Can We Fix It?

Many of the points made by Friedman and Mandelbaum offer specific direction on how to get where we need to get:  cut entitlement programs, reduce the national debt, raise taxes, etc. I’m guessing that the legislators find these requirements daunting, even if we weren’t suffering from political gridlock.   But I’m really not sure how we get to the educational piece.  We need creative creators and creative servers.  We need to produce critical thinkers and collaborators.  We need to improve the schools students attend.  We need to raise the levels of black and Hispanic young people.  The authors suggest that we can get there by having better teachers and principals, parents who are more involved and demanding, politicians who raise educational standards, neighbors who support schools, business leaders who raise educational standards and students who come prepared to learn.  First of all, please spare me the politicians who raise educational standards.  After that, I would say that Hatboro-Horsham does not represent the majority of schools/districts in the US.  We have a good level of the required supports, but so many areas of the country do not.  How do we get from zero to 60?

A friend of mine spent the end of his business career heading a non-profit organization that works with businesses and the Philadelphia public schools to provide school-to-work opportunities for Philadelphia students.  He was in a position where he could afford to do something he really believed in and was passionate about. When he retired, we spoke about his time with this organization, and his ultimate conclusion was that the Philadelphia schools are irretrievably broken.  Of course, there are notable exceptions to this dismal picture, but overall, in his view, Philadelphia lacks all of the requirements to do the work it needs to do.  Unfortunately, Philadelphia is not alone in this predicament.    Where do we start? How do we start? We can’t legislate involvement, readiness for learning, and community and business support in the same way we can legislate increases in taxes and reductions in spending.  Oh, wait a minute.  The legislators did legislate achievement levels.  They just weren’t possible for districts such as Philadelphia to attain at this time.  It would be a Herculean task to create a school system in Philadelphia—or many other places in America-- that has all of the requirements that Friedman and Mandelbaum state, but we can’t afford not to.  If you look at the requirements, they don’t involve more money, just more of an investment from parents, students, neighbors and businesses.  That’s actually a bigger task.