Turning Critics Into Partners
Editorial pages are filled these days with attacks on the quality of public schools. My local paper, The Oregonian , in Portland, Ore., published last August a column by journalist Debra J. Saunders called "Education Needs More Civilian Control." It argued that education-reform efforts have been misguided and ineffective, and that the solution to the ills of public schools is to hire noneducators to lead them. The author criticized such practices as "whole language, new-new math, inventive spelling, and self-esteem classes," suggesting that these are responsible for students' failure to learn. At the close of her essay, she surmised that one hoped-for redeemer in our region--retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. John Henry Stanford, recently hired to lead Seattle's schools--had perhaps succumbed to what she called the "educrat body-snatchers" because he is fond of citing as his goal for Seattle schools "to teach people to think for themselves and think responsibly."
While there's no question that many of our schools need help, I find several things about such editorials disturbing. First is the failure of the writers to recognize that schools today face enormous challenges that cannot be addressed by schools alone. Educators, no matter how diligent, cannot respond singlehandedly to the challenges of modern society. The range of social, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds of students has increased dramatically during recent decades--and at a time when parental supervision, parent-child interaction at home, and community involvement in schools has been dramatically declining. One of every four children in our nation now lives in poverty, and the majority of these children live with just one parent.
Our urban schools and communities face not only these challenges but also diminished economic resources and fewer job opportunities for future graduates. The media and entertainment worlds have glamorized violence, greed, and depersonalized sex while many overburdened and disengaged adults have been taking leave from engagement in meaningful alternatives to such mindless mass clutter with their children. (Reading, conversation, storytelling, playing music, recreation, and family work projects, whether at home or in the...
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