Voice of the People, extended edition

I am working on a letter to the editor (“Voice of the People”).  I am a bit concerned that I’ll sound like a crackpot, but more concerned that what I’m saying will go unsaid otherwise.

 

I think that educating our children is one of the most important things that we do.  A good education sets the stage for a better life.   More satisfaction.  Better paychecks.  Better health. More community activism.   I think that more of our tax money should be going toward pubic education than is now sent in that direction.  With all that said, I have three big hopes for the public schools that my own children and all of our loved children attend:

•  I hope that the SBA will not give the money to build a consolidated Enslow/Beverly Hills Middle School outside the city limits of Huntington.  Our students are better served by neighborhood schools.  Every effort should be made to maintain schools in the neighborhoods–if this means fixing their buildings, redistricting and building new buildings, closing Enslow and making its associated elementaries into K-8 schools, something, then these should all be considered.  It is ridiculous for 13-year olds from Guyandotte and Highlawn and downtown Huntington to have to be bussed all the way out to Norway Avenue in order to be warehoused in what will be the second largest middle school in the state.

•  I hope that many of our local schools will join the Harless Center at MU and WV Superintendent Steve Paine in availing our children of model schools for the 21st Century.  This program is going to expand the wonderful things that have been happening at Kellogg Elementary in Westmoreland.  All of our children could benefit from this type of education, with emphasis on communication skills and information skills and community involvement.

•  I hope that, with help from foundation grant money, we could open an opt-in small high school in the Miller School, thus demonstrating the benefits of a small school (see links on sidebar!), while putting a soon-to-be-vacant building to continued use as a neighborhood school.  WV scores high on educational policy but badly for k-12 achievement.  We have high dropout rates and bullying of teachers in our schools.  A small 6-12 might be just the ticket to improve these problems.

A quote from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (“New Report Illuminates America’s “Silent” Dropout Epidemic“):

Two-thirds of those surveyed said they would have worked harder to graduate if their schools had demanded more of them and provided the necessary academic and personal supports to help them succeed. Others said that as they grew older, there was more freedom and other distractions to draw them away from school. Sixty-two percent reported they had grades of C’s or better when they left school and 70 percent were confident they could have met their school’s graduation requirements. More than half (58 percent) dropped out with just two years or less to complete high school, and 74 percent would have stayed in school if they had to do it over again.

“There wasn’t anybody to keep me there,” said a young man from Philadelphia, who had dreams of going to college, dropped out of high school with just one year to go, regrets the decision, and is now unemployed.

I hope that all our children will find somebody to keep them there.  The odds go up in a small school.  Read The New Rules Project.

 

I hope that you will join me, read my blog, and make your voice known to the Cabell County school district office and BOE members.  The bigger the outcry, the more likely we are to get results that we like.  If you just sit back, you know that the BOE will go ahead with the consolidation of Enslow & Beverly Hills (probably outside the city limits), the 21st Century Model schools will take another 92 years to be put in place, our middle and high school students will continue to be warehoused and counted as numbers (not real people with needs for community) in a school where the kids who don’t want to learn bully the teachers or drop out.  That’s not what I want for my children, or for yours.