History will judge

History will Judge

History will judge the current generation by its ability to solve the public education crisis, is what a local business leader and former governor of West Virginia Bob Wise told Jacksonville CEOs Wednesday at the graduate now summit hosted by the United Way. What a ridiculous statement because if things continue on the path they are now, future generations won’t be able to judge anything through history because they both won’t understand it or be able to read it.

Once again business and community leaders met to discuss the state of education in Jacksonville. If that sounds familiar it’s because it happens every few months or so. They do it so they can both point to statistics that say high school graduates make and spend more money, while shaking their fists, demanding something must be done and so they can appear to be doing something. I say appear because they have been having meetings like this for years now and they have almost nothing to show for them. In fact many people, who are in the know, teachers and parents, think things are getting worse. Jacksonville has a graduation rate of 65% which sadly is a bit misleading because a significant amount of new graduates aren’t prepared for college, working or anything.

If Jacksonville’s business and community leaders are truly interested and serious about improving education and to be honest I have my doubts after all it’s much easier to talk about change than do what is necessary to make sure it happens, the first and far the most important thing they need to do is lobby the state government to properly fund education. Mentors, community tutors and blue ribbon commissions are nice but what the school system needs is money.

Education needs mandatory longer days and summer school opportunities for children who need extra help. Education needs social workers and mental health counselors because quite often why children act up or don’t try at school has nothing to do with what is going on in school. Education needs more restrictive alternative programs to send children that hijack the learning environment to. Then education also needs multiple tracks so children can learn the arts, skills and trades as well. What do all these things have in common besides the fact we aren’t either doing them now or to the degree we should be? They cost money.

At the summit superintendant Pratt Dannals said “…we’re one great community away from being a great school system. It takes both.” In a way he’s right. Schools are not platforms for fixing the ills of society, though if done correctly school districts can enhance a city and can be immensely beneficial. Some cities crown jewels are its school system. Jacksonville’s schools unfortunately aren’t doing it right; instead of making things better they are exacerbating our cities problems. It’s not just the abysmal drop out and graduation rates that I am talking about either. In our city we can’t go a day without hearing about a young person committing some terrible crime. Businesses are likewise having difficult times finding capable, productive, and reliable workers. These are also some of the problems that Jacksonville’s public school system is contributing to.

When children don’t get consequences for their behavior it worsens. When children are pushed along from grade to grade they are rendered incapable of learning or being productive. When all children are forced into a one size fits all curriculum we shouldn’t be surprised when more and more don’t make it. When children drop out of school, don’t know how to behave or function in society we also shouldn’t be surprised that many turn to public assistance, crime or worse.

Jacksonville has serious problems that aren’t going to fix themselves either through cooking the books which is what the school board has been doing, by ignoring discipline, scrubbing children’s grades and encouraging children to take advanced placement tests they aren’t ready for or by having summits where the business elite get together to pat each other on the back and say something must be done. After all this is what we have been doing for a while and if you want proof of how successful it’s been, look at Duval Counties graduation rates over the last few years, 02-03, 63.7%, 03-04, 67.2%, 04-05, 65.5%, 05-06, 60.5%, 06-07,64.3%, 07-08 65.9%.

That’s our recent history. You be the judge of how we are doing