Failing Public Schools

We are all happy as pigs in mud that the last SOTU of Shrub's career as (P)resident is now behind us. I can't watch him in person without serious risk of major stroke, so I read the text of his speech this morning. As a teacher, and a friend and sister of other teachers, I was most interested in his remarks on education. They were just what I expected in terms of praise for NCLB, but he went on to elevate my blood pressure with this paragraph:

We must also do more to help children when their schools do not measure up. Thanks to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships you approved, more than 2,600 of the poorest children in our Nation's capital have found new hope at a faith-based or other non-public school. Sadly, these schools are disappearing at an alarming rate in many of America's inner cities. So I will convene a White House summit aimed at strengthening these lifelines of learning. And to open the doors of these schools to more children, I ask you to support a new $300 million program called Pell Grants for Kids. We have seen how Pell Grants help low-income college students realize their full potential. Together, we have expanded the size and reach of these grants. Now let's apply that same spirit to help liberate poor children trapped in failing public schools.

I don't know about you, but I see this as nothing more than yet another attempt to prop up, bail out, mainly "faith-based" private schools. Another stealth attack on the public school system itself, a system that is already well on its way to extermination. Yes, public schools are, in many instances, failing, but this is not the answer to that failure. It is instead yet another nail in their coffin. What if we took this sum of three hundred million dollars and used it to encourage good teachers to go into urban centers to teach in those schools, to truly work towards having all our schools "measure up", what if we used it to rehab crumbling school buildings, buy books and materials for each and every student, used it to create a revolution in the thinking of parents and teachers about our public school systems? Let's not worry about the faith-based non-public schools disappearing in our inner cities. (Imagine, convening a White House Summit aimed at strengthening them!) Let's actually do something about the disappearing public schools that can no longer serve their communities. Our nation was built on and by the products of public school education, it used to be something upon which we prided ourselves as a people. Imperfect as it is, and always has been, the dream of a free pubic education for all our children has been alive since Thomas Jefferson. I can't bear to see its destruction by today's social ills aided by this government's determination to "privatize" everything it possibly can.

Technorati Tags: education, GWBush, public schools, SOTU, Pell Grants for Kids

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