Failing Schools Address The Wrong Problems

I came across this article Saturday night. Here is an exerpt:

...about 100 students, parents and administrators went door-to-door on a recent Saturday, asking Richmond homeowners to give their neighborhood schools a second look. Joining them was Virginia's first lady Anne Holton, a product of city schools.
The $50,000 campaign by a school system still trying to rebound from a long history of racial segregation and white flight is an example of efforts under way in several cities to retain students.
Detroit's fiscally troubled system has lost more than 45 percent of its students over the past decade, leading to scores of school closures. The district this month launched a $500,000 "I'm In" campaign to keep students in the district...spokesman Steven Wasko said.
The school system gets about $7,560 in state funds for each enrolled student. Its enrollment target is 83,777, and "any student above that translates into more funding," Wasko said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32523214/ns/us_news-education/

Everyone knows why parents pull their children out of schools--everyone that is, except for those mentioned in this piece. Rather than read into the obvious, or give some exit interviews or poll parents about their concerns, the Virginia's first lady and these parents & administrators are asking people to defy logical action. Detroit's school system recently graduated 25% of their students, that's 25% of the senoirs that SHOULD have graduated. Meaning 75% of the district failed to graduate in four years.

Who in their right mind would keep their children in this system? I have to think that even if I was drawing a government check, empoverished, with no car and no extended family, I would still find a way to leave town. I don't understand why people can sit and accept the hand of cards dealt to them by the incompetent. Neal Boortz writes in his book "Somebody's Gotta Say It" If you can't make something of yourself in this country (barring a major mental or physical illness) you are pathetic loser.

The bottom line is when we take care of individuals, not groups, our efforts are rewarded. Our school systems are socialist enterprises, and many of them are failing miserably. "Socialist" means accountability is hard to find, unless you has friends in high places. In the case of this article, the perpetrators of a failing system are begging people to come back to their failing system, rather than work triple hard to fix the failures. I would be ashamed to be in a position of power, accepting such failure from my subordinates.

There is something about people who are successful in their careers, that tend to be successful at parenting as well. They are often organized...enough, and consistent...enough, to teach their children the skills necessary to do well in school. Not all, but most. On the other end of the spectrum, parents who don't have successful careers also seem to lack said parental skills, at least at a higher rate than their more affluent counterparts. When I taught school in the inner city I noticed that the vast majority of my students were really nice kids, who had respect for authority, and wanted to learn. And then there were another two, three, or five that needed to be in a cage. The few held the majority hostage, all year long. For example, many of our seventh and eighth graders read at a 3rd grade reading level. This school had been this way for years, and the Principal had been there for years, seeing and not adapting, experienceing but not responding appropriately. To me the ultimate racism/classism is in allowing this situation to foster, without attempting to clean up the mess. Acceptance of behavior problems and ultra low academic performance is acceptance that the (fill in your favorite ethnic group here) kids aren't going to learn anyway, so why pump effort and money into THAT school? Someone ought to be jailed.

And yet, there are schools and school districts that are fixing those problems. Most educators complain about No Child Left Behind (NCLB) even as many can't tell you anything specific about it. (For illustration on this point, ask them to name 3 parts that are underfunded and watch as they gasp for air.) But the bi-partisan NCLB holds failing schools' feet to the fire and is responsible for improvements. Successful parents are HUGE in making a good school, but there are districts in the USA without great parents that are making things happen, in part because they are scared to death that NCLB will fire everybody and maybe close or their school.

What Virginia's first lady Anne Holton, and these parents & adminstrators in the article don't seem to understand is that when they fix the problems in front of them, the funding will return as parents begin enrolling kids in their schools once more. If this were Best Buy losing customer en mass, we'd laugh at this strategy--Improve your customer service idiots, and people will return!!

And so I say, Improve your handing of children idiots, and students will return!! Your lack of funding is the symptom, NOT the disease. Every one of those 500,000 bones Detroit put into the "I'm In" campaign should have been used to lure quality teachers and staff, not guilt parents into sending their kids back into the poster district for failure.

But so goes the nature of the beast of government--which is a necessary evil at best--it first tries to protect and preserve itself. It is a tall task to get behavior under control, and get kids up to grade level--kids who didn't learn how to read for the past 4 years--but we are not without models. The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) sponsors a program called "High Schools That Work," and another, "Middle Schools That Work" where schools doing things right share their best techniques with each other. There are no shortage of proven methods.

Recruiting suckers is NOT the moral answer. Fix the learning problems, and the funding will take care of itself.