A peek at education

With a lot of kids leaving the system in the next few weeks, what can we do to make it better for their successors?

When spring comes around, the mind of a typical high schooler can focus on three main things.

If they play sports, the first is their sport of choice during the last part of the school year. For me that was baseball, but it was either that or track and I’m slower than molasses in January - so baseball it was. (Plus I love the sport, as you can guess if you’ve ever read The Knothole - which I encourage you to do.) But nowadays we have baseball for the guys, softball and soccer for the girls, and lacrosse and track for whoever plays. I’m probably missing one or two options, but you get the idea. That season is coming to a close now, as state playoffs are underway around the region so the sports can be wrapped up for the academic year. At the same time, some people who enjoy other extracurricular activities prepare for a spring play or concert open to the public and beaming parents. (That was the case with my two stepdaughter graduates.)

The second thing is prom, which typically occurs in April or early May, and is a big deal in the early spring as prom dates are secured, the right stunning outfits are acquired, and travel arrangements are made so that Johnny and Suzy can enjoy their special night - and oftentimes the approved non-alcoholic afterparty - in style. I will admit I was not a prom participant, so I’m going by second-hand information on this one.

Thirdly, and right on the heels of prom for those who are seniors, is the ultimate goal: graduation. In days of old - that would be when I graduated forty-plus years ago - I had a handful of fellow members of my class who jumped ahead a year by finishing high school in three years. They basically skipped the study halls and probably took a summer class or two just to forgo their senior year and get out into the world. (Had I not opted to go to vocational school, that may have been an option for me since I wasn’t much into the senior activities anyway. But imagine a 16-year-old college freshman.) Now it’s not that simple, at least in Delaware.

But seniors who have achieved the requisite number of high school credits in various subjects are deemed ready for college or enhanced career training, as there are few careers available anymore for straight-up high school graduates - that’s a big difference in the world from when I graduated and a vast gulf away from the situation when my father graduated high school in 1953. He found work as a laborer and maintenance man and stayed with the same (unionized) company for almost four decades, except the couple years where Uncle Sam demanded his services in this man’s Army. To this day, the military remains a choice for graduates, as they have a selection of career paths for which they’ll provide training. (Unfortunately, they also provide training in other subjects that diminish our readiness, but I’ll reserve that assessment for another post should I choose to go down that rabbit hole.)

However, the majority of high school graduates are cast off into a world where they are presented two choices: go to a four-year college, or go to a program of study that’s career-focused, whether it be an apprenticeship, technical training, or local preparation for an associate’s degree and eventual transfer to a four-year college. At least that’s how the system is supposed to work.

But have you ever encountered the worker who can’t figure out how to count change, or been the employer of someone who only shows up when they feel like it and cops an attitude to customers when they do come in to work? I’m betting their parent didn’t instill the value of education into the child, at least enough to get the basics down.

School is only six to eight hours a day, despite the idea of the state to make it more of a babysitter by serving breakfast, lunch, and even dinner to certain children. (Bring in the cot and you’ll have the elements for prison: three hots and a cot.) Unfortunately, parents - who probably weren’t mature enough to have the kids or didn’t understand all the work they entailed - tend to take advantage of the babysitting service and don’t help their kids succeed academically. And there are always bad people out there who need (and will pay) kids to do their dirty work - a parent who doesn’t care or is working two jobs to make ends meet contributes to the problem. It’s hard to find day care that will help a child succeed in learning by helping with homework and acting as a surrogate teacher, and even if they find a good provider those lessons are often wasted by an exhausted or self-centered parent putting the barely-supervised kid in front of a screen to let him or her see what they find there.

While what we truly need is a culture that values children as the natural outgrowth of a loving, married relationship and not a hassle that occurred because the couple wanted to have casual sex but the baby daddy wouldn’t or couldn’t stick around, we’re a long way from returning to that point. So until we get there, we need to allow those parents who care to select an educational situation suitable for their child.

I’ve never had a problem with for-profit schools as part of an open marketplace, where the money the state devotes to education follows the child regardless of what option the parents select. It would become obvious rather quickly which of these schools are in it for the money and which are in for the education. And think of the possibilities for teachers: your state teacher of the year wouldn’t be limited to just a public school system where their income is dictated by union contract and lesson plans are set by a state curriculum; instead, they can sign a large multi-year contract like an athlete does and have the freedom to teach as they see fit.

Notice above I talked about “parents who care.” Unfortunately, there are some who are left out of that equation. But those kids who are born into the deepest poverty and most broken of homes can still succeed as long as one person cares for them. There are some among us who are blessed with the patience to be mentors to these kids, but they’re not necessarily encouraged to do so. That’s another contributor to the wasting of our youth.

Sadly, kids who aren’t educated are the ones who are exploited. We hear a lot about those stories - in fact, that’s part of the emotional appeal those who are pro-abortion use to justify their position. So why not try a different approach to education that may help the children being left out? Forget your fiefdoms of power gained by gaming the political and educational systems and profiting from the dues good teachers are forced to fork over, and do something for the kids.

There’s been a quote going around for years attributed to Albert Shanker, who was once head of the American Federation of Teachers’ union, that goes like this:

“When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”

According to the institute named after him, that quote was never uttered by Shanker. To set the story straight, they believe he said this:

“I don’t represent children. I represent teachers… But, generally, what’s in the interest of teachers is also in the interest of students.”

Fair enough. So is it in the interest of teachers that they are placed in a failing public school classroom every day with 20 or 25 kids who are hungry, tired, and unprepared, with parents who likely don’t care about their kids (or make them behave?) You can’t throw enough money at a classroom like that to improve it, but that’s all the unions seem to want: more money for the public schools and less competition from other educational choices so that their dues-paying teachers have job security. The tell is this: how many public school teachers send their own kids to private schools? Or politicians?

Give these parents the choice to send their kids to a better school and most of them will take it. Give the teachers who have kids without caring parents the opportunity to have mentors to assist them - perhaps from local churches - and maybe those kids will have a chance.

Sports, prom, and graduation are nice milestones, but unfortunately they’re all part of a broken system. I’m in the suggestion business here, but I think we can all agree what we’re doing now isn’t working very well if the objective is educated, free-thinking kids.