Holle Brian wrote that she has known two insightful
men. Since no names were mentioned I was wondering if
they are both in the Green Party? If they are, does
that mean there only two men in the Green Party? Or
are the rest not insightful? Just a thought.
One of these insightful men said that the only problem
with public schools is private schools.
One is left to wonder, is it that simple? Are all
problems faced by public schools solvable by closing
private schools? How will we know? Will it be judged
successful if the test scores of kids in private
schools are brought down to the level of public school
test scores? Or will it be because having private
school kids with them will make the public school kids
brighter?
I'm not all that insightful at times so excuse me if I
ask a few questions. It's been some time now but in
the early 1970's I taught on the south side of
Chicago. We didn't have any place to ship the poor
minority kids, and that's pretty much all we had, so
we figured we should just try to teach them. If only
we had known that by closing a few private schools we
wouldn't have had to deal with any problems. Sounds
good but I'm still not sure how that would work.
Probably the biggest issue we dealt with was a lack of
motivation to learn. This was largely based on the
fact that few successful role models were available in
the neighborhood and there was little hope for the
kids that once educated there would be any financial
payoff. Closing private schools would help this how?
I remember the first open house I attended. There were
slightly over 4,000 kids in the school. Six parents
showed up. Not six from my class. Six from the entire
school. How exactly will this private school thing
prepare families to accept and deal with the
responsibility that comes with having a kid?
The school I was in had recently undergone a major
change of population from eastern European heritage to
Black and Chicano (These were PC terms of that day by
the way). The staff was still entirely white. Some
were motivated to stay on, but the majority were
beginning to look for opportunities at schools with
less problems. If private schools were closed would
this have made staying at our school more attractive
to them? Certainly, if all the problems were gone. I'm
still not convinced they would be.
I suppose you could argue that the private school
types would insist that the public schools their kids
were assigned to should meet the quality of the old
private schools. But how does their insistence solve
the real problems most schools face? I find the
argument specious that minority poor kids need to have
rich white kids around them for the poor kids to get
an education. Focusing on such a simplistic solution
brings out class envy and a feeling of victimization.
I don't see it solving problems.
Not being an insightful person, I am probably going to
make a fool of myself, but I would like to suggest if
not the solution, some of the problems that need to be
addressed. The first is how do we motivate children to
believe that if they succeed in school it will provide
them a more meaningful and productive life. The second
is how do we educate parents to be parents. The third
is how do we inspire and reward teachers to be
excellent teachers, whatever school they are in.
Finally how do we all learn to have expectations of
our public schools and public school children that
they will be successful, regardless of what might be
happening in some private school somewhere. If our
expectations are not met how do we all learn to demand
of the system, our kids and ourselves that
improvements will be made and expectations reached.
Answer these and the other problems will offer no
resistence. Focus on class envy, victimization and
simplistic solutions and our problems grow
overwhelming.
Bob Gustafson
13th
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