Priorities: First, Promote. But Also Preserve and Protect Public Education.

For those of us who lose the thread of conversations on Facebook, and because I believe these discussions apply to issues being faced by other communities outside the Intermountain Area, I am posting my response more permanently to the blog here. I will try, when time allows, to condense it further, but for now…

Many in our local area will recognize the relationships involved here. Our respect and admiration for Shannon Carnegie are tangibly demonstrated in the long and mutually beneficial relationship between The Glenburn Community Church and Small Wonders Preschool, including Shannon’s very well-regarded (and fun, even for the old pastor who gets invited to most of the more exciting events and experiments) curriculum.

Recently, as I will let Shannon’s words explain, a number of families have suggested that they would support an expansion of her business to include all elementary grades as well. Already, two previous private schools in the area stand vacant, one having closed shortly before we arrived fourteen years ago, and the other closing more recently. I mention this because it figures in what I have written below. At the end of this post, I will append Shannon’s Facebook post addressing this discussion so that you can read her take on the challenges faced by our public schools in general. First, here is my latest contribution to the discussion.

Profile Pic of Small Wonders Preschool of Fall River
An awesome and important resource to our community.

For the sake of focusing on a key question, let’s presume for the moment that I would stipulate two things. First, that the research demonstrates that the symptoms you list are directly attributable to the public education system and are applicable to children in the range of ages five to twelve. Second, that parents who have not invested in making improvements to their community’s local public schools would adjust their priorities, schedules, and budgets sufficiently to experiment with “an alternative to the status quo.” (In order to proceed, I’ll assume you accept these stipulations.)

What I consider to be the key question is still being left unaddressed, though. Do we choose to work together toward providing the best possible education for all of our community’s children, or do the relatively few who have the means to pursue alternatives choose to further diminish the available resources for the remaining majority of those children?

The Glenburn Community Church
Small Wonders Preschool of Fall River
meets in The Schoolhouse on our campus

I will accept, again for the moment, that no one intends these efforts to be a direct attack. But the results are clearly inflicting more than collateral damage. We agree that there is a need for improvement. But how does conscience allow any of us to push “others’ kids” further from such improvements so that “our kids” can be subjects of yet another experimental alternative?

And the damage is not limited to diminishing our schools’ attendance-based funding. Encouraging greater dissatisfaction with the efforts of our educators actively discourages the kind of investment many of us are making—and promoting as a worthy pursuit for others, especially those who are critical of what they perceive to be a static status quo. Even if this latest experiment also fails, the focus is again being shifted away from actively improving our schools to imagining that there could be a school that will

meet every expectation of every dissatisfied parent. If your conversations are like mine, you know that we face not just conflicting expectations, but many that are mutually exclusive.

Once, my favorite radio station.
But I had to stop listening to it.
("What's In It...For Me.")

The damage to the majority of our community’s children may not result from a direct attack. But please consider whether the collateral damage is conscionable. We profess, together, our respect and admiration for our educators. I also believe we can, together, refocus on how that respect and admiration should motivate more than verbal encouragement and occasional support. What if we sought to persuade more within our community to make an active investment in overcoming the challenges you’ve noted?

No one can overlook the limitations of any real school in any real community providing real education to real children from real families. But even if we accept the most impossible dreams of an imagined school, why should that idea require a resource-diminishing alternative? Imagine instead that the schools we have are being enhanced, augmented, complemented, and improved in order to benefit the whole of our community. Imagine joining those already at work to accomplish these goals, and add your ideas, energy, and supporters into those efforts.

The alternative is to harm the majority for the sake of benefitting a few. I oppose that. Instead, I propose that we envision (and work to embody, together, as some of us already do) our local schools as places where some of the improvements you suggest would help to provide the best possible education for all the children in our community.

Here is Shannon’s post, to which the above is my response.

To be honest and fair...over 6 of the past 7 years of teaching preschool, parents have come to me, asking me to extend what I do at Small Wonders Preschool, to the elementary school age. Essentially, what they are asking is for a choice, an alternative to what is currently offered. So finally, (last year) in response to that request, I wrote down what I thought the ideal school environment would be, one that if I'd had a choice, it's what I would have wanted my own children to attend. Last year, the idea was tossed around and discussed, parents loved it, but felt it was an overwhelming project to undertake. It is and the idea faded. This year, several new parents heard about the idea and wanted to pursue it. So once again, we are looking at it. I do not believe it's an "attack" on public schools. It's an offering of an alternative for parents. Parents are comparing the options of having almost total autonomy over the education of their children by forming a private school, or having a little bit of autonomy and still remain a public school by forming a charter school. I have tremendous respect and admiration for the teachers in both the Fall River and Burney elementary schools. It is the "system" that is driving this need for an alternative. Parents come to me saying they want more outside time, more hands-on activities, more art, more music, more science and less testing, less assessments, less homework, and less tired, cranky, frustrated children. When teachers are required to divide their days into so many minutes of math and so many minutes of language arts, there's a problem. When schools have to spend their money on new curriculum every year, because the publishing contract they bought into requires them too, there's a problem. When the curriculum focus changes every time we elect a new president and our children become guinea pigs to an untested requirement, there's a problem. When research shows a direct link to bullying and bad behaviour to excessive screen time and a lack of time in nature, at the same time that schools are pushing little kids to use computers and there's a smart board in every classroom and mis-behaving kids lose their recess time, there's a problem. When doctors are finding an increase in childhood myopia (nearsightedness) and are linking it to too much indoor time because inside a classroom a child is only looking at things between 6 inches and 30 feet under harsh lighting, and not enough outside time where a child would need to see beyond 30 feet and use all their senses at the same time, there's a problem. When research shows that children who learn to write in cursive retain more information than children who type on computers, while cursive is not taught or not continued and computer use in encouraged, there's a problem. When class sizes exceed a teachable level and add stress and pressure onto the teachers, there's a problem. I can go on forever, but I'll spare you. Rumor has it that there are over 50 children in the Intermountain Area who are not attending the local schools. Many are instead being homeschooled through homeshooling programs out of the area. Thus, between this increase in homeschooled children and the continued interest and request from parents for an alternative, it appears, that a choice is needed. So, yes, I am taking my ideas for an alternative to the status quo, and guiding parents to see if a choice is possible. Sorry to ruffle anyone's feathers, but there is always another side to every story. And I felt I needed to tell at least part of that side.

“Prioritize Public Schools!” – How Martin Niemöller would advise Bertrand Russell’s chicken.

"Why are they feeding us this?"

I want to tell you a different kind of chicken joke, followed by a more traditional chicken joke.

Joke the First

The first chicken joke expands on an analogy drawn by the philosopher Bertrand Russell. In chapter six of The Problems of Philosophy he discusses inductive reasoning—the idea that future events will continue a pattern we have observed in the past.

For example, because the sun has appeared each of the past 20,000+ mornings, I assume that it will appear yet again tomorrow. But however sure I am of that fact, Russell points out that there are limitations, even tragic limitations to my assumptions.

Bertrand Russell laughing at some joke or other.

To show these limitations he offers the observations of a particular chicken—about which I am about to make a rather gruesome joke, with apologies and the appropriate trigger-warnings to my chicken-raising sister, Dr. Rebecca Linger.

Our friend the chicken knows two things to be universally true. First, that every morning, the farmer appears and scatters feed before the assembled chickens. Second, that from time to time the farmer also appears again in the late afternoon and, from among the assembled chickens, she selects one, chops off its head, and eventually consumes its lifeless body.

But here is where our chicken friend’s inductive reasoning fails, according the Russell. The chicken’s observation each day of her life has been this: the farmer always selects some other chicken besides me. That has been true. And it will continue to be true…until the day on which it is no longer true.

Bertrand Russell’s chicken could use some advice from Pastor Martin Niemöller.

Niemöller was arrested in 1937 and held by Nazi officials in a series of prisons and concentration camps until 1945. Nevertheless, he is often criticized for having been slow to recognize the dangers posed to some of his fellow-citizens, then to his country, to the rest of Europe and, eventually, the nations engulfed in World War II. Yet, in retrospect, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum prominently quotes this version of his famous poem:

            First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

                        Because I was not a Socialist.

            Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

                        Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

            Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

                        Because I was not a Jew.

            Then they came for me—

                        and there was no one left to speak for me.

Now that you know these things, let me tell you the joke.

What would Martin Niemöller say to Bertrand Russell’s chicken? “Ask yourself, ‘How many chickens does the farmer have left before she gets to you?’”

Why Joke the First matters:

Do we find this first joke funny? Probably not. And if not, what does that say about who and where we are in the chicken’s story?

Martin Niemoller, laughing,
probably at some other joke.

For Russell (and Niemöller), the joke is clearly on the chicken (and Niemöller)—fat and happy until the hatchet falls. Russell’s chicken and Niemöller’s advice combine to represent a mindset I am observing among the opponents of public education, primarily in the immediate context of our local community. (A similar attack is being mounted at the highest levels of our federal government, and the publicity surrounding those efforts certainly emboldens the efforts here. But so long as public education remains largely controlled by local school boards, I intend to focus on the children of the Fall River Joint Unified School District.)

Why I Am This Passionate:

Let me digress for a moment to make full disclosure of my passions in this matter.

My family has been involved in public education since long before my birth. I have been involved as a volunteer and donor in many aspects of public education throughout my life. I am married to a public school teacher. I count many public school teachers among my friends. Even so, my wife and I considered carefully the expectations of some within our faith tradition that we would be educating our children in private, Christian institutions, if not homeschooling them. I have frequently considered what have been offered as the “options” and “alternatives” to public schools. These “choices” are routinely offered in opposition to perceived (and, I admit, actual) failings in our public schools. But after more than three decades of involvement in this dialogue, my hackles are raised by every advocate for homeschooling, every “alternative educational opportunity” that is offered, and even the ignorant denial of truancy’s detrimental effects on our children—both the individual truant and those children whose educational resources are diminished as a result of these others’ absence. (Schools are paid on the basis of their average daily attendance. Each child’s every absence literally costs the school money that otherwise would be invested in local public education.)

So, as some recommend that we further diminish the enrollment of our public schools, and with that lower enrollment comes the lower funding for even the most essential elements of education, I object and will oppose their efforts. They may be sufficiently funded and organized, and possibly even competent to focus on their own family to the exclusion of others’. But on behalf of those outside the small number who might reap better benefits from others’ costs, I would ask that we instead apply Niemoller’s lesson. Ask yourself, “How many more students can be subtracted from our public schools before there are not enough resources available to educate those who remain?”

Our past observations, that every day of our lives there has been public education, do not support the assumption that, no matter what we do to damage it, there will always be public education. In fact, there has not always been public education. In many places, there currently is not public education. But I am not only asking that we consider the survival of public education. I am asking that we turn our attentions away from the options and alternatives that diminish the education received by the majority of our community’s children. Instead, let us turn toward the improvements and support, or at least encouragements deserved by those whose lives are committed to providing the best possible public schools we can.

Tim Madigan, St John Fisher College

Joke the Second

Tim Madigan of St. John Fisher College wrote “Mr. Russell’s Chicken: A New Symbol for Philosophy” for The Bertrand Russell Society Bulletin. After considering various other philosophers’ probable responses, Madigan imagines that Dr. Russell is asked the most famous of chicken-joke questions. I am choosing to clean up the language for my audience. (Who knew that philosophers were allowed to cuss?!) But according to Madigan, to the question, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Russell would answer, “Because he finally understood induction, and got…away from the farmer!”

There is a reason that we chickens get to make decisions, locally and directly, about how we want to educate our children…together. As a community, do we need to invest in one another’s children in order to enhance our public schools? Yes, of course. But I would take it a step further.

Special Bonus: Joke the Third

Even those of us who have no school-aged children need to recognize the benefits we all receive by means of our public education system, especially through our local public schools. More than merely recognizing those benefits, we need to invest ourselves in making our schools the best they can possibly be. This means volunteering, donating, and fund-raising. But it also means supporting and encouraging those who chose a career in public education.

"Who built this road across my path?"

That decision to be professional educators means that they receive far lesser returns than others would, given the same investment in college and graduate school education. It has been said that no sane person enters a career in public education with expectations of lucrative salaries. Some teachers respond to that statement with this joke: “No sane person enters a career in public education. Period.” The fact is, sadly, that some have been so wounded in the opposition’s constant attacks on public education that their initial passion is a distant memory. Yet even for the most tired, jaded, and discouraged of my acquaintances, there clearly remains a love for and devotion to the children they serve. These educators deserve our support and encouragement. These children deserve our involvement and assistance.

Let’s Try This:

Rather than imagining the alternatives and options (which some of us may, in fact, be sufficiently privileged to pursue), what if we imagined—and acted upon—a vision of what our public schools could be, if we the public—fellow members of our local community—were to invest ourselves in all our community’s children?

A Common Question, Part Two: In a Joint and Unified Community, What Do We Do About It?

Once upon a time, there was just the one high school...
but perhaps not just this one bus. Still, a reminder of the
challenges of getting students from Point A to Point B,
even today.

     In part one, I posted a link to an Open Letter by Krista Taylor, discussing the inequities of our nation’s education system. Looking at her arguments, I was led to consider an oft-asked question about our local communities’ schools. Specifically, “Why is there such a difference in the perceived and measured effectiveness between our two elementaries in the Fall River Joint Unified School District?” After all, if we are both joint and unified, one would imagine the personnel, performance, and progress in each end of our district should be nearly identical. They are not.
     I closed that first post by noting that if we follow Ms. Taylor's logic, and I do, there appears to be one major contributor to the disparity: The rate of children living in poverty in Burney is 52.1% higher than the rate in Fall River Mills. (The stats are available at http://www.city-data.com/.)

Part of the heritage of Fall River Mills Elementary:
The Glenburn Schoolhouse was moved to Fall River Mills
to provide additional space...then repatriated to Glenburn
when there was no longer a need for it in FRM!

     The subsequent effects of the Adverse Childhood Experiences related to poverty (for more information on this, see here: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/) are among the best documented statistical factors affecting our communities. But the case-by-case, person-to-person evidence that is being lived out by our front-line educators needs to be heard, validated, and supported through greater community involvement—in both ends of the district.

     In sharing the link to Ms. Taylor’s letter, Fiona Hickey quoted this in part, but the rest bears repeating as well: "We are not in an education crisis. We are in a crisis of poverty that is being exacerbated by the school accountability movement and the testing industry. At best, this movement has been misguided. At worst, it is an intentional set up to bring about the demise of the public education system – mandatory testing designed to produce poor results which leads to greater investment made in test preparation programs provided by the same companies who produce the tests, coupled with a related push for privatization of the educational system. All touted as a means to save us from this false crisis."

     Some might be motivated by this to write their congressman, or other officials at the county, state, or federal level. Those measures are appropriate, and as with Ms. Taylor’s Open Letter, they may eventually be effective. In communities like ours, however, we have an opportunity to reallocate resources more flexibly and effectively within the district and the community.

Among the "signs" of improvement at
Burney Elementary School.

     But who can tell us what needs to go where and how? Here's what Ms. Taylor suggests (with which I wholeheartedly agree): "I hope that you will consider the issues raised here, and most importantly, that you will listen to the voices of the teachers and parents who are trying so desperately to be heard."

     One organization that does seem to listen is the Burney-Fall River Education Foundation, which I regularly support and I would encourage you to do the same. But more of us need to listen to the answers from our educators—even if we are afraid to ask them, "What resources do you need?"

     Does asking that question frighten you a bit? Good. Because it terrifies me…especially being married to a teacher who regularly handles twenty-five transitional kindergartners—four and five year-olds—without a net (other than two very capable aides. One is available to her for an hour on most days. The other for twenty-five minutes). I think that we may share the same worries about asking this important question. I believe that you probably know what I know: that a big part of the answer to what our educators, families, and children need is:

      "You. And. Me."

A Common Question, Part One: In a Joint and Unified Community, Why Is There Such a Difference between Our Schools?

Krista Taylor

That’s the question I hear often. And there may finally be an answer. I am indebted to two friends, both educators, from families of educators, who shared the link to an Open Letter by educator Krista Taylor, the 2015 Dr. Lawrence C. Hawkins Educator of the Year. [accessed February 17, 2017,  http://angelsandsuperheroes.com/2017/01/09/1112/] My friends Fiona Hickey and Susan Tipton, shared a link to her letter, otherwise I would have been unaware of her excellent argument for improving our nation’s schools.

But I want to highlight a particular local factor to which Ms. Taylor’s letter led me. Even within the Intermountain Area, the disparities in both the perceived and measured effectiveness of our elementaries have been marked. Comparing many statistics between the Burney Basin and the Fall River Valley, some of us have struggled to determine what socio-economic factors contribute to such different outcomes. Most of the statistics are close enough between the two communities to suggest that there should be no appreciable difference between these similarly-sized schools, the only two elementaries, in the same district, drawing on the same pool of resources, and ostensibly led by the same administrative philosophies and personnel.

But Ms. Taylor's letter (well worth the long-ish read, in my opinion) addressed a statistic I had not specifically investigated. She noted the correlation in measured performance with the percentage of children living at or below the level of poverty. Where there are more children living in poverty, the measurements of the schools' effectiveness reflect poorly (pun intended) on the performance of educators in those schools.

There are, as Ms. Taylor points out, problems with the means by which "effectiveness" is being measured, and I agree with her on this. But there is another key point I believe merits consideration here, especially with regard to our educators in the Intermountain Area.

Her letter prompted me to reconsider my previous research. During my studies I have looked repeatedly into the statistics regarding the two ends of our district--specifically, the immediate Burney area and the Fall River Valley. Not only does each comprise roughly 3500 in population, almost all other statistics have been practically identical. But today, I realized that the statistics I had relied on applied to the entire population. Ms. Taylor's statistical focus, however, emphasized not the total number of people living in poverty (which I had studied and dismissed previously as a potential for such marked differences), but the percentage of children living in poverty.

So, I looked it up. The stats are available at http://www.city-data.com/.

Why is there such a difference in the perceived and measured effectiveness between our two elementaries? If we follow Ms. Taylor's logic, and I do, this is a major contributor to the disparity:

The poverty rate of children living in Burney is 52.1% higher than the rate in Fall River Mills.

Leave that statistic to sit before your mind for just a little bit.

Then, when you've let the faces and names and homes and jobs and other visions of the impoverished families you see every day within our diverse communities wash through you...come back for Part 2: What do we do about it?

Common Core Haters: You Won't Like This Post (Even if you agree, you'll wish I took a more conciliatory tone. Tough.)

Quick. No pencil. No paper. No fingers. No Calculator. Not even an abacus.

Solve the following:

Did you? And more importantly, how did you?

You may have seen the chart below, or some of the multitude of similarly presented discouragements to the nation’s public educational professionals. As you probably know, that’s a group of which I am enamored, proud and, when necessary, defensive. This is one of the times when I think a defense is necessary. You’ll note that the creator of this little ditty made the mistake of closing with a question. As I’m fond of telling anyone who’ll listen: “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.” My answer follows the chart. Enjoy.

I'm so glad you asked.

Actually, the "new way" really is one of “the old ways” that most of us actually do math in our heads. Those who use pencil and paper...well, that's not always handy, is it? And as for the calculator crowd, as with the Google gaggle...well, let's go back to talking about people who are willing to think at all.

For the sake of this example, my processing of the problem works this way:

293 is 7 less than three hundred. So, subtract 300 hundred from 568 and add the 7 to get 275. On paper, that probably looks like a mess. In my head, Apple Hill is 275 feet higher than Banana Hill. (Of course, I would have to confirm that there is an Apple Hill and/or Banana Hill by Googling them. And I would then find links to follow, and I would, that would explain to me the relative merits of growing apples on taller hills than those on which bananas should be produced. But that’s the kind of thing I do when I’m either procrastinating or trying to entirely avoid thinking about something else. So it can wait while I endeavor to make us think about this.)

What I’m seeing in Common Core is about teaching people to think (i.e., to process mentally—without paper, pencil, calculator, computer, smart-phone, a smart-enough-friend, or even enough fingers and toes to avoid searching for an abacus). More importantly, it’s about teaching people to think more quickly, more creatively, and at a younger age. One important side-effect will be a greater appreciation among those students for the varying ways in which different individuals and groups approach and solve problems. This is a good thing, and is likely to decrease bullying behavior by lowering the number of children who imagine that someone who shouts loudly, threatens others, and occasionally backs up their threats through physical violence must be...if not "right" about a particular issue, then at least...placated. So, we may be promoting a culture in which "thinking people" not only don't "engage in bullying behavior" quite so much, but may even speak up in opposition to those who do. And these changes may result because they appreciate that someone may think and act differently from them and still be deserving of air, warmth, water, and food. As I said, this is a good thing...that many oppose by shouting loudly and threatening others, if not resorting to physical violence (that I know of, yet).

Thus, the critics of common core, generally speaking, seem to have some other set of priorities. Foremost among them seems to be that children should not be trained to think better than the vast majority of their elders. At least that's the tone I perceive in the critiques I keep seeing.

So, to close, let’s consider “The Old Way” that all of us, apparently, found so intuitively logical during our own mathematical novitiate.

So, starting from right to left, which is, of course,  how we were taught to do everything else in life prior to third grade (NOT):

•  Step One: Starting on the right side, because we were told to, three is less than eight, so we can simply subtract and that leaves us five in the ones column, which is, of course, the third column, not the first column (which one might expect since it was called the ones column, but that hardly needs explained to brilliant children like we once were). But remember, we’re starting from right to left, even though that's just like…well, nothing else in our educational career has prepared us to do.
• Step Two: Despite the fact that two is less than five and we should be able to simply subtract, leaving us three in the hundreds column (which is the first column, since there clearly aren’t a hundred columns, and the other two are the tens and the ones—but you already knew that going into second grade math, didn’t you?), we’re working from right to left, so the center column—“the tens column” as anyone should be able to intuitively deduce—is next. But nine is more than six, and while it would seem simpler to subtract six from nine, the nine is under the six, so we’re subtracting that instead. By a later grade we would know that this would leave us negative three, and our subsequent answer would be 3(3)5, since we all knew to put negative numbers in brackets. But let’s imagine that there was a developmental process to our education, and force ourselves—as the teacher would have—to go back and try again.
• Step Three: Since Step Two failed to meet with the teacher’s approval, we’re going to subtract nine from six in the tens column despite the apparent impossibility of doing so. Thankfully, there are hundreds that we can take from the first column (which is the third column we’re dealing with, but you’re already starting to think that either Hebrew or Mandarin will be your next language class, so we’re all good with that, right?). Now, we take one of the hundreds from the five, making sure to cross out the five and write in a four, then adding the one to the six. This does not make seven, however. The one that we added to the six is a one from the hundreds place. And, before you ask, “No, it’s not one-hundred-and-six, either.” (Remember, you’re much smarter than today’s public school teachers. So don’t you dare fall behind at this point!) The one that we took from the five in the hundreds place is added to the six we already have in the tens place, which means we have one hundred and sixty, from which we will subtract—not nine, but ninety—leaving us with seven(ty).
• Step Four: Assuming we remembered to cross out the five in the hundreds place and write-in the four instead, we’re now faced with the simple task of subtracting two from four and getting two. But I will mention here that even though we memorized “two plus two is four,” unless we engage some level of critical thinking, number sense, and logical reasoning, we’ll have to wait until we memorize “four minus two is two.” In either case, though, I think we might be excused for understanding that the meaning of any of the following is not so immediately evident, nor even so intuitively deducible as proponents of “the old ways” have suggested. 

Here's what we ended up with:

So, why isn't this a better answer?

(I have some aspirin for you here in my drawer.)

BFREF: If you don't have one, start one.

Dear Friends,

You may not be blessed to live in a small enough community to be so interconnected as we are in the Intermountain Area. But you may still have a local organization that has committed itself to addressing the widening gap between public and legislative expectations and executive budgeting for our public schools. And if you don’t have such an organization, as you’ll see below: there’s a chance you could start one!

The friend who first introduced me to the Burney-Fall River Education Foundation (BFREF), when he was a member of their board of directors, was unable to attend the annual fund-raising dinner and auction this past Saturday night. He asked how it went. This is what I wrote in reply. I’ve redacted the local names. Folks up here in the Intermountain Area will know who’s who, probably. But maybe if you have to fill in with your own local personnel, restaurant, newspaper, etc., you’ll still find it interesting, and perhaps even more inspiring toward how you might support what is, or could be true in your community, for your schools, serving your children.

Regarding BFREF:

Saturday was a blast, even being as painfully ill as I was. Attendance was said to be outstanding. (I haven’t tracked the numbers like others have.) One of the most fascinating activities, for me, is to look at the various expressions of gratitude for the grants provided during the past year. It still strikes me a strange that so often, when I talk about the great work being done toward enhancing the education of our children, the conversation turns to how awful it is that someone isn’t already paying for most of these things. Whether it’s supposed to be budgeted by the district, sent to the schools by the parents, or included as part of a teacher’s personal contribution to their employers’ business (that’s the concept that strikes me as most odd—especially shortly after tax time when I’m forced to look at how expensive it is to have a public school teacher for a wife!), so many imagine that there is some technology fairy, or publishing gnome, or maybe laminating and binding elves who are supposed to make it all magically appear. Of course, with some of the photo-essays, there’s the challenge of determining who it is that is thanking the foundation for what—not every teacher is skilled at communicating via display-board.

But even when I can’t quite figure out which item in the photos it is that some teacher and class  are grateful for (they’re recognizable, I’m sure, to their fellow district personnel), I am absolutely convinced of the value and necessity of the work being done, and the effectiveness of the support provided. I was even more convinced Saturday night when two folks from Cedarville were introduced. They were in attendance in order to explore further how BFREF operates, in preparation for establishing their own version of a foundation for their schools.

Still, having followed the primary fund-raising work of the foundation for several years (i.e., the dinner/auction), I will say that there seemed to be a number of items missing from the various auctions and raffles. Some were sadly missing (i.e., [recently deceased, much-beloved teacher’s] consistent fiber-arts contributions), and some were, well, conspicuously and oddly absent. Just from memory, I think we’ve had two to six yards of crushed gravel, a tool chest or two, rustic benches, tickets to a Giants game, and a bit wider range of artwork in just about each of the prior years I’ve attended, along with a selection of unique one-time-only contributions (e.g., the FFA picnic table that went somewhere in the $2000s, as I recall). In the live auction there were two different lots that were essentially accessorized greens fees (although one included one of those outrageously oversized drivers), two more that were each fly-fishing excursions, and another that was an opportunity to go shoot ground squirrels on someone’s ranch. That’s five lots out of a total of eighteen in the live auction. But we did have fun. As I was told by those with better vantage points, it was [district administrator] and [district administrator] who most enjoyed running [notoriously supportive retiree – who has purchased the pine needle basket at each auction, forever] up on [outstanding local artist’s] pine needle basket (sometimes a dollar at a time—to the minor annoyance of our auctioneer, [area newspaper publisher/reporter/photographer]), and I think they were joined by one other bidder in the early stages of [talented, self-taught watercolor artist’s] painting ending up at $1000 (and, in case you were wondering, also ending up at my house).

Unusually, the dinner itself drew mixed reviews. Well, what’s most remarkable, I guess, is that I heard one criticism. (I wasn’t in any shape to put something in my stomach, even a bottle of water, and still be sure to hold out through the end of the live auction—my favorite item was listed last, of course.) But it looked very nice. Not sure what some of the expectations may have been, or what range of variables there may have been in what arrived at various tables. Of course, I do know [eponymously incorporated local restaurateurs’] skills. And I also know the eccentricities and peccadilloes of some of the assembled connoisseurs. So, I’m willing to say it was as wonderful as usual.

Okay, well, that’s probably more words than I spoke to anyone Saturday night, actually. But writing it out gave me more of an opportunity, I think, to reflect on my role as an annual supporter and occasional grant-writer, and to be thankful for those who commit to ensuring that the business of supplementing the declining material and capital investment available for our children’s education continues to grow and thrive. So, I am glad you asked.

Democracy the Elusive and Illusive: Part Two – Jim Crow Meets Horace Mann

"Father of the Common School Movement"

With regard to Paul Louis Metzger and Tom Krattenmaker and their joint post “The Voting Rights Act and Post-Racialized American: Can We Vote on That?” I felt that two additional perspectives may be helpful. Here’s the second of those:

Regarding the perception that representative democracy in a constitutional republic is merely elusive and not patently illusive:

        Outside the ongoing electoral college debacle, within the boundaries of an area of population affected by a given issue, or represented by a particular office-holder, we hold to an ideal of “one person, one vote.” Yet we also discuss regularly the need for community organizers to coalesce a block of voters who will pursue a particular agenda. Please don’t stop at the next phrase, which might immediately seem harsh and judgmental, but such cynical dichotomies rely on the unwillingness and/or inability of individual voters to determine for themselves what vote to cast.

        That many are unwilling to educate themselves personally, and instead rely on decisions made by those who lead whatever group or organization claims to represent them, is well documented. The rates of voter turnout are abysmal, even when the best efforts of registration and transportation have been implemented. But that unwillingness has, I believe, the same root cause as does the inability of too many to analyze and process the information available in order to cast a responsible vote.

Antioch Hall, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio

        The same inequities of education that prevent many from identifying their own preferences among the candidates and issues also withhold any motivation for participating through the simple mechanism of civic ignorance. While some schools require a civics class, most provide an example of something far different. Without belaboring the point, though, the portion germane to our discussion here is the reality that until we begin to raise up a generation educated in both the means and motivation for taking mutual responsibility through the ballot box, we consign ourselves to a handful of well-funded groups and organizations (not the least of which are the privileged-non-persons of multi-national corporations) who will continue to influence large blocks of voters, setting policy and enacting legislation almost entirely unrelated to the portrayals they offer in their election/marketing campaigns. That the results most often run counter to the well-being of the voters amply illustrates the need for a better approach.

But until it includes a more inclusive system of equitable education (the dream of Horace Mann, pictured above), the concept of representative democracy in a constitutional republic is not merely elusive, it is patently illusive.