The State of Education

More Than Merely Going to School

The other day, I ran across a great post on Agricola's blog that discussed the dismal state of education in South Carolina and especially among black males, and I had a wonderful back and forth with the author in the comments.

Here are more of my thoughts.

Who Is Responsible?

I'm a firm believer in education being a way to get above the circumstances of your birth. Ideally, education doesn't start and end at the school door.

It starts at home with parents who know that it is their job and not the responsibility of the state to educate their children with public school being merely a partner and helper in the child's education. It's the parent's job to cultivate a love of learning in their children and impart to them that education is a lifelong process than can happen almost anywhere. Parents need to ensure that the child comes into school prepared to learn

Of course, many things aren't idea, are they? Then who is responsible?

We are.

Chaos and Control

Many of the problems in the school system stem from children coming into the school not at all prepared to learn. Too many children comes from lives of chaos, uncertainly, and danger. While there is so much chatter about excellence in schools, no child left behind, and standardized test, many children come into school every morning hungry, tired, perhaps abused.

It 's really hard to prepare for school when the electricity turned off or your family is facing eviction, or you may have to be the primary caregiver of younger siblings, or gunshots keep you awake at night.

While I recognize that South Carolina's public school have many problems that need to be solved and we as citizens need to hold our lawmakers accountable to produce safe competitive schools, we are only dealing with part of the problem.

We need work on controlling the some of chaos in the lives of children by dealing with issues of crime, drugs, poverty.

Help--Not Hate

Single mothers are under tremendous amounts of stress and need help. Inner city single moms engender a great deal of contempt in our society, but they are the one of the keys to working on the problem. Bringing in fathers in essential too. Girls and boys need to learn from an early age that they have choices and making good choices can help them in life.

Real law enforcement is another key component. Most people in the inner city are held hostage by the crime and drugs in their neighborhoods with little help or hope.

The Solution?

Not one of these things I mentioned is a solution to the poor performance of South Carolina's students alone. It is very complex, and there are tons of other factors we may agree and disagree on.

We can build all the schools we want, spend all the money we want, test kids every day if we want, but if we don't come together as a society and help outside the classroom, it will do no good.