Teachers are not the problem; they're the solution politicians ignore

It's in our nature to complain. Some think it is in the Bill of Rights.

By Jim Dunn, North Side Café

Liberty Sun News March 18, 2004 (Liberty, MO)

No problem in our culture can ever be fixed until it is first debated by people who know nothing about the issues; and then they firmly fix the blame on the innocent. Only then can a plan be drawn up that thoroughly punishes the innocent and the victims.

The now infamous No Child Left Behind legislation is a case in point. NCLB did not come from educators.

Politicians never really talked to actual educators, boards of education, or teachers about crafting a solution to the very real problem that some schools are not doing very well. In fact, poor school districts in our country perform like school districts in a third world country. They are bad and need to be fixed, now. That's the problem with our schools. Our problem is not that all schools are failing.

Our best schools do very well. Our best students are better than anybody in the world when they have taken the same classes as the competition.

Most schools in the United States are among the best in the world at what they do. It is our urban schools and school in poor areas that are in trouble. Most everything else is strictly politicians who have created the impression that our schools are failing to scare voters.

Here is a simple test. Ask yourself these two questions:

Is my child's school failing?

If education were the only factor, would you move to another country?

Most of the nation thinks their local school is great and almost nobody wants to move anywhere where the education is supposedly better.

Still, the notion that our schools are failing is winning the day.

Educators and those who have given their lives to helping kids unanimously agree NCLB is a failed program that hurts children and schools, and please, do not give me that bunk that the highly paid are merely protecting their cushy jobs.

Although NCLB wants to point fingers and blame teachers for "failing schools," our teachers are doing a superb job.

NCLB wants to declare our schools failing because special education students fail timed tests, or non-English speaking students can't read a test in English, or because not all kids are exactly the same, or learn at the same rate.

That's unforgivably unfair! Our schools are not failing.

Our schools, now besieged by budget cuts, uniformed critics, and special interest groups looking to make a buck, are doing exceptionally well, but they are in pain.

It is the ultimate "big lie" to say the very people who are doing the most on behalf of children, learning and schools - teachers and staff - are failing! The secreatry of education called them terrorists.

It is an appalling, horrible bit of business to openly criticize and demoralize the people who are doing the most to hold our schools together.

Repeat this again and again, "Our schools are not failing."

Visit any school, any day, in the Northland if you want stunning proof of excellent schools.

Unfortunately the nay-bobs, the negative, the greedy, and the shortsighted are winning the day.

Education requires thoughtful analysis and a careful review of all the facts.

Education requires continuous involvement at the local level.

Education requires a realization that children are not widgets on an assembly line. Children come with different needs and goals. They are precious and cannot be discarded if they don't make the grade.

Some children take longer to develop than others. Some do well early and then falter. All children are subject to the raw and sometimes crippling human experience.

Children are all we've got, however, to offer the future.

If you want better schools, better communities and a better future for yourself and others, here is something real you can do.

Thank a teacher and a school staff member.

Almost every school district in the state now has some kind of election going on because the state refuses to adequately fund education for children.

Go volunteer to help.

We have got to stop bashing schools and teachers and start supporting them. Starving cattle does not make them strong. Schools are not piñatas to beat on in the hope something good will come out.

We have got to start openly, unabashedly, fervently and continuously championing our schools and especially our teachers.