Education In America

Recently Oprah Winfrey was quoted on Newsweek Entertainment – MSNBC. com.

Oprah also knows that some people will complain that charity should begin at home, even though she has provided millions of dollars to educate poor children in the United States, especially via her Oprah Winfrey Scholars Program. But she sees the two situations as entirely different. “Say what you will about the American educational system—it does work,” she says. “If you are a child in the United States, you can get an education.” And she doesn’t think that American students—who, unlike Africans, go to school free of charge—appreciate what they have. “I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools that I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn’t there,” she says. “If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers. In South Africa, they don’t ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school.”(emphasis added)

I personally think that the $40 Million school that Ms. Winfrey has built is a great thing. I support the education of all children all over the world. It is part of my personal belief system and the mission of Parenting 4 Academic Success to participate in a dialogue and advocate that every child, regardless of race, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, religion and social-economic class, deserves the very best education, not just what is available, but the best.

What bothers me about Ms. Winfrey’s comment is that it seems to place the responsibility for lackluster academics on the students.
How is it that the product of the educational system is responsible for failing to become educated?
Why is it that the adults, parents included, but especially those adults who have training, education and experience in the process of creating the product are not responsible?
Why is it that the very people who collect a salary and pension, those who make reports and accept awards are not responsible for the failure of the child to reach basic standards of performance?

In private/corporate America, when a product fails to meet industry standards, or grab the public interest, the product itself doesn’t take the blame and shame alone. The design team, the production group, the marketing and promotion people, everyone has to stand accountable for their part in the debacle. I would suspect, because it is such a well run organization, the same is true at Harpo Productions. I perceive Ms Winfrey to be a thoughtful and enlightened person, so I don’t think that heads roll when there is a bad show, but I do think that there is a thoughtful review
of all available information after every project. An honest analysis of what went well and what didn’t and how to improve on both.

Yet here, in the public sector, in Chicago Public Schools, students are responsible for the failure of the system. As evidenced by a recent exchange at the public portion of a recent Chicago Board of Education meeting. A student named Kenny Young presented an excellent argument for after school activities, especially swimming pools, in neighborhood schools. He stated that he and his friends are in need of alternatives to potentially illegal activities as well as an opportunity to just burn off energy. Mr. Rufus Williams, Chair of the Board of Education, responded by telling the young man, that “you are your brother’s keeper”
” you tell those other young men to stay off the corner”.
While both those statements are based in reality and truth, it was not the response I expected or believe that the young man needed. Kenny gets that he is his brother’s keeper, he came to the Board meeting. He knows that the young men in his community should stay off the corner, but unlike Rufus Williams, he understands that alternative activities are needed. This situation is another example of the haves, blaming the havenots, for not having.

A very wise woman told me that CPS knows how to educate children.
CPS educates children in certain neighborhoods.
Neighborhoods that don’t demand access to education, simply don’t get educated. These students, and sometimes their parents, get blamed for not learning.
The fact that they have the worst, and/ or least experienced teachers and administrators is irrelevant.
The fact that the buildings are inhabitable, the textbooks are ancient, the classroom are overcrowded, the curriculum review and enhancement is nonexistent, none of that matters, not when we can blame the kids for wanting iPods and Air Force Ones.
If the little sponge like brains of children are not soaking up knowledge at school and that experience reinforced at home, what do they have but popular culture.

The Consortium on Chicago School Research at University of Chicago has extensive research and identified the factors or elements necessary to a successful learning environment. This is the same organization that reported the appalling college graduation rate of CPS students in April 2006. CPS administration responded to this study with information about CPS students acceptance to four year colleges. These statistics where much more hopeful, but did not address the failure of CPS students to graduate from college.

I keep thinking about what that wise woman told me. That certain schools have access to resources necessary to educate the students effectively. Some schools work through the sear will of the parents, against or/in concert with the school’s administration. Others succeed through the will of the schools leadership, against or/in concert with the parents. Some schools thrive because it has been ordained and planned by the very creation of the program and its location in the city.

In light of the program that Ms Winfrey did with Bill Gates, where she showed the schools in Chicago and across the country which have nothing. I was very touched by the students from Harper High School in Chicago, who were sent to Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, Illinois, who were overwhelmed by the opportunities at the suburban school.
Heaven forbid that someone show them or Ms. Winfrey, the distinctions between selective admission/college prepatory schools in Chicago and Harper.
Or the distinctions between Northside neighborhood schools and South- or West-side neighborhood schools.
How about the funding, facilities and AP classes at selective admission high schools in Chicago based upon the race of the majority of students, the neighborhood in which the school is located, the economic and/or educational infrastructure of the community, etc.
Why dont we compare the characteristics of the top 20, middle 20 and bottom 20 performing elementary schools in Chicago. Do the same for the top, middle and bottom 10 high school in the city.

Perhaps after that analysis, neither Ms. Winfrey nor any other thoughtful and enlightened person will blame the student for failing to get an education.