The educational challenge we face involves a structure that extends beyond individual school systems. That larger challenge is our culture, which is going through a monumental, age-changing transformation. It’s a complex issue and there are social, cultural, fiscal and political reasons for the sorry state we find our educational system in.
We baby boomers have pretty much had our baby bust. We delayed starting families. We became focused on individual materialism and seem to have had an indifferent attitude about financially sustaining our school systems. It’s not hard to conclude that all three of those factors together have led to a decline of our shared support of quality education.
Education, like health care, should be a right to which all Americans are entitled. Our educational system should be funded at the national level so our children are not victimized by a system based on property ownership and value. When it comes to national priorities, can you imagine if the Department of Education were to be put under the Department of Defense? I would expect there would be more than enough money available for our schools.
Nonetheless, even when the money is there, school systems are doubly challenged to raise their test scores, an important measure of accountability while at the same time trying to keep the poor and struggling students from dropping out.
With that said, all too often the real challenge lies not with our schools but in the homes of the students. It’s our families that are failing. The decay of marriage, the dwindling of two-parent households, the cavalier attitudes toward child-rearing, all contribute to the basis for undisciplined children to be indifferent to education. Instead of sitting in front of the tube watching someone else live their lives, they need to understand the value of what a good education will have toward their success as an adult. If they don’t, the future will not be kind to them.
We constantly drill into their heads to get as much education as they can, but all too often parents fail to provide the necessary encouragement and guidance to do so. Too many of our youth are led to believe that life’s goal is nonstop consumerism and instant gratification. The entertainment industry plays a major role in this reality and, in its wake, the growth of the youth-centered industries that support it. All too often, a family outing is a trip to the mall and it seems like the majority of our youth spend most of their time texting, staring at or talking to their cell phones. I know these are generalities but, in many respects, we seem to have come to live in an anti-learning culture. And dumb reigns.
To better serve our children, we need to improve our schools absolutely. But we also need to see that our children are better “taught” by what they experience. Children learn the value of education more from their environment and the people who constantly surround them than by the teachers they see for a few hours a day. A culture that values education gets good education, not by necessarily spending more, but because everyone thinks it’s important and works at it. Our schools cannot work magic and children are not blank slates.
In addition, all too often those students who achieve high academic standing receive far less attention than those performing well in football, basketball or soccer. With our local newspapers reporting about school sports practically every day, and far less about student academics, what are our kids supposed to conclude?
This challenge will require leadership from the top and support from the parents of the children currently in our school systems. We need to find a more effective way for parents to more clearly see education as an investment, rather than a burden. When they feel they have the power and opportunity to change their own circumstances, they then pass it on to their children.
Perhaps the cure is not to hope for better results but to insist on them, early and persistently. It takes more than a village to educate our children.
Merrell Wood is chairman of the Middletown Park Board, and founder of Middletown Habitat for Humanity, TV Middletown and the Sink Or Swim pool campaign.