“Again? She’s writing about this again?”
That’s the question a reader posed in a letter to me last week, after she read my column, “Yet Another Attempt to Improve City Schools.” What had prompted my column was the state’s appointment of a “distinguished educator” to help school district leaders figure out what’s wrong and correct it. What’s wrong, I said for the gazillionth time, is the city’s extraordinary high poverty rate.
The reader’s comments were respectful. And she wasn’t just complaining. She wanted answers. And she said she hoped I’d answer in my column. “I am a bit challenged to understand the full scope of the problems in Rochester’s city schools, or how I can help.”
The problems, she said, “do not appear, on the surface, to touch me.”
This reader is not alone. And she’s asking some important questions. Like many, many people, she has a lot to deal with. She’s an older adult, has some health problems, has a husband and a home and the demands that all of that entails. Based on letters she’s written previously, I think she’s a caring, concerned citizen, aware of the challenges her community and her country face.
She wishes I’d write about more climate change, mobility issues, mass transit, and other concerns. “Why,” she asked, “so much writing on what happens in schools? From my chair, it mostly impacts families with school-aged kids.”
Well, for one thing, I’m only one writer at CITY. My co-worker Jeremy Moule has written extensively about climate change and mass transit and will continue to. My columns touch on them, too, and on a lot of other issues. But I get this reader’s point, and I understand her concern.
So here’s why I keep writing about schools – and not just “schools,” but the impact concentrated poverty is having on the children in Rochester’s public schools:
- First of all, this is a moral issue. Every year, tens of thousands of children are robbed of a healthy, fulfilled, productive life in Rochester because they are not getting a good education. Poverty and the disastrous effects it produces are affecting generations of families. Education isn’t the only barrier to a successful future, but it’s a central one. And without a good education, Rochester’s children face a limited future.
- There are solutions, and the fact that we don’t adopt them is immoral. I don’t know how any of us sleep at night. But let’s set morality aside. Let’s talk about self-interest. I can’t think of anything that has as much impact on the Greater Rochester community and its people as Rochester’s schools have.
- A community with a large number of poorly educated people is a community that spends a lot of money on social services, health care, and yes, criminal justice. And that money – tax revenue – comes from all of us: city residents, suburban residents, businesses.
So whichever argument touches you more, ethics or self-interest, you have a stake in this. The city’s teachers and administrators are on the front line, but there’s plenty the rest of us can do. At the very least, we can set aside a little bit of time to be a good citizen. Read, stay informed, and contact elected officials – county legislators, suburban town board members, suburban school board members. Ask them what they’re doing to help reduce poverty, break up its concentration, and improve city children’s education.
Rochester’s public schools are a community problem. And the community doesn’t end at the city limits.
This article appears in Aug 1-7, 2018.
The City School District is a travesty Mary, I agree. Instead of caring about the people they should (the students) they are instead fixated upon their own personal gains. We don’t need an outside administrator, what we need is a home grown administrator who would have a local sense of pride and not another corrupt self-serving snake in the grass who sells the City a bill of goods for a big pension.
The health of city schools is important because it effects the ability of the city to retain residents in challenged neighborhoods. Throughout rustbelt cities everywhere, young families and especially those of color, continue to leave the city for surrounding suburbs with higher performing schools. If we are to stabilize our most challenged neighborhoods, we must improve the schools so that families who love their neighborhood will decide to stay. Those commitments will result in new families moving in. That’s why improving schools is important for all city residents, not just parents, as suggested by a reader.
I am sending this in, as a letter, with the hope that it might be printed:
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Again. She writes about this again. Yes, we can complain that Mary Anna Towler is repeating herself. But maybe, repetition is a big part of the problem and big part of the answer for our failing Rochester schools.
Let me tell you a story from the Hebrew Talmud, of a Rabbi Preida. Preida had a difficult student who needed a lot of repetition. In fact, he needed to hear each lesson 400 (four hundred) times, before he could grasp it.
Now, one day, during a lesson, Preida was interrupted with an urgent matter. Then, he continued with his student, until he had given the lesson 400 times. But this time, the student had not mastered the lesson. The student explained that the interruption made him worry that Preida might be called away, at any moment, to deal with the matter. So, Rabbi Preida, patiently, gave the student an additional 400 repetitions of the lesson, until the student had mastered it.
The point I want to make is that when it comes to learning, patient repetition is needed. Even the brightest student sometimes needs endless practice and repetition. And when it comes to teachers and school administrators, repetition is often needed to win an argument. Without repetition, success may not happen. It may not happen for the student and it may not happen for the teacher, as well.
So, I hope that Mary Anna Towler appreciates that if we want to make progress in education, we may need to keep repeating the lesson or argument, as many times, as necessary. until we get understanding and agreement.
http://www.SavingSchools.org