Over the last 15-plus years, there has been a continued assault on our local public schools.
The critics point to the fact students are ill prepared for life, college and the rigors of society. They rarely use exact and impartial data to support their less-than-objective claims, but rather take data out of context that supports their political or commercial agenda. The sensationalism and “sky is falling” hysteria is magnified by an accommodating media and politicians who conveniently run on a platform of fixing the ills of public schools.
Meanwhile, public schools do what they have always done. Every August, they take every child who shows up at their door, regardless of intellect, social economic status or ability and we do our best to teach them. It doesn’t matter if they come from an abusive home life, or if they were not fed supper last night nor breakfast this morning. We take them, and we feed them, and we teach them.
In the winter we buy them a coat and are sure they have heat in their house. In addition, at Christmas time, we ensure they have something under the tree.
As educators, we dread the long holiday breaks and for sure the dreaded summer vacation where the kids we have taught reading, writing and math are left to their own devices and in many cases a negative home situation we know we will have to deal with the next August. Over the summer every student will academically digress, however, none more so that those unfortunate students who live in poverty and have less than stellar role models. They digress at twice the rate as the middle and upper-class student. But, every August, we take them back and start over.
As the years go by, the critic changes the test that measures public schools, and when public schools begin to succeed at that test, they change the test or alter the rules in a way that demonstrates once again that public education is failing, and once again, every August, we take them all, and teach them.
