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.

[gogeo]

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...

It was, and they were.

[Lucky Dog]

... Our family structure has been destroyed. Adults in many cases act like adolescents. Schools have been used by politicians to push their socialist garbage. And children are left to drift...

I think you have "hit nail on the head." However, I do not think the situation is beyond hope, yet.

The nuclear family (a mother, father and children) is the way human beings tend to behave naturally. If forces arrayed against this institution are stymied and "turned back," the nuclear family will return. With its return, so, too, will return good child discipline/behavior and many school problems will abate.

To "stymy" the forces arrayed against the nuclear family, those of us who support that concept must exercise the political power make it so. Simply put, we (all of us who support the concept) must do something. We must substitute teach, shake off political apathy, inform ourselves on candidates, run for office (even school board and county commissioner, etc.) be active in political parties ensuring that they do not "wander off" into the "ideological hinterlands." In short, care enough about our way of life to do something about it. It will not be easy and it will require sacrifice of time and effort, if nothing else.

However, we can the alternative "desdending upon us" without our taking action!

[gogeo]

In the end, though, I couldn't sacrifice my son to an education system that seems at best inefficient and at worst willfully corrupt. As much as I admire Mayor Fenty, I can't help noting that his children go to a private school.

And if he doesn't send his kids to D.C. schools, why should I?

Something to ask those "progressive" friends who visit Cuba and talk about how great it is...if they aren't willing to live there, they should shut up.

[Ditto]

In answer to question 1 & 2, you remove the troublesome children at a young age from the normal school and place them in an academy environment where they have no option but to behave and to learn. This does two things. It gives those individuals who don’t have the home life necessary for civilized society the opportunity to have a decent life. Second, it removes the distractions from the vast majority of students who can succeed in a normal school environment.

Question 3. Ignore the text books. Buy copy machines and use them to print out lessons that are meaningful, not political indoctrination. Maybe the state can make a school district buy books. They can't make a school teach from them.

Question 4. Repetition, repetition, repetition.

Question 5. See reply to number 3.

In general, it is way past time for local schools to tell the Federal and State education parasites to shove it. Teaching children to read & write and to add, subtract, multiply and divide does not take a bureaucracy filled with PhDs and that message needs to be delivered through defiance. Let it go to court and see who wins --- the school that suceeds or the breaucrats who attempt to prevent them from suceeding.

[Lucky Dog]

You may have noticed that all problems seem to have the same answer[vouchers], from my point of view. How about that?

Just suppose for the sake of discussion, that one of your kids qualifies for the "elite" school and you have a voucher. Let us further suppose that the school is an hour away and you are a single parent. How do you propose to pay for the transportation of your child? How do you propose to pay for the extra materials and books or trips to library such would require? How do you propose to attend teh "mandatory" parent teacher conferences" required to keep your child in the school and still keep your job, feed your other children, etc.? How are you going to pay for school uniforms or clothes (if there are no uniforms) to keep your kid from being ostacised?

What about the fact that there only so many slots avaialbe in this school, for which many more are qualified? Are you going to pay teachers more for higher qualfcations to teach in this school?

While your solution sounds good, the "devil is the details" as is said.

[Riverman94610]

I think the whole term”racial justice”is nebulous and has nothing at all to do with integration.
I will say,however,that I would have gladly replaced some of those little white bullies and amoral a-holes I went to school with in the Fifties with some of the young black kids I have gotten to know as a part time teacher here in my town.Character has nothing to do with color.
Liberals pat themselves on the back because there are a few “children of color”at their kid’s private school.Seems hypocritcal but I can understand why they don’t want their kids to go to school in the hood.98% of the ghetto kids are basically decent but are being programmed to fail by most of these white liberal teachers who prpogate the worst kind of Left wing indoctrination on them.

[Lucky Dog]

Not saying your solutions would not work... However, how do you propose to “sell” the increased costs to the taxpayers?

[VOA]

Remember where Al Gore went to school in DC? It wasn’t the public school system.

I can't remember which EEEVVVIIILLL radio talk-show host (probably
Rush) noted that while Al Gore, Jr. pimped for "Midnight
Basketball", Al's kids were probably in bed early each night in
order to make it to their private schools bright-and-early.

[Ditto]

Not saying your solutions would not work... However, how do you propose to “sell” the increased costs to the taxpayers?

The academy concept would cost more up front --- but the savings over time would more than make up for it, IMHO.

(Especially 10 years down the line when we would see more kids in college and less in the court system.)

[gogeo]

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.)

You can't...which is reason #1 why public schools don't work, and can't work...they aren't there to educate children, they exist to serve the wishes of politically powerful constituencies. You can't teach in an environment where the teacher doesn't have control, and you can't control the environment in an inner city public school, because you can't remove the disruption...soon to come to a suburb near you!

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.)

Answer: it's not something the schools can address. However, in an environment where those who correctly point out the cause and effect are derided and dismissed as "Right wing, Fundamentalist, uncompassionate Neanderthals," there's no vehicle or path for change...which is why public schools don't work, and can't work, and will in fact get worse over time. Things will change when we recognize it's not a shortcoming on the part of the school if they can't teach unruly students. If education is considered to be an entitlement, however, the question can't even be asked.

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.)

You can't. Public schools will buy what the other districts are buying.

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?

In a system where an "education" is considered an entitlement, you can't. Any shortcoming on the part of any student will, by definition, be a shortcoming of the system, and the teachers are the most visible part of the system. The NEA has in the past successfully addressed this by effectively nullifying any type of measurement or accountability. That's why student competence (and teacher competence) has plummeted in the past 30 years.

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?”

The problem isn't what's being taught, but the way it's being taught. Math, for example, can't be taught without rote memorization. It's not possible to teach history by rote memorization.

Unfortunately, most of what I've seen being taught in the name of "critical thinking" is actually indoctrination into thinking like the teacher does.

But, bottom line...the public schools do pretty much everything badly. That being the case, there will never be enough time to do what needs to be done. It's not only your fault, or your daughter's...except to the degree you enable the dysfunctional system.

Public schools didn't get here by accident, and fleeing to the suburbs is only a short term solution. Name each of the issues you pointed out, and I can point to the reason why we're there, and why it won't change for the better, but only for the worse.

For public schools to improve, a school board somewhere would have to start saying no to special interests, or the special interests will have to act responsibly. Do you believe either will happen, and if so, why?

If you're betting they will act (uncharacteristically) out of the greater good, rather than special interest...I will take the other side of that bet, every time.

There are those who view the wreckage of what was once a great school system who know it isn't working, can understand why, if they choose...but refuse to do so because that would lead to the inevitable conclusion, that we can no longer have a public school system in the sense we've had it for 100+ years.

There's plenty enough denial to go around, and you're probably no different or more culpable than anyone else...but no one raindrop feels responsible for the flood. All the issues you listed show that pullic schools can't be fixed, and will inevitably get worse until a viable alternative is allowed. That alternative will effectively end the business model of public schools.

[ClearCase_guy]

My rough estimate is that the top 33% of kids in schools are not given appropriate material, and they are bothered by kids without discipline. I would also say that the bottom 33% of the kids do not have adequate structure, do not come to school prepared, and do not benefit from the education that is presented. At best (I'm being incredibly generous) the middle 33% in government schools get an appropriate education.

So, schools fail 66% of the kids.

Vouchers would allow many parents to send kids to schools which kick out discipline problems and which teach appropriate material. If the school doesn't, the parent can go elswhere. This is the market at work.

I'm guessing that the bottom 33% will stay in rotting government schools and will continue to get inadequate education. I'm also guessing that 66% of the kids will go off and get better education at private schools.

It's better to short-change 33% than to shortchange 66%.

I can't come up with a solution that helps 100% of the kids. Can you?

[gogeo]

That is what is said about every crumbling public school system in every liberal-dominated urban area: shuffle in some new bureaucrat from some other failing urban public school system and magically, things will get better.

And yet nothing ever changes. For liberals, it's never the philosophy that's flawed, it's the implementation...

Exactly...the point of change and reform as practiced in public schools isn't to make anything better, but to buy 10 years' peace, when another "reform" will be suggested.

[gogeo]

You should not dismiss the parents as being emotional entities. Most parents would be quite rational in their decision making, if given the opportunity. Unfortunately, in our current system that offers no opportunity for rational choice, emotionalism is all that is left to them.

I've seen these "school moms" in action, and I think Lucky Dog is correct.

[radiohead]

My mother and most of her friends were teachers in the DC public school system.

All of their children went to private schools - and this was 40+ years ago. I don’t think things have changed that much, and I would bet that many current public school teachers send their kids to private school. There are many good teachers, as individuals, the problem is the system, and the system is terrible.

[RockinRight]

Perhaps so...but there’s an 800 pound gorilla in the room.

The schools that suck do so more because of the kids in them than teachers, funding, school boards, or anything else.

The KIDS in DC schools are mostly ghetto larvae. They DON’T CARE about learning and still wouldn’t care if you uprooted them and put them in a posh private school.

Same is true for any “bad” school district.

[DCPatriot]

This is pure unadulterated BS.

Who do you think runs the Montgomery County school system? LIBERALS!

The part of the story you're not getting is that the elite schools in Montgomery County are in locations where the average household income is much higher and the education levels of the parents are too.

Neighborhoods in the Walt Whitman district, Thomas Wootton, Richard Montgomery districts are mostly Caucasion and Asian enrollment. Thus, the achievement scores are much higher rated.

[diogenes ghost]

"..However, how do you propose to "sell" the increased costs to the taxpayers?"

Presumably, the change in mindset needed to switch to a voucher system would also bring about reform to the unconscionable amounts of money being wasted in the current system.

There is no reason that a properly run district couldn't run a voucher system for the same, or slightly higher, cost.

If that can be shown, how many taxpayers would prefer a clapped-out '62 Chebby over a new car, for around the same cost?

[latina4dubya]

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.

wise decision... change will not happen in 4-5 years... promises to make public schools better is a promise that liberals have made for decades... it never gets better...

[RockinRight]

See post 75...agree or no?

To add an addendum...regardless of school systems themselves, what matters is whether or not the parents instill a value to education to the kids attending that school.

[DCPatriot]

Totally agree, brother.

The above-referenced schools have a 95%+ college admission rate. And not 2-year Community Colleges, either.