I Just Couldn't Sacrifice My Son (To the Washington, DC School System)

Washington Post ^ | 23 October 2007 | David Nicholson

[shrinkermd]

When a high school friend told me several years ago that he and his wife were leaving Washington's Mount Pleasant neighborhood for Montgomery County, I snickered and murmured something about white flight. Progressives who traveled regularly to Cuba and Brazil, they wanted better schools for their children. I saw their decision as one more example of liberal hypocrisy.

I was childless then, but I have a 6-year-old now. And I know better. So to all the friends -- most but not all of them white -- whom I've chastised over the years for abandoning the District once their children reached school age:

I'm sorry. You were right. I was wrong.

After nearly 20 years in the city's Takoma neighborhood, the last six in a century-old house that my wife and I thought we'd grow old in, we have forsaken the city for the suburbs.

Given recent optimistic news about the city's schools, this may seem the equivalent of buying high and selling low. And though I don't know new D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, what I know of Mayor Adrian Fenty and Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso (a former neighbor) tells me that real change will come, sooner or later, to D.C. public schools.

The thing is, with a second-grader who has already read the first two Harry Potter books, I can't wait the four or five years it will take to begin to undo decades of neglect and mismanagement of District schools, much less the additional time needed to create programs for the gifted and talented.

[MrB]

Good for you, having grown up in a time before the public school system became an indoctrination bureaucracy and a place to “cage” the fatherless consequences of the welfare state.

[MrB]

“liberals” deride private charity because that money isn’t coercively being funnelled through the government.

[gridlock]

I’d love to know how many of the big DC elite liberals who are so “supportive” of public education have their children in the DC schools. I’d wager the number is zero.

I don't fault them for protecting their children. This is their first responsiblity.

I do fault them for the disasterous policies the advocate. But that is a separate issue.

But you would think that the knowledge that the public school system is unacceptable for their own children would effect their assessment of how their public education policies are working. It really does seem there is a disconnect, and they just don't care about the children trapped in their schools.

[NTW64]

You just made me see liberals as locusts... It fits right into place now.

[gridlock]

It is a shame this fellow felt the need to leave the neighborhood he loves. I wonder why he did not consider private schools.

Vouchers, of course, would have solved his problem altogether. He could have stayed in his house and sent his precious child to the school of his choice.

We’ll get there someday...

[HockeyPop]

Ask a liberal what they would really put first: their theory of racial justice, or justice to their own child.

[TalBlack]

“....I know of Mayor Adrian Fenty and Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso (a former neighbor) tells me that real change will come, sooner or later, to D.C. public schools.”’

You don’t know ANYTHING, buddy, if you believe this.

In order for change to occur the people in charge must give up their “religion”, and THAT ain’t gonna’ happen.

[Walkingfeather]

Idealism works as long as it doesn’t affect you personally...... then well.... it’s different you see....

[RepoGirl]

This article made me snicker mightily. As many Freepers on this thread rightly stated, he hasn't 'seen the light', he just realized it was uncomfortable enough for him to move (after all, his precious son needs a good education) to a nicer area with a better school.

Of course, just like pigeons, liberals befoul one nest and move on to the next clean area, and once that area is ruined, they move on... its an unending cycle. But dollars to donuts, he'll continue to cling fast to the ideology that started it all.

But, I guess I will give him some credit for admitting the system is broken -- that's a start.

[unbiasedtruth]

But, I guess I will give him some credit for admitting the system is broken -- that's a start.

Yes, he does admit the system is broken, but like you said, he, and others of like-mind, just move on to a new area and break that new system. I see it everywhere I move; Kansas City, Houston, Austin, Omaha and now St. Louis.

[Lucky Dog]

At the risk of suffering a barrage of attacks, I am going to pose a few questions to all of you relative to the education system in this country, in general, as was illustrated by the comments in the this thread’s original article.

First, full disclosure: I have been adjunct faculty in two different universities at both graduate and undergraduate levels (engineering and other technical subjects) and I currently substitute teach at the local, small town, high school (mostly math and science) when my business (I am an independent contractor) permits.

Second, concessions for reality: There are, unfortunately, a number of teachers and administrators who think and act as though schools should be institutions of social engineering and indoctrination rather than of education an learning. The real question is how many of these types are there in the system and whether, or not, their influence in via the NEA, state education departments, etc. is disproportionate and what can be done about it.

Now, the questions for you:

1. How do you propose for teachers to maintain classroom decorum and discipline when a great many of the students never experience anything similar at home? …You can only send some students to the principal’s office… (As an illustration, I have personally witnessed some of the abysmal, home environments I cite when giving a few young men a lift home following after-school tutoring sessions.)

2. What are you proposing to counter the lack of male role models in the home? (There is a 30% illegitimacy rate total and nearly a 70% such rate among African-Americans, or blacks, if you prefer.) An unmarried mother cannot teach her children all she should, run a home properly, go to PTA meetings, little league games/recitals (if such exist for her children) and support her family financially all at the same time. (Note: I am not advocating any sort of state intervention here, merely posing a question.)

3. How do you propose to help public school districts avoid textbooks filled with “propaganda” when the texts are mandated by the state and bought with state funds? (It is not economically feasible for the textbook publishers publish anything but what the largest school systems buy… California, Texas, etc.)

4. How do you propose to keep teachers from being punished for “poor performance” by their students when the students arrive on the first day of class already so deficient in basic academic skills that there is no hope of getting them up to an acceptable standard for assessment tests by the end of the year?

5. How do you compensate for courses designed purely to “cram” as much information into the course for exposing the student to what they might see on standardized tests and leave no time for teaching something as vital to citizenship as “critical thinking?”

There are many, many more questions that could be posed, especially related to compensation (I make more in one quarter in my business than my daughter, a full time teacher makes in a year) or how to protect teachers from frivolous lawsuits, etc.

[AppyPappy]

Easy solution. If a student is a disruption, you toss them out.

[PAR35]

another a Liberal that sees the light.

No, just another hypocrite liberal acting in self interest.

[2banana]

There is no easy or short answers - he is a shot at partial answers:

1. Why do Catholic Schools work in the same neighborhoods that have dysfunctional public schools?

2. Why do military schools work (some even with fully automatic weapons)/

3. Why are public school unions so against school vouchers?

2banana

[Jim Noble]

When a blue parent wants a better school they go to a red area

And then start trying to f*** it up.

[Lucky Dog]

Easy solution. If a student is a disruption, you toss them out

I agree except how do you toss out 50% of the class?

How long do you think a teacher would keep a job doing that?

What is the principal (or anyone else) going to do with 50% of every class in the school being tossed out every day?

How long do you think would pass before a "pack of lawyers" descended upon the shcool system, the principal, and the teacher?

[shrinkermd]

Good questions with no good, easy answers.

Parents, teachers, psychotherapists always pour more into their work than they receive from it. Maintaining classroom discipline is a function of the right personality and the right attitude. It is sort of an art form that many teachers never accomplish, but those that do are the new American heroes.

It now seems likely we are about to see an increasing tendency of parents to self select their schools with the possibility of tiering as the solution. Thus, some schools would be academic and others basically places to socialize and encourage those from dysfunctional backgrounds. Not nice, but necessary IMHO.

[PAR35]

I some answers to your questions. (Numbers do not match the numbered questions, as you need to treat the disease, not the symptoms.)

Start small, by abolishing integration. That judicial experiment of the 1960s has proven to be a total failure. Go back to neighborhood schools, where not just the local parents, but the local community will take an interest in the success of the school and the student.

Break up large districts, so that citizen influence over the administrators can be re-established. (Perhaps 10-15,000 students per district).

Re-establish corporal punishment in the schools.

Secondary steps would include removing ‘accommodations’ for behavior disorders, and instituting requirements self-control. Requiring uniforms would help as well.

[AppyPappy]

You asked.

[Lucky Dog]

1. Why do Catholic Schools work in the same neighborhoods that have dysfunctional public schools?

Catholic schools are not required by law to accept every possible student. Catholic schools do not answer to politcal entities such a school boards. Catholic schools teach religious values as well as academics. Students' parents tend to share the values being taught in the school. etc. etc.

2. Why do military schools work (some even with fully automatic weapons)

see answers for Catholic shools above.

3. Why are public school unions so against school vouchers?

It is a question of justice and job security in their memebership's eyes. Most teachers have passed hurdles (degree requirements, continuing education requirements, licensure, etc.), put up with poor pay, unjustifiably irate parents, absent parents, disruptive hoodlums for students (in some cases), etc. They see vouchers as means of syphoning off the best and most well behaved students leaving them with nothing but the "hard cases."