Caring about education

Recent headlines about education gave rise to the need for this letter because I care and I’m sure there are many others who also care about education. It is also not my intent to put down the system but to illustrate certain vital factors that have been omitted in the newspaper and TV reporting.

The prediction that we will catch up to the mainland students with our reading scores was extremely misleading and even dead wrong. PSS is taking positive steps to make improvements but they are small steps that can’t and don’t justify us meeting this unrealistic prediction in six years. I wish it was true but it’s not. The only way we will catch up in six years with our mainland counterparts would be if the students on the mainland “stopped” progressing over the next six years and we know that won’t be the case. For the Public School System to accomplish the goal of actually catching up in six years with our mainland counterparts, we would have to progress at three to four times the rate we are presently improving. So in six years, we will have moved ahead but our counterparts will also have moved ahead—the dog chasing his tail phenomenon.

It will cost us additional millions to set in place the programs necessary to accomplish this six-year goal and we [the school system] will be lucky to even get the complete budget that has been requested. Fundraising is second only to learning at schools because we have to fundraise now just to have money for the extracurricular activities that were once paid for by PSS. With lawmakers telling PSS and teachers to ask the governor for money, it should be easy to see the dilemma that we face with our education system, especially when the funding is supposed to come from the Legislature. There are virtually “no incentive” programs at PSS anymore and we all know about the shortages of supplies, classrooms, buses and the many others, so how do we accomplish this six-year goal under these conditions? Many, if not most, people were not fooled by the prediction and recognized it for what it really was: “education politics.”

We have also witnessed specials on TV about the good things that are taking place at the schools, which is good and it’s about time. But it was only promotional, with no substance, and I hope the general public noticed that every principal was very clear about placing the burden to improve reading and other scores on teachers. But nothing was said about how the BOE or administration can do to help. Principals weren’t and couldn’t complain and I’m sure many people recognized the education politics especially when the PSS’ own survey proved that “half” of the students don’t feel they are cared about; its worse for teachers.

I truly believe the BOE and the administration care, but teachers are the ones who make it happen. We have made some progress every year on test scores and the recent test scores were accomplished without the Commissioner for most of the school year. The promotion of the school system was needed but it was not objective reporting. To provide only one side of the picture and to make unrealistic predictions was wrong. We haven’t caught up in reading and other scores for over 25 years, now we are to accomplish it in six under the worst conditions I’ve seen in the 14 years I’ve been out here? Give me a break. I felt that it was important for people to get a more objective perspective on education that was not and will not be provided on the TV or in the news. I just hope this letter can be appreciated and that it won’t take six years for people to realize that I’m telling them the “unadulterated” truth. One people, one direction.

Ambrose M. Bennett
BOE Teacher Rep.