Public education is not above criticism, but neither is the public

Remarks that I made regarding public criticism of public education at last week’s school board meeting form the basis for a story in today’s Star Tribune. The point I made is that the steady criticism acts as a campaign to demoralize hard working individuals that dedicate a great deal of their time and energy to serve the needs of children.

My point? For true believers in public education the time to shrink in the face of politically motivated attacks is over.

For generations public education has socialized America’s wildly diverse populations into a common whole that has built this country into an uncontested world leader. It is at the core of our civic structure and it remains one of the critical values we have done well to hold dearly.

Indeed, from the earliest days of our nation there was belief in the supremacy of an organized system of educating the public. In an 1810 letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Tyler he specified two “great measures” that a republic needs in order to maintain its strength: “that of general education” and “children of each [county] within reach of a central school."

Surprisingly, and perhaps unfortunate for free-market pundits, Jefferson was absolutely clear about education remaining an essential function of government.

“A public institution can alone supply those sciences which, though rarely called for, are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country, and some of them to its preservation," he wrote in his 1806 6th annual message.

Though Jefferson’s idea of a free public education system was not soon realized, it was revived in 1837 by Horace Mann, the secretary of Massachusetts Board of Education, who established a publicly funded school system run by well-trained teachers, for the benefit of all children.

From Jefferson’s ideas, to Mann’s materialization of those ideas, to the system we have today, public education has made a steady and progressive march toward fulfilling the promise of a system that seeks to educate all children, of all races, all abilities, and all family structures.

In the 1950’s the Civil Rights movement established the idea that public schools should not be coded by skin color. We learned that separate could not be equal.

In the 1970’s we improved our inclusive ideals by legislating the rights of children with disabilities and transforming our expectations for those students.
In the 1990’s we added the rights of GBLT students and families to school policies across the country. Clearly we recognized, possibly for the first time, that all families matter.

And, in this decade No Child Left Behind, for all its reported flaws, put a searing spotlight on the achievement of children in poverty; children that speak English as a second language; and special education students. We turned to the operative idea that race and poverty is no excuse for poor performance and reduced expectations.

Ironically, at a time when public schools serve the widest variety of children ever, in an attempt to achieve educational standards that are higher than ever before, public schools are not measured for the growth they achieve with children, instead, they are insulted for not yet doing what has never been done before: achieving full proficiency of every student.

With exception of cellular phone companies and car dealerships, public schools are the most maligned organizations in the United States.

From my seat on the Minneapolis School Board I have a special line of sight on the cold, careless, and misinformed criticism of education professionals. With each poorly written story in Minneapolis’ daily paper, each more fitting for tabloid fodder than the previous one, the accompanying public comments nearly always arrive at the same flimsy conclusion.

Public education is a “bottomless pit”; the institution is a “failure,” “corrupt,” and “dysfunctional”; the leaders are “incompetent”; the teachers, well, you know what tired accusations are made about teachers.

Maybe public schools have not figured out how to send a socially and spiritually malnourished child to Harvard yet, but we’re working on it. However, if our critics could take a break from their armchair superintendent’s position and focus a bit on the erosion of the social systems that once delivered well-rested, properly fed, and appropriately disciplined youth to schools we might be on to something.

At some point we might need to ask when the time will come when teachers and their schools can return the favor of ruthless evaluation to those in the our community who are vocally negative without being involved in any meaningful solutions. Imagine a world where the public was held as accountable for child development as schools are.

Though I often receive letters filled with conspiracy theories and insinuations about ill motives on the parts of district staff, I see something different as I travel the district.

The students are approximately ten times more awesome than anyone gives them credit for. Far from the faceless, aimless, scary creatures portrayed in hysterical public commentary, our children G-d's children.

Our teachers stretch themselves, obsess about making gains, and often arrive to their classrooms with materials they’ve purchased with their own money.

Our principals labor endlessly to use school allocations in creative ways to best serve the needs of increasingly needy populations of children.

Our district administrators are indefatigable in their work, keeping far longer hours than most of their peers in the private sector. They do so beneath the watchful eyes of State and Federal government, as they struggle to find efficiencies in district operations and deliver more resources to school sites.

And, every night when school board members place their heads on pillows, those heads contain at least a dozen or so pressing decisions about academic provisions for students that promise to create equity in education and lead to more children being better off.

The idea that any of these people come to work with the mission of failing children is, well, pretty stupid.

Criticism of the very people that make a life of service to doing nearly impossible things misses the point, lowers public esteem for the essential commitment of government to education, and endangers our general welfare.

By no means am I prepared to say there are no problems with public education. We currently are not winning the battle for achievement across all student groups. We are smothering beneath a mountain of legacy obligations, archaic operational structures, and overly prescriptive educational policy. Too much of our work exists in political contexts rather than academic research. Our data systems need help. Many of our people are tired, weathered, and weary of change.

Yes, we’ve got our issues, none of which are helped by public demoralization of the very people – the only people – dedicating their lives to educating all children, without qualifications of who those children should be.

As I approach my work on the board I’m mindful always of two quotes.

First, there is the one thing John Dewey said that I can agree with:

“What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy.”

Second, there is a thing that my favorite liberal friend has said to me a few times:

“Only a fool criticizes and feels as though he has actually done something.”