But if you read mainstream media regularly about education or, worse, simply glance at mainstream media and allow it to become the background melody of your thought, you would think all schools are failing.
Indeed, so pervasive is this message that almost no one outside of the 30% or so of public school teachers and parents who resist this narrative considers the oddity of the fact that for it to be true, or anywhere close to true, schools in every state would have to had started failing at roughly the same time.
As if a virus hit, or a meteor. An accident? Was this what caused dinosaurs to go extinct?
1996?
Now, of course, communities have failed. And, then, in turn schools within those communities have failed. When the communities start to fail -- politically, economically, socially, etc., the onus of responsibility for all things gets shifted to the schools and then there is a subsequent collapse of the schools.
Rather ironically, given the media full court press on failing schools, the schools are actually the last public institution to go (public libraries doing what they can). Instead of being fragile, schools are quite resilient. They have been robust enough to survive in an age that has taken down other public institutions: whole state legislatures, Governors, and, of course, the US House of Representatives.
In my hometown of Detroit, MI, for example, the schools have lasted much longer than the city itself. Granted, they have been under "emergency management" of one form or another since 1999 but they have survived.
The schools even survived the city's "historic" bankruptcy.
The official death of Detroit Public Schools, however, comes this week (Thursday) when the state's Governor (Snyder) puts into place a plan that will forever end public schools in the city in the sense that there never again will be any neighborhood schools governed by an elected board. This District, once the state and country's grandest, dies this week -- for good.
Mark your calendars as this death certainly will mark the beginning of the end, then, of all such Districts unless there is radical change in resistance tactics.
Here is what all need to acknowledge: a consensus has been reached it seems on Detroit schools.
This District, like the smaller Highland Park and Muskegon Heights, is incapable of governing itself. There will be zero public protest from other Districts in the state who still enjoy elected boards and full community engagement. Rather surprisingly, you will hear little from other political action groups, traditionally committed to the idea that places like Detroit should have the same freedoms and rights as other communities. Tacitly, at least, all agree with the Governor. Community governance for schools can't work here. This is -- by far -- the majority opinion.
Why in the smoke and lightning and outrage reporting of education discussions does no one say it?
Let's start with the obvious: if you are on the side of those who want to schools to be seen as "failing" you have every incentive not to point this out. The scapegoat mechanism set in place years ago is functioning perfectly.
For the other side -- for the defenders of public education -- things are trickier.
They are in a double bind of sorts.
If you argue the truth -- schools aren't failing, communities are -- you are putting the blame in part on communities and very often poor, black communities. And that seems unjust. And it is unjust. Poor, black communities aren't failing because they are poor and black. But this has nothing to do with schools. Or, conversely, defenders of public education have to put the blame on the forces that are systematically scapegoating them, such as the Gates Foundation, Eli Broad, the Obama/Clinton form of what used to be the National Democratic Party. This is perfectly just, but these folks are well outside the political reach of those that value and rely on public education.
What to do, what to do, what to do?
Unfortunately, the public education community, rather than resist the scapegoat role it has been handed, instead has embraced the identity their attackers have assigned them.
Many, from K12 to faculty in Colleges of Education, have taken to seeing themselves as the very font of "social justice" rather than what they are: a resilient and critically important (if flawed) public institution.
This is something like the sacrificial lamb bleating out, "Yes, yes, it was me...it was me...cut my throat. I have direct line to God at my disposable to fix all ills but I choose not to use them. Kill me instead."
Public schools can not be all things to all people. They can not solve racial injustice. Nor can they solve economic injustice. The job they have to do is plenty -- and hard enough. You really can't save the world. Don't argue like you can.
But do, please, as you so often admonish the kids, be comfortable with who you are and celebrate that. Scapegoats, by definition, fail. Schools, again, never have.
Let this be the gift of Detroit Public Schools to the whole state: the schools are sturdy, remarkably so, but at some point you exhaust what seems inexhaustible.
No comments:
Post a Comment