You've Got Class

With the coming school year upon us it's time to revisit the public education problem.  Schools "under review" (SURR), schools "in need of improvement", (SINI) are terms you hear in Buffalo Schools that summarily mean the schools are failing and intervention is needed.  The tactics used to intervene are put in place yet fail to address any long term issues. The list is short of schools that actually improve enough to get off those dreaded lists.  It seems the more problematic public education becomes, the less people in leadership roles are making decisions grounded in reality. Do charter schools work?  Yes. Why?  They are allowed to remove those troublemaker kids from the school, shuttled right back to the front steps of the public high school in the area. Simple. What can the public high school do? Nothing.  They don't have anywhere to send the delinquent kid who is dumped back onto their doorstep.  There are no intervention programs, punishments in place or alternative judgement options for kid's behavior problems.  Not so simple.  Kids break rules, they get detention or are suspended and the behavior can't be "fixed", so the kid continues on the treadmill of in and out of school. The problem is not a few bad kids, but a lot of bad kids put together makes for an impossible situation. This is where the good kids go bad, where they are influenced, where they give in and give up by making bad decisions that ruin their futures. Expectations are lowered, standards are driven down as educators aim for the middle, and discipline is not supported by the downtown administration.  In many cases, public schools are undermined by the very people expecting these kids to be held accountable out of a cowardice of parental retaliation and petty litigation.  The problems in public education are not inherent of the education system.  The problems public education faces are inherited from decades of terrible social programs, The Republican Agenda and a disparity between the classes that is unprecedented in modern times, (unless you compare us to a third world nation).  Black kids are suffering now more than ever.  Poor kids are suffering, no matter what color they are.  It is more a class issue rather than race.  Just so happens public schools are full of poor who happen to be Black.  The epidemic of failing schools across the nation has gone unnoticed and is a sleeping giant.  It is the next nation crisis affect each American, even the ones in gated communities, in denial. No Child Left Behind is a smoke and mirrors failure.  Eight years later the realization of this damaging public education mandate is starting to rear its head.  The looming recession and millions of uneducated, poor citizens has reduced our capacity as a nation to recover from the damage done by the Republicans.  The idea that everyone has an equal chance in this country is a hoax put in place so we can shrug our shoulders and say, well "they brought it upon themselves, so there".  Get ready folks, it's about to bring something to all of us we aren't expecting.