Sunday Sermon: How to fix education

In this campaign season, everyone has an idea on how to fix education. When they point to the schools, they're looking in the wrong place.

Certainly the schools are where formal education takes place. It's where you find the teachers and the textbooks. But the problems with education -- the high drop out rates, decreased competency, the abandonment of the schools by the well-to-do and all the other problems -- happen off campus. If you want to "fix" education, that's where you need to start.

Our schools can teach. That's not the problem. We have good teachers who are dedicated to what they do and they know how to get the information across. What they're not equipped to do, despite the fact that we keep asking them to do it, is to be social engineers. They can't solve the problems that happen outside the school walls. That's not where they work. But if you give them students who are alert, focused and ready to learn, they can do the job.

So if it's not the school's job to solve our current problems in education, whose job is it?

That responsibility belongs to all the people who said they were going the fix the problem -- local politicians.

In our last election, virtually every candidate talked about how they wanted to make education their top priority. The fact is the politicians can do little about what goes on in the classroom. The schools are governed by a separately-elected board of education which hires a director of schools as its chief executive. The schools get their money from the city, but that's about all the influence the city has on the day-to-day operation of the schools.

If those officials really want to get serious about education, they should begin working on the things that really will solve the problem.

We need safe streets. We need better housing. We need more jobs. We need better health care. We need better and more available social services.

We need city officials to realize everything they do affects the quality of education.

When our streets are safe. When people have jobs and health care and all the other things that make a society robust, children have a much greater chance of having good lives outside of school. Quality lives at home and in the community allow children to go to school ready to learn and that's where our teachers can do the job they best know how to do.

And we not only get better results from our schools, we get a better community. We get people graduating with higher expectations for their own lives. They get better jobs and contribute more to the community. The cycle starts again, but this time it's less difficult.

We've known for some time that education is the magic bullet -- if you can educate a child, he or she is more likely to have a successful life. When it works, education can make all our dreams come true.

But it can only work if our politicians -- and the rest of us -- agree that the most important thing we can do to improve the quality of education in our schools is to improve the quality of life for students at home and in the community.

Our leaders promised to make education their first priority. Now it's time to back up those words.

    -- Jim Grinstead

Comments

[Tom]

How true. I worked with a child advocacy group who was trying to help some schools in high poverty parts of Nashville. The group asked the school what they needed most. Their answer? Showers. So many kids came to school dirty and unbathed that they need to start their school day off by giving them the most basic of parent responsibilities.

[Catfish]

As a strong supporter of public schools and teachers unions, I am not sure how to fix the education system, but I am pretty sure that most of the "fixing" needs to be done in the homes rather than in the schools.

For whatever resons, there seems to be a permanent underclass in America. As someone who grew up poor, I can assure you that a dedication to education and a work ethic is the only way. As a progressive, I inist that my government ensures that everyone will be given a chance for a good education and be properly compensated when they combine that with a good work ethic.

The movement conservatives are attacking educational opportunities. Then they undermine the pay-off if you do show up with a good education and a good work ethic.

As a side comment, I believe that the effects of immigration have not been fully accounted for in measuring the efficacy of of our systems. No I am not suggesting immigrants are stupid. I am saying that had I immigrated with my daughter to Mexico, our language skills would have had a negative impact on "scores".

Our immigrations rates were greatly increased beginning in the early 60s. Our education system has been tasked with supporting this, especially in large cities. And frankly, given the success of most immigrants, they seem to be doing a good job.