By
Bill Cirone, Santa Barbara County Superintendent of Schools
Newspaper Column
Nicholas
Kristof of the New York Times wrote a column recently
reminding readers that education was always considered the escalator
to a better life for all of us.
No
more.
He
underscored the long-term destructiveness of undermining public
education, pointing out that our country supports schools in
Afghanistan “because we know that education is one of the cheapest
and most effective ways to build a country.” He said we are turning
a blind eye to that fact at home, and he’s right. School budgets
are being decimated, teachers laid off in massive numbers, and
educational programs laid waste.
School
years have been reduced in many places from the standard 180 days per
year to 167 or even fewer. Teaching staffs have been reduced by more
than 10 percent across the land. Athletic teams have been pared,
school newspapers discontinued, business and music classes
eliminated. Class size is skyrocketing.
Writing
of his own high school in Oregon, Kristof said: “This school was
where I embraced sports, became a journalist, encountered
intellectual worlds, and got in trouble. These days, the 430 students
still have opportunities to get into trouble, but the rest is harder.
“American pre-eminence in mass education has eroded since the
1970s,” he wrote, “and now a number of countries have leapfrogged
us in high school graduation rates, in student performance, in
college attendance.”
And
here’s his main point: “If you look for the classic American
faith in the value of broad education to spread opportunity, you can
still find it — in Asia,” wrote Kristof.
As
he stated, data from throughout the world has proven that the best
anti-poverty program, with the best record, is education. Yet people
in our country continue to act as though education isn’t really for
“other people’s children,” or that some young people don’t
really need the escalator to a better life and wouldn’t take
advantage of it if offered. “I can’t think of any view that is
more un-American,” he concluded.
In
the name of cutting, cutting, cutting, it’s time to ask what kind
of a country, and what kind of local communities are we willing to
settle for? When the only focus is what to eliminate it’s hard to
believe that striving for excellence is on the radar. These are
dangerous policies with consequences we can’t even begin to fathom.
What has happened to our core values? When did the American dream
alter so dramatically?
I
don’t believe it has. I believe the American public still believes
in equal opportunity and the value of a public education system open
to all, striving for excellence, and continuing to be an escalator to
a better life.
We
hear some leaders talking about the need for our government to be
“lean and mean.” Is that really what we want? It’s only a turn
of phrase, but it reflects the literal truth of the policy. To be as
lean as what is being sought by some, we need to cut the safety net
for the least among us, and the services, like public education, that
define us as a nation.
If
we don’t want a government that is “mean,” and basically
un-American, we need to strongly support those who agree with that
view and insist their actions reflect that support. It’s the only
way forward.
