Conference 7.286::maynard

326.0. "Alternate View of American Public School Systems" by BUILD::MORGAN () Tue Sep 24 1991 13:06

There was an interesting article in last week's (9/15) Boston Globe Magazine 
which I found quite interesting.  In many ways it reminded me of the situation 
in the Maynard Public School system.  If you haven't already seen it, it's worth
taking the few minutes to read.

   *** Copied without permission from the Boston Globe Magazine - 9/15/91 ***


			The Temper of the PTA
			   by Anita Diamant

   One of the PTA officers leaned over to a friend and asked, "Where were all
these people last month?"  Regular meetings tend to attract no more than 15 
parents.  But on this particular night, the auditorium was packed with 200 
people - at least.
   Test scores in my daughter's elementary school had fallen off, and the 
parents were not merely concerned.  The parents were not particularly interested
in discussing the relative merits of standardized scores, nor were they all that
curious to hear what the principal had to say about the numbers.  The parents
were angry.
   Everybody is angry at the schools.  The dinner-party wisdom of the 1990s is 
unequivocal:  The schools are failing our children.  The schools are a national
disgrace.  The schools should be dismantled and rebuilt, preferably by one of
those Japanese corporations that know how to do things right.
   We're talking about public schools, of course.  There are, no doubt, plenty
of disgraceful private schools on the map.  But parents who pay don't air their
dirty laundry; they simply take their business elsewhere.
   The charges against public schools are loud, serious, and historic.  The most
chronic offenders are city schools whose students live in public housing 
projects in neighborhoods where there are no supermarkets and no jobs.  City
schools were long ago pronounced guilty  of producing illiterate graduates and
embarrassing dropout rates.  City schools continue to chase middle-class parents
out to the suburbs.
   But the outcry no longer ends, as it did for so long, at the city limits.
These days, suburban schools are also under fire.  When Jeffrey isn't reading
by the end of kindergarten, if Jennifer isn't being offered calculus in the
seventh grade, and most of all when a school's standardized test scores wobble
even slightly, PTA meetings turn into ugly, accusatory scenes.
   At first I thought the meeting was just a singular occurrence peculiar to my
neighborhood school.  But the I heard first-hand accounts of virtually identical
scenes at schools just up the hill and as far away as Denver, San Francisco, and
Lawrence, Kansas.
   In a way, all this passionate interest can be viewed as an improvement, a 
proof of commitment, a rekindling of citizen participation in a public institu-
tion.  For years, teachers and PTA activists have complained about parents'
apathy.  And it's hard to fault people for wanting the best for their children.
   Except for the pitch of the anger.  I'm not talking about the desperate 
demands of inner-city  parents who have no other options for their children, so
many of whom are floundering.  After a decade of Reaganistic divestiture in
American cities, school is one of the few remaining lifelines.
   Poverty was not the source of the hostility in the auditorium of my suburban
school.  But there was blame and even contempt in the voices of the loudest
protesters, who were outraged - OUTRAGED - about the math scores.
   It confused me.  And it gave me the creeps.  Where does all this venom come
from?  I wondered.  Where was it headed?
   Walking home from the meeting with an equally perplexed neighbor, we theo-
rized:  Maybe this is the ugly underbelly of the baby boom, which feel entitled
to the best.
   And yet our own parents barely knew what was going on in our classrooms, 
which were only rarely what I'd call the best.  I had some pretty dreadful 
teachers.  Didn't you?  We turned out all right, didn't we?
   Maybe those parents who were yelling the loudest, demanding weekly quizzes
for first graders, don't think they turned out all right.  Or can it be that
they're already planning for Harvard.  Are they honestly worried that the Ger-
mans and the Japanese will get all the good jobs in the global marketplace of
2011?
   Do they think they can control every variable in their children's world?  Or
are they really angry at themselves because they can't afford to send their kids
to private school?
   It's hard to trace the sources of all that free-floating parental anger.  But
it's easy to see where it lands.
   Scattered around the auditorium in the school that night were several tea-
chers, among them a talented woman who had ushered 24 kindergarteners through a
joyful introduction to learning.  She was white-faced and quiet.  And when I
told her what a wonderful teacher she is, we both nearly cried.
   Better schools are a noble and necessary goal.  But you don't get them by
demoralizing teachers or by letting your kids know you think their school 
stinks.  The city schools that shine - and there are plenty of them - are
precisely the ones where teachers, administrators, and parents stuff cotton in
their ears whenever people start talking about how schools are hopeless.
   Sometimes anger gets hammered into a tool.  Sometimes it just scorches what
it touches.  It can go either way.

    
    Actually, it reminds of a large number of Massachusets suburban school
    districts right now. While the author is correct in stating that we
    should encourage and praise the good schools and teachers we must 
    examine what's wrong with the bad ones and do something about. Until
    a majority of us make enough noise it won't happen. 

    The September 7, 1991 issue of Industry Week has a number of articles
    on the national education system.  It is well worth reading.  The
    editorial is entitled "The Real Foe Is Attitude."  Articles include "A
    Lesson Plan for our Future" and "The Education of Business."
    
    I would imagine it's available in the DEC library.
    

    There is an article in the Metro section of the Globe today.
    
    It is about the disparities in public school funding between rich and poor
    towns.  A group is seeking court action to make the state change its 
    ways of funding public schools.  Similar lawsuits have forced other 
    states to completely revamp the educational financing systems.  
    According to this article Massachusetts ranked 37th in the level of 
    revenue the states provides for schools.  One fifth of the state's 
    public schools reside in school districts that spend $2000.00 less 
    per pupil each year than the statewide average.  Per pupil expenditures 
    across the state in 1989-90 academic year varied from $3700.00 in 
    Winchendon to $8600.00 in Lincoln.  

RE:  Note 326.3 by AKOCOA::LESAGE 

>>>  ...A group is seeking court action to make the state change its 
>>> ways of funding public schools.  Similar lawsuits have forced other 
>>> states to completely revamp the educational financing systems....

There has been a case in the Massachusetts courts for some years trying to
do this.  I think it's called the Murdoch case (unless Murdoch is the
original case in some other state).  But, for some reason, it hasn't gotten
settled. 

I hope it succeeds.  Schools should not be funded by property taxes,
particularly in less affluent communities.  If schools are a state and
national priority, as our fearless leaders would have us believe, then the
state and country should fund them and provide resources and supervision to 
ensure that they are doing their job.

    
    The Case is Murdoch vs Weld and the result, should the plaintiff win,
    will be more equity across districts but it will not eliminate the
    property tax funding.