No Amount of Education Reform Addresses Deeper Issues

A point to consider when talking education reform is that to the greatest degree it comes down to money.

There are over 15,000 individually run school districts. Some rich. Some poor. And others in-between. Those districts of the well-to-do benefit the schools in which they live more than those of the not-so-affluent. This should be obvious, but it's an assumption not made evident to the masses. Keep in mind that the race to educate (No Child Left Behind) is a nice federal ideal, but it comes down to individual districts as to what happens. If there's no money the national ideal dies. Also consider that most politicians run on short-term personal interest, more interested in drumming up support and votes than long-term fixes.

But there's more.

Even if there is money, what of the intangibles?

For example, there is the divorced father with a gifted child who should be in a magnet school, but his wife-who has custody-does not want to drive the extra few miles. So the child goes to a public school is under-challenged and bored. The child may, in most likelihood, turn out fine and not be turned off by school because of a pressing intellect, but the father is distraught that he can't do anything. Here's an issue educational reform rarely addresses.

Also, reform often speaks of new programs or pedagogical theory that will enable children to learn, but how many and to what degree? What sounds good in theory is not always practical in applying to reality.

What is forgotten here is that children outside of any program or education technique will not learn if emotionally or intellectually disinterested.

Some are emotionally distraught coming from broken homes or living in situations that are not conducive to education. For example, I had a student who left home because his father's girlfriend threatened him often; she did so especially after she had gotten high. The father did nothing.

What if a child is living on her own with a parent, stepparent, grandparent, relation or friend who doesn't give the emotional support needed? With divorce hovering nationally around 50% this is not a rare occurrence.

Then even if the child is living in a healthy environment, if she is not interested in a particular subject she will not only most likely get poor grades but also never work in a field that uses that subject of disinterest.

I've taken informal surveys of my students in-class time and again, asking how many find themselves using algebra, geometry, history, biology, chemistry, literature, and so on extensively in their future. The majority of time I get no response to one or two out of thirty or more for each subject. So here's something to consider. Maybe in achieving educational reform we should ask the students what they want.

Another point to ponder is that we need to be leery of politicians who tout educational reform, for even if they are sincere, it is a complex issue and not something that can be fixed by simply increasing the length of school days or the school year.

And a final point of interest is that if education, like health care, were so important something would have been done decades ago. But politicians are swayed by lobbyists who focus on monetary gain for their good not the educational good or improvement of opportunities for our youth.

In his book The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm mentions that if loving were a priority, not monetary gain and social standing, then best how to love one another would be our central focus. We may pay lip service to love and its greatness, but our "say" has not or will most likely never catch up with our "do."  

May those who are most interested in our children rise to the forefront of society to bear the truth to the masses that education reform has little to do with class size, length of school days or year, and more with understanding our children's lives and their day-to-day challenges more intimately. And may parents, for whom their main responsibility is to educate their children (emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually), have greater awareness of the role they play in their children's lives. Teachers are but the tip of the student's education while parents the 99%, the foundation below.