Dont Destroy the Public School System

We all have heard the cries for school reform. We all want to have good schools for our kids and we want accountability for our tax dollars.

What many of your may not be aware of as that some of the current attempts are not really to rectify our situation, it is an attempt to completely dismantle the public school system so private schooling can be put in place.

There are different reasons why this is the goal of different groups. Corporate businessmen feel that private business can always achieve better results cheaper than government run programs. Right wing religious groups want their religions taught in school and this is their way to make sure their child goes to a school focused on their religion without any outside influences. Other groups are just fed up with the seemingly waste of their tax dollars to underfunded poorly operating schools.

I was watching a program the other day and they said private business and the market economy is fantastic at efficiencies but inequities commonly abound. So do we really believe the destruction of the public school system will correct the existing inequities or create new ones?

The separation of religion and state was expressed at the founding of our country and I agree with it. I won't express more than that at this time.

As for poor spending of our money, the best way to rectify that is involvement. Parents who know what is going on in our schools, keep our schools from floundering. People who speak up and complain to politicians when big bonuses are paid to board members, consultants and fad teaching techniques, have better schools. People who routinely check on their child's progress and consult with their child's teacher, have more successful kids and better schools.

It's very hard these days. Our economy has shifted from 1 working parent to 2 working parents and time is precious. But lack of involvement, creates the ability for people to drain away our tax dollars. Look into text book prices and complain about those costs. Some text books are very over priced and the contracts go to the friends of board members or the CEO relative of the superintendent.

Some of the school improvement laws have me doubting that these laws were passed for any school improvement what-so-ever. Personally, I think schools are now being set up to fail so there will be valid reason to destroy them.

Imagine a world with no public schools. What ever social group, economic group, racial group, regional group that you live in, will be the exact same group your child goes to school with. The rich will attend schools with children of the rich, the religious only with those of their religion, the children of CEO's will attend pro-business schools that only teach the current corporate dogma. All extremists would now be able to send their kids to the school of their choice that accepts their extremism. Whites would go to schools with whites, blacks with blacks, etc... The poor will have to beat down doors to get 'scholarships' to good schools or settle for what ever they can afford or is closest. The same could be said for the middle class as good schools will be very expensive.

Where will diversity in our schools exist? Will your child have a new immigrant in their class, someone of another religion, or someone of a difference socioeconomic class? Or will everyone, look, dress and believe exactly the same things? How will anyone gain empathy or understand what the world is like for other people if they only ever know their own group?

Think of the events that shaped your school years. I'll share some of mine to give you some ideas. In 4th grade we had Vietnamese students who were war refuges. They were tormented by their past. All of us had great concern, we asked the teachers why they were so sad. The teacher told us about the war. We had great empathy for these poor kids and an understanding of why war was awful. My school had quite a few poor kids and I was one of them. The middle class kids gave us a very hard time. We weren't like them. We weren't enrolled in scouts, we didn't go to summer camp, we didn't have family vacations on school holidays, we frequently didn't play sports or instruments because our parents couldn't afford the expense or give us a ride home after school. But among these intolerant kids was a beautiful Asian girl named Susan. Susan had the most beautiful spirit out of any kid I had known in grade school.
Susan always gave a hand up to other kids and refused to join in the teasing. Would your child meet a Susan if all the schools were privatized? Would Susan had even developed her wonderful nature if she had been raised in an Asian only school and never sympathized with the downtrodden poor kids of a middle class school?

Do we really want a new school system to place emphasis on segregation by race, class, religion and political beliefs? I'm not saying it would be absolute, because it wouldn't. There would be a few schools that weren't the same, but I doubt there would be many. People wouldn't have time to drive their kids all across town to go to the school they want them to go to. How much choice would small town people have? Could you imagine being the only person of a different religion in a small town and they convert the only public school into a religious school different from your own? Do you go to that school or try to somehow home school your child?

And what about the really awful parents who would choose to 'home school' their kids and pocket the voucher money? What kind of an education would those kids get? How far behind would they be on standardized testing before they were forced into attending some other type of school and what type of school would they then be forced into attending? What about abusive parents? Will it be as easy for teachers to spot and prevent abuse if the school is based on some type of belief system where it's OK or parental pressure tells them to but out?

What are the possibilities? I don't think they have been well thought out and they should be well thought out before any more laws and systems are passed.

Also we need to remember that laws can't fix things. They can't make people care more about your child's education. Laws can't make people better teachers and laws can't be flexible and understanding like people can.

I think people are the key to our education reform, not more laws.