Yesterday brought a triple blast of perspectives on one of the most important things in the world to me -- and, I wish could say, to our country. I'm talking about public education.
Why do tolerate such unevenly distributed resources, which lead to unequal opportunity? Why can't we apply what works to more cities and towns -- and speed up the pace of change? Most of all, why can't a solid majority of Americans even agree that these are worthwhile goals? When did we become so selfish and short-sighted in not doing more to help the less privileged among us succeed?
1. I started the morning looking at the Sunday Opinion section -- yes, my own editorial judgment and contacts staring back at me from the page. I selected a piece by Paul Kihn and Matt Miller, consultants for McKinsey & Company, "Let's choose teachers from the top of the class," in which they ask: "Why don't more of our smartest, most accomplished college graduates want to become teachers"
The authors point to Finland, Singapore and South Korea as three top-performing countries that recruit 100 percent of their teachers from the top one-third of their high school and college students -- in sharp contrast to the United States. It's a valid question and I asked six people around the state to read the piece and respond with a short comment. Among them: fellow blogger Aki Mori, a Beaverton school teacher who's often commented on these Rough and Rede posts.
2. We got some exciting news yesterday afternoon from our daughter, Simone, in Pittsburgh. She and three classmates at Carnegie Mellon placed second in a regional competition for graduate students sponsored by the state Department of Human Resources. Each interdisciplinary team is given a real-world problem related to delivery of human services and must analyze it and present it to judges within 48 hours. Aside from another award for their resumes, the four teammates shared a $1,500 cash prize.
Most important? Such recognition gives a boost to Simone's still-evolving desire to work in education policy, exerting an insider's influence in making the kinds of policy changes needed to improve public education in America. She's already had experience working with Latino teenagers in a leadership program and at-risk students in alternative high schools, helping them obtain a G.E.D. or diploma and steering them to community colleges and other options.
3. Simone's news was a perfect set-up for going to see the documentary "Waiting for 'Superman' " at a neighborhood theater. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the same guy who directed Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," it is a gripping narrative, following five children and their families as they seek to rise above the bureaucracy and low expectations that threaten to kill their dreams before they even hit middle school or high school.
They are five kids whose names and faces I won't soon forget: Anthony, a fifth-grader from Washington, D.C.; Francisco, a first-grader in the Bronx; Bianca, a kindergartner from Harlem, Emily, an eighth-grader from Redwood City, Calif., (yes, mediocrity thrives even in affluent Silicon Valley schools) and, most of all, Daisy, a fifth-grader from Los Angeles.
In Daisy's brown eyes and brown face, I could see myself, diligently doing her homework at the kitchen table, dreaming of careers -- a physician or a veterinarian -- her parents could never imagine for themselves. I'm certain that my young peers and I in Union City, Calif., -- the sons and daughters of Mexican American blue-collar workers -- were dismissed as "not college material," But with the encouragement of parents who never attended high school, attentive teachers and my own initiative, I made it. And I want Daisy and Anthony and the millions of kids they represent to have the same chance to realize their potential.
It's heart-breaking to see these children and their parents -- often single parents advocating for their kids or trying to scrape together money for private school -- reduced to hoping their number is called during a lottery for a limited number of slots in public charter schools, where a combination of excellent teachers, longer school days and high expectations have translated to huge gains in classroom performance and success.
Some critics of public education have used this film as an opportunity to bash teacher unions. Granted, they're not portrayed particularly well in the documentary. But they are certainly not the one and only reason we have such disparities amongst our public schools. More important than pointing fingers is rallying around proven models that do work. With the inspiration from this film, I'm going to drop one of my nonprofit board commitments and sign up again as a reading tutor at a diverse, high-poverty school. I've done it before and I'd like to return to the S.M.A.R.T program with a renewed sense of urgency.
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