Convention 08
Schools: The Hole In America's Bucket
2008-08-26
by Eric Easter
Auto workers, food workers, health care advocates, coal miners, trial lawyers, tobacco lobbyist, teachers. There are so many agendas flying at a major political event that the Democratic National Convention organizers - as organizers will do - found that the only way to make sense of it all was to wrap them neatly into a single broad theme for the second day of the event: “Keeping America’s Promise.”
But of all the promises America needs to keep, there’s one that needs to rise above all of the others, yet it gets scant attention from either party’s candidates.
More critical to our long term national security than Iraq, more vital to our national health than sustainable energy is the crisis of America’s failing public school system.
Name an issue the nation struggles with and there’s a tie to our educational system. Joblessness. Health care. Swelling prison rolls. Drugs. Crime. Wealth Disparities. For all of those, either the root of the problem or the key to its solution is a strong and free system of quality education for America’s children.
Though they’ve come to different approaches, both Senators Obama and McCain have couched the need for better schools in terms of fairness, decency and rights - broad and easy terms that mask the complexity of the issue and its impact on everything from the economy to family planning to generational wealth and the pervasiveness of passed-along poverty.
That the discussion about the economy gets tied up in a jumble of tax lingo is a sad commentary on our ability to be manipulated by the agendas of the wealthy. But make no mistake, education is the very foundation of America’s economic future.
Consider the many and varied decisions parents make based on the availability (or lack of quality schools. On any given day, job opportunities are turned down by qualified workers, neighborhoods are bypassed by those who could bring stability, parents limit the number of children they plan below their true desire.
When schools fail, home values reduce, involved parents lose interest, strong families move onward, role models shift and instability takes hold.
If you saw the incredible HBO documentary on Baltimore’s Douglass High you witnessed this connection first hand. Crumbling infrastructures and uncommitted teachers are one part of the equation, but they are exacerbated by absent parents, low motivation brought on by lower expectations and most importantly a student body fed from fading neighborhoods which role models and middle class families have deserted due to the lack of strong educational services. And gone with them are the services to support them. It’s a vicious circle that is a greater threat to our economy than any rise in gas prices.
Meanwhile, as budgets for local schooling shrink, the costs of private alternatives are spiraling. In New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, kindergarten can run from $15,000 – $32,000 per child per year. At those rates, after taxes and the average mortgage, a family making up to as much as $400,000 with several children in private school can find themselves more strapped for cash than a family making four or five time less in a community with quality free schools.
Free, quality education is even a green issue. With reliable schools, cities can attract major business and their employees to neighborhoods within walking distance and not to commuter suburbs and exurbs.
These are not new facts, this is basic common economic sense. So why not a greater focus in this particular campaign? Why no attempt to connect to Americans and own this issue outright?
Possibly because what’s needed to fix America’s schools is so multi-layered and complicated that possible solutions cannot be whittled down to easy soundbites. It would also require an admission that in this one thing, the country we love and want to feel good about has failed us miserably. No one wants to hear the language of failure amidst the language of promise.
We can only hope that once the glow of history is beyond us and the reality of the job ahead becomes more clear, we will have a new president willing to make the tough and painful decisions needed to finally address this country’s last and most visible shame.
Eric Easter is Chief of Digital Strategy for Johnson Publishing Company. He writes about politics, culture and technology for ebonyjet.com.
