When Will We Care Enough to Educate All of Our Young Gems of Humanity Upon a Foundation of Knowledge and Love?

People in the United States do not care much about K-12 education.

 

This is despite claims to the contrary.

 

If the general citizenry were claimed by some to care about public education, then why do citizens not take the time to find those critical pressure points at which the pulse of K-12 education can be found and at which change can occur?  Prospective voters listen passively as candidates for president, governor, or mayor lay out their forthcoming initiatives so that every child will have a “quality education”;  but in matters of K-12 education local school officials and board members are more important than presidents, governors, and mayors.  

 

Parents either send their children to the residential areas in which they have established their homes, seek residence because of the area’s reputation for “quality schools,” or maneuver to find the best educational options for their children in private schools, charter schools, parochial schools, or within their local school district.  But even with best intentions, what are parents seeking when they assertively pursue educational options for their children?  Typically they are seeking institutions that have a reputation for preparing students for college;  or they are trying to find a hospitable environment, one wherein violent incidents are rare or ethnic animosities are minimal;  or they are angling for certain programmatic options in the arts or career training.

 

Rarely, though, are these assertive parents truly seeking programs for their children with a clear idea of what an excellent education entails.  And they are certainly not thinking of other people’s children.

 

If we cared enough about education in the United States broadly and in Minnesota specifically, we would take time to ponder the constituent elements of an excellent education, which go beyond prospects for sending young people to college, finding a supportive school environment, or locating a narrow program of interest.  And we would define excellence in education for the benefit of all of our precious children and for the development of a citizenry likely to create a more loving and caring society.

 

An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete, logically sequenced grade by grade curriculum in the liberal, vocational, and technological arts to students of all demographic descriptors throughout the K-12 years;  an excellent teacher is a professional of broad and deep knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to students of all demographic descriptors.

 

The critical organization of delivery of K-12 education in the United States is the locally centralized school district.  If the Minneapolis Public Schools and other locally centralized school districts were to provide an excellent education according to the above definition, then people in the pertinent metropolitan areas would enroll enthusiastically in those districts.  Broad and deep knowledge sets and the provision of excellent programming in the arts, business, and technology would attract students of both general and specific aspirations.  Students would be prepared for any career or college goal in their future, and they could participate in an array of engaging programs fitting their driving interest.  They would be both broadly educated and specifically trained according to individual interest.  Children of all demographic descriptors would be served.  All would be welcome.

                                                                                                                          

But for this vison of the locally centralized school district to materialize, we must care about an excellent education as defined and discussed above.  We as a people must come to understand that this one earthly sojourn is lived fully only with an abiding appreciation for the exciting world of knowledge, music of all genres, artistic creations international in scope, and the history and culture of humanity in all of its many beautiful ethnic manifestations.

 

In the United States, the citizenry leans toward a local control view of government.  The best school systems in the world are centralized and the quality of education is consistent from locale to locale.  But in the United States, people lean toward local control;  inasmuch as that is true, then locally is where we have to design an excellent education and therefore a model upon which other districts can innovate.

 

To design an education capable of sending forth citizens prepared to live as culturally enriched, civically prepared, and professionally satisfied citizens, we must care about the broad and deep constituent elements of a truly excellent knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education.  We must want more than individual status and recognition.  These will come easily for those who care about such things if we provide a comprehensive education of excellence. 

 

But beyond status and recognition, we should want to be our best selves on this one earthly sojourn.

 

We must be genuinely empathetic, altruistic, and compassionate.

 

We must love all of our precious children as if each were our own.

 

When we will care enough to love all children, to be our best selves, and to live life most fully on this one earthly sojourn?   

 

When will we care enough to educate all of these young gems of humanity upon a foundation of knowledge and love?