From Our Point of View: School Plan Needs Defining

From Our Point Of View

School plan needs defining

ANN ARBOR school board President Kathleen Dannemiller has invited the general public to express opinions concerning the board’s plan for responding to U.S. District Judge Charles E. Joiner’s opinion in the “black English” case.

One good basis from which to start is offered by New York University President John C. Sawhill in the current Saturday Review magazine. He wrote prior to and probably without knowledge of the case which has given rise to Judge Joiner’s self-contradictory opinion. Yet Sawhill’s observations were a useful perspective in what to respond to Dannemiller's invitation.

Sawhill is not optimistic about U.S. public education. His article is titled “The Collapse of Public Schools”. Reading all of it is preferable, of course, to excerpts. But certain of his comments are particularly relevant to local debate as to what can reasonably be expected from the schools. They go like this:

“Racial, economic, and sexual inequalities; poor parenting; malnutrition; crime; and a lengthy list of other social disorders unquestionably affect an individual’s capacity to participate in society. But while education can enhance the student’s ability to cope with, and to change, the conditions of life around him, it cannot, in and of itself, make them better. In thrusting the schools to the forefront of social change, we have diverted their energies from their basic purpose - education...

“Current dismay over public education centers on the fact that substantial numbers of our children cannot perform even the most basic functions of reading, writing and mathematics. Such poor performance is understandable, however, when we recognize that proficiency in basic skills no longer is required of public-school students.

“’Minimum competency’ is the result of the schools’ misguided efforts to serve two masters at the same time. On one hand, they are trying to respond to the demand for a sound, basic education by requiring a specific level of achievement in certain subjects. On the other hand, in their attempt to correct social inequities, schools are often setting standards so low as to be meaningless and even detrimental ...

“We must recognize that-if the function of education is to enable us to become the most that we can be - there is no such thing as a minimum acceptable standard.

“We must insist that time and money be used to strengthen basic academic criteria . ."

***

WHEN school trustees vote on this $41,915 proposal, they ought to consider specifying which of the “two masters” referred to by Sawhill the board regards as more important: “public demand for a sound, basic education” or an “attempt to correct social inequalities”.

Trustees ought to continue working toward a system-wide academic curriculum in which all pupils have equal opportunities for access to academically worthwhile programs, regardless of which attendance district they live in. A new program not worthy of the costs for application at all schools can scarcely be worthy of application to one school.