Americans are outraged! We are outraged that police shoot civilians; that civilians shoot police, and that civilians are shooting one another with ever-greater frequency. We are outraged at our candidates for president and outraged at the systems that enable and empower them. We are outraged about terrorist attacks, refugees, social injustice, environmental catastrophe, and so much more that we have become numb to the headlines screaming at us, the newsfeeds inundating us, and the chatter of media figures everywhere pushing for us to be outraged. We have been so overly compelled to action that we have become immobilized. We rail against the winds of our time, and are quietly complicit with their ends.
In the midst of this milieu, it still bears repeating that improving our public education system is vital to improving our society and that we need a sense of urgency to make that happen. For decades, education has been stubbornly resistant to most of the reforms and programs we’ve implemented. In Minnesota, we received a waiver from the ineffective No Child Left Behind mandates and initiated our own set of standards and accountability, prioritizing the improvement of both the overall college and career readiness for graduates and the relative performance of minority students. Targeted funds from the legislature and numerous initiatives from the Minnesota Department of Education emphasized the importance of these goals.
Yet from 2013 – 2015, the number of 10th graders proficient in reading has dropped from 62.2 percent to 57.2 percent. For African- American males, the rates have dropped from 33.8 to 25.8 percent—with their rate of students not even partially meeting standards growing from 40.3 to 54.1 percent. (Lest you think this is a teenager issue, the proficiency for black males in third grade has gone from 31.6 to 30.8 percent with those in the lowest category rising from 49.1 to 53.5 percent.) With 85 percent of the children in the juvenile justice system functionally illiterate (along with 60 percent of prison inmates), we need to affirm that these black lives matter, too. We must stop ignoring the connection between our failure to meet childrens’ educational needs and the “outrageous” dysfunction that results.
Recently, Minnesota allocated an additional $78 million for education. While more funding is definitely part of the solution, the targeted programs these funds support still miss the boat. Too many of the initiatives seem designed to promote broad political posturing or personal agendas addressing secondary issues rather than make significant improvements in the essential aspects of education. Sending the funds (over $1,000/student) directly to schools to use at their discretion might have allowed the people closest to the needs make the best use of them.
Which brings us to our situation in Cook County: most of the statewide education initiatives tend to support urban and suburban districts or programs that have limited applicability to our highest priorities. Our county’s student population is small, but socially and academically diverse in their needs – a major challenge in serving all students well. Our geography and weather inhibit not only student transportation, but parent involvement that is vital to school/home partnership. Our access to many important support services is limited (or non-existent) and the few providers we do have are stretched thin. And we face mandated administrative and reporting requirements that cause us to allocate a disproportionate amount of our time and budgets away from the classrooms.
We have worked across the county to make excellent education – safe and supportive schools that ensure high levels of college and career readiness for all students – a vital component of our communities. Yet we are consistently hampered by the requirements imposed upon us and the lack of resources necessary to make this vision a reality. School boards, administrators, teachers, and parents have all been creative, frugal, strategic, and practical in order to deal with these problems. We have also seen improved community engagement and support make important contributions to our success. The referendum coming this fall is intended to support our continued progress.
However, these efforts still leave us a long way from where we need to be. We need the freedom and resources necessary to break out of the trance that we seem to operate in, to identify and address the education issues most critical in our communities, and broadly support students who need more than moreof the-same to be successful. We don’t need more outrage at all the things that other people are doing wrong. We need thoughtful, intentional, collaborative, and persistent efforts to help do it right.
Each month a representative of our local schools will offer thoughts in Issues in Education. This month’s contributor is Peter James, Great Expectations School.
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