What is it Called if There’s No Education and No Public?
January 14th, 2007It strikes me as a bad sign when I’m getting apologies for working in my school district.
My school is very into Destination Imagination, and I love it as well. I have yet to meet a kid that was into DI that I didn’t think was a great human being. The emphasis on co-operation, creativity, and thinking outside the box were things that attracted me to the program when I started teaching six years ago. I was glad when I was roped into it and pleased that I’ve had the chance to work with the people, all of whom care about kids.
Yesterday I’m at UNH for a training session, and one of the first things one of my fellow appraisers1 does when he sees me is apologize for the recent meeting of our school budget committee, which was so horrid that it made the front page of the paper. A few highlights from committee members:
“I believe that is somebody brings up an issue and says it’s illegal, we as a budget committee should vote to say whether we think it’s legal or not illegal.”2
One committee member, who is determined not to spend a dime on health insurance for teachers, was absolutely fine with setting aside $25,000 for a lawyer in case of a lawsuit for breaking the existing contracts. His comment? “Let’s get sued.”
So I wasn’t surprised by my fellow appraiser’s sentiment. However, it had been going on like this for quite a long time, and I was kind of glad to see that the individuals on the board have now become so bad that the local papers are finally picking it up. However, it’s a sad commentary on everything that depends on the American voter that things need to reach the disaster point before they start paying enough attention to really change things.
I have no doubt that the situation will become so bad over the next few years that the district will either collapse (as happened with a neighboring town, which lost its high school and now ships its students to a district in the area that has spent a great deal on the building as well as just signing a contract with the teachers) or the voters in the district will become aware of what’s going on, get sick of it, and vote.
The same thing just happened with midterm elections. However, just like elections, by the time it gets to that point the situation has become bad enough it’s going to take years to fix. The same with our schools, sadly—and unless things change on the federal level, we may not be given the time to fix things.
I hate to say it, but I wonder what things would look like if we didn’t have to depend on the public in public education. Everything in our system depends on the public being involved, but if that doesn’t happen, how on earth is the system going to work?
1 Another thing I love about DI. We’re not judges, we’re not here to judge the kids work, we’re there to award as many points as possible. What a wonderful philosophy!
2 Yes. Budget committees of school boards now make the laws.
