. Why? And, what are we as a nation doing about it? STARTING EARLYThe transformation project with which I am engaged has to now split its energies between Grades 7-9 and a cohort of early childhood institutions – because that is where the deficit begins. Primary schools next. We are testing a methodology, proving a concept. The main ingredients for success are clear. Parent-school connection, heavy emphasis on discipline, manners and encouragement, regular attendance, better nutrition, small classes, enthusiastic teachers, no automatic promotion.  For there to be a scaling-up, a truly national effort is required.As it is now, my little 12-year-old friend is on an expensive escalator to failure. God is going to judge us for the needless contempt we show to his finest creations. CREATING VALUE?Listen to Dr Alleyne, the economist, in last week’s press, charting the requirements for the nation to flourish. We “must create more value in existing sectors and search for new areas of competitiveness …”.How will it be possible to create more value in the education and training sector if two-thirds of those entering high schools this September will be unlikely to attain local, let alone global, competitive standards?Borrowing from John Adams writing to Abraham Lincoln, revolution is not necessarily a violent rupture. Organically, it can be an idea that unfolds in the minds of a people – an animating force for upliftment.It felt like that when Michael Manley, Mavis Gilmour and others launched the National Literacy Programme. I felt it in the dry-but-burning sentiments of Edward Seaga when he shared his regret that early childhood education had not been transformed under his watch – or any since.These leaders were serious about people’s futures. Compare that with the wooden application of obsolete rules in parliament to suppress discourse about serious national issues; where gelded minds default to self-revealing rigidity and abuse; dressed-up bullyism, deceit and secrecy: where the major crises of the nation, like the implications of Dr Alleyne’s prescription or the urgency of my girl’s predicament, never make it to the Order Paper.We the victims get sour stomach caused by the insipid taste of our leaders’ fare and the revolting suffering imposed by world events.  Your food and fuel bills are enough proof.DISTEMPER “The mood of the country feels flat, cautious, resigned”. That was the reading of a wise private sector leader in conversation last week. Feel it in the desperation about school placement, anger at the uncontrollable cost of living, the ICE-like police behaviour, and the everyday stream of young, educated Jamaicans lining up to migrate. Ask many of the school-leavers where they want to spend their lives and why.None of this needs to be so.  We can do so much better if we stop fighting ourselves. Far down the wicket to becoming a client-state of the Raj, we need a popular philosophy and praxis affirming the dignity of every Jamaican citizen and an acknowledgement that neither political party can, by itself, galvanise national energy to remedy brittle families, transform education, promote the nobility of work, and cherish this Garden of Eden with which we are gifted. Those are causes which would revive our spirits -  dispel the distemper.We can’t afford winner-takes-all structures and attitudes anymore, because they make us gnash our teeth at each other and spend more time sparring than producing. Then, we lie to ourselves and call the resulting spiritual and economic stalemate democracy!ABUNDANT LIFEThe real threats to freedom and flourishing, to the “abundant life” which Jesus promised and for which we yearn, lie in embedding educational inequality, neutering municipal councils, dashing away subsidiarity and community agency,  traducing civil society and anti-corruption groups, and being ‘crabbit’ and dismissive of any criticism. Just watch for the efforts to defang the Integrity Commission, weaken oversight of public officials by placing a crony in charge; failing to avert court and administrative delays in resolving scandals (SSL et al) and obviously kow-towing to the implications of the Monroe Doctrine. We are losing our soul. It’s time for Revival. Haman is in charge.  Rise up Esther and Nehemiah!Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com