Nobody's Perfik

It was such a joyful place

loping horses, growling tigers

snorting lions

bounding giraffes

circled

the colors, gold leaf, the mirrored lights and

the mighty Wurlitzer music machine

 played the baddest happiest music ever heard.

 The tinny sym-phoney made

the air chuckle, smile and swirl in a

  swaying motion

 floating effortlessly ‘round and ‘round.

Horse chases tiger chases lion chases giraffe

none gaining, none falling behind.

Pick a gold ring

win a free ride!

 The children ran off to Disneyland and video games

the critters galloped to greener pastures

Now its shell sits

 abandoned.

Empty.

A bright neon “Vacancy” sign

flashes in my heart

in the spot the ride used to occupy.

Did you know there used to be a carousel in there?

Asbury Park, NJ June 13, 2010

    A nation that can not afford to educate its children or a nation that chooses to not afford an education for all its children is a nation in trouble. 

    Erosion of time, effort and funds to educate our children are indicators of a sharp decline in this American experiment. It is another blow to the middle class and it further alienates the poor.  It is a severe blow to the founding ideals of, “All men are created equal” and all have the right of equal access to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

     Can we, as a free nation, afford to educate our children?  Can we afford not to? 

     Is the perceived decline in American public education symptomatic of a culture in decline?  If this is the case, is it the school’s role to lead the charge to reverse that trend?  Can schools be at the forefront of social change?  

    There is common agreement that schools need improvement while, at the same time, support for education wanes. The idea of schools needing improvement is not a new phenomenon.  Since the late 19^th century with the original mandate of a free public education for all children, each and every day of the existence of our public school system has been structured for ongoing improvement.  Like a business that has ongoing goals of expansion of production and markets, education, likewise is in a constant mode of seeking to improve its effectiveness. As the demands of society are in a constant state of change schools need to match the pace.

     There is little agreement as to what it would take to make schools better. Schools have tried many different arrangements within the confines of the traditional structure including open classrooms; “classrooms without walls”; ungraded primary classes; back to basics; the science and math explosion of the late 1950s; some pathetically weak competency based models and our current initiative of the No Child Left Behind Act wherein children are being left behind because it robs classrooms of time and resources.

     The variety of actions (or lack of actions) within our communities indicate we can neither manage to pinpoint a cause of the disease of decline (or failure to keep up)nor prescribe a surefire treatment right now. 

      Would it take massive reform within the schools? Would it take infusion of increased funds?  Would it take a radical change to support children outside the classroom?  Would it take some of each? The shortsightedness of the No Child Left Behind Act has raised many more questions and opened more wounds than it has answered or healed.  

     What is an education?  If you ask a hundred experts, you’ll get a hundred different definitions. For some it is a noun as in, “Make sure you get a good education”. But education is also a verb – “I want to educate my children” and it is another noun – a process – one that lasts a lifetime. 

     For the sake of discussion, let’s assume an education consists of three components: First, an ever-growing and increasingly undefinable body of knowledge that is often manipulated to meet the second component – a system of values consisting of cultural content that might be endorsed by one group being served but is rejected by another.  The third component of an education would consist of sets of skills be they physical or psycho-cognitive such as computer skills, math skills or manual dexterity skills that could range from dribbling a basketball to performing micro surgery.

    Our systemic attempt to facilitate the components of an education into the minds and bodies of children are delivered through a process we call schooling (a pseudonym for the process of formal education).

     This schooling usually only happens at specific times and in specific places. The times are during a minor segment of each day (4 to 7 hours) during less than half of each year (180 of 365 days) for only thirteen years (ages 5 to 18) – and it is mandated for only eleven of those years.  The place for this schooling is by and large, inside a space we call “the classroom” which consists of four walls, a chalkboard, some 30 kids who are told to remain quiet and an adult who talks a lot.

     These times and places were originally designed to accommodate the needs of our agrarian society which has been gone for the last hundred years.  Our society has changed but the schools are still in session for the same hours of the same days of the same months as they were when we were a nation of family farms.

     On the surface, the No Child Left Behind Act, seems like a well-intentioned attempt at improving the schools. It employs a scientific model – using test score results to measure the success or lack thereof in our schools.

     The use of testing quantifies education and such measuring sticks show us only a small part of what education is.  The fact the law gives  schools more to do and no additional funding help to do it is counterproductive.

     Looking a little deeper into the inception of that law, there is also suspicion it was politically motivated to discredit public schools and make private and charter schools more appealing.  The early results of the law has primarily served to strengthen the argument in favor of school voucher systems to support selective schools that are clearly not there for everyone.

     We are full of contradictions: we talk about how we value education while we push the lever to vote against more money to support it.  We boast about what our kids are learning yet we offer them little support at home in their pursuit.

     Money is critical but it is not the only ingredient necessary to provide this education.  It takes a proverbial village beyond the classroom, and more time than what is currently allotted to educate a child.

    Considering the realm of school finance alone, we are going in the opposite direction of what many think is needed. Some complain about how much money the teachers make.  There is no question teacher salaries have grown into a profession where a single earner can support a family. That is a fact in which our nation should take pride rather than sling arrows.  Teaching is a profession with incredible responsibilities. Teachers make what they do because they have worked long and hard to bring their profession to the point where it is.  Perhaps the means of funding the teacher salaries needs to be examined, and if it were changed, some resentment might be diffused.  Teachers should not be made to feel guilty about the salaries they earn.  The private sector still has much higher potential for college educated, advanced degree workers.

     In recent years, due to increasing expenses and a reduction of revenues due to both economic downturn and an anti-school populist movement, school administrators and boards of education have to go through an agonizing springtime litany of making cuts to budgets.

     At the same time, pressures and mandates are given to the schools to increase both the content of what they teach and to also provide indicators of improved student learning.

     The old “expect more from less” adage has been stretched to the breaking point and is not working.  Perhaps it is because the factors of time, funding and home support either remain static or are in decline.

      Teachers, administrators and boards are professionals and know what is necessary and good for kids. They do not like to slash and burn content areas, special programs, activities or needed services for children.  If the things they are now being forced to drop were not necessary, they would not be in the schools in the first place. 

     The reasons most school officials, be they elected or hired, are in their positions are because of their belief in the good that schools can accomplish and because of their hopes for the future that will soon be in the hands of these very same children.

     It is not unusual for people in the field of education to suffer from stress related illnesses because of the pressures and negative direction education seems to be headed.

    When it is time to make those cuts, there are certain sacred cows that are never touched.  In many areas of the country, two elements of the schools that never seem to be threatened are athletics and marching band.  Typically, the arts are reduced or eliminated first, (interestingly marching band is not considered as an “expendable” art). Then the enrichment programs are squeezed and cuts are made in support services for children who need extra help. 

     Programs and services that were originally implemented to make the playing field equal for all kids representing their wide range of abilities are pared away. The playing field becomes tilted. And in the face of that all, schools are held accountable to provide improved test scores from all students.

     As an example of desperate funding initiatives, band parents are passionate in support of their kids’ musical involvement. Many have sacrificed extra dollars and time in the purchase of an instrument, in private lessons and they have enforced the discipline of practice at home.  To their credit, band parents are strong advocates for their children. They spend time, effort and money to raise funds earmarked to keep the school music program going with candy sales, bake sales and such. 

     It is an unfortunate reality that many music teachers’ jobs depend on the successes of those sales.  Other programs considered “supplementary” often have to seek survival with the same approach.

     If a group of parents in any local community were to actually have to choose between a quality up-to-date science lab or the opportunity to watch their kids playing Stars and Stripes Forever in the marching band, I think John Philip Sousa would win and the future scientist would lose.  Lifelong lesson here?  Statement of real values here? 

     At The Ohio State University, one of the most high profile positions for a given student is the tuba player who gets to dot the “I” in their marching band’s formation of the word, “Ohio”. At every football game, the word is formed and then the drama of the tuba player unfolds as he/she runs a serpentine route to ultimately land atop the “I”.  The crowd loves this cherished tradition. That particular student is most likely on a full scholarship – an interesting portrayal of values.

     In Michigan, special requests are made via regularly scheduled referendums for the taxpayers to continue to provide additional funding for a certain group of students – special education millage votes. 

     In March 1954, when the Michigan Special Education (funding) Act was passed, intentions were honorable but there have been changes in our society since then. The current practices of funding special education have not kept pace with the costs.

     Two months after Michigan’s Special Education Act was passed we had Brown v. the Board of Education which ruled that separate but equal was not legal or in the best interest of children. Then came the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which set the national tone for the next forty-plus years (so far). 

     The most recent Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) began the latest in a line of legislation protecting the rights of equal access in opportunity for those with challenges that impede their ability to learn.  The spirit of all this legislation follows the message inherent in Brown v. BoE that everyone needs to have the same exposure to the same things in the same place at the same time.  The “playing field” must be leveled for all school children.  Otherwise the premise of “equal access” is invalid. This concept is inherent in our constitutional premise “that all men are created equal”.

     Granted, special education per-pupil costs are higher than other groups. Why? There are smaller classes, support personnel, individualized teaching materials, administrative time and costs to name a few. 

     Why must special needs kids have those things?  Because it is commonly accepted and supported by research that it is a better way to deliver that body of knowledge, the needed sets of skills and value systems to these children who have challenges to their learning. 

     But looking at the other side of that same coin, that millage also allows the taxpayers to single out a particular group of children and deny them what is not only needed but is also required by law.  The cost of not educating special needs kids is much greater in the long run if they are not prepared to be productive and active members of our society. 

     It is interesting to note we often take similar systemic approaches for academically gifted kids even though they do not have a special funding opportunity from the taxpayers.  Why do gifted kids also have smaller classes and enriching experiences? Because it is BETTER for them.  There remains an underlying fear that those same delivery systems might become popularized for the remaining 80% of the kids in the middle. Then we’d have an amazing escalation of costs.

     Since we do have this request of specific voter support for special needs kids, perhaps we should also use that method to add supplementary funding for other select  and equally deserving groups such as athletes, musicians, the gifted and (let’s go all the way) left-handed, kids of various ethnicities, cultures and legal residence status.  Let’s find out where our populace really stands in their support (or lack thereof) of these entities that cost school districts extra money.  Let’s have special millages to show our support of the football team and its head coach and his16 paid assistants.

     When student achievement is low (as measured by test scores) it is the school that takes the beating behind the old woodshed.  When support is needed most, the law punishes the underachieving school by withholding funds.    

    Yet, in many urban area based experimental initiatives for reform, it is not so much a change in what is taught and how it is taught…it is a covenant between the home and the school to change how a child spends his or her time outside the classroom. It is a statement backed up by daily, hour to hour action as to where priorities lie.

     In the most successful experiments, children are presented with high expectations both inside the classroom and outside the classroom and the necessary supports and opportunities are provided to help them meet those expectations.   

     Those opportunities might be as extreme as getting a child out of his or her neighborhood and family structure and into a boarding school setting so they can focus on the primary task at hand rather than dodging bullets, pressures for gang membership, caring for siblings or their own babies or having to sacrifice their childhood to take on adult responsibilities before their time.

     Overriding that is the promise of when it is all said and done, there is more.  Post high-school educational opportunities whether it comes from a four year college, community college or trade school are guaranteed for the kids in these programs.   So, it becomes ingrained in the student’s mind there is something that matters if they do their part.

      Granted, it is nearly impossible for a 13-yr.-old to see four years into the future and let that alone motivate them to keep their noses to the grindstone.  To a 13-yr.-old, four years is an eternity. “Four years from now?  I don’t know if I’ll be able to have dinner tonight!  So don’t give me that four years from now stuff..”

     Many of those kids have been to enough funerals to KNOW that not all will even live that long.  They need constant reminders that there is another way than what they observe.  They need to be badgered from a variety of sources they are valued and there is something of value awaiting them if they take their education seriously.

     If this American experiment is to continue to succeed, we must educate our children.  It has to be a priority. Our national focus has to be more important than developing and employing technology that is built for destruction or for the benefit of a few.  Otherwise, each succeeding generation will add its push to this snowball that has begun to roll down the hill. It will only take a generation or two for it to hit bottom.

     We need to get our wheels back on the track.