Jon wrote
"I would hope that studies could be done as to why kids
aren't
attending school - and work on fixing that problem."
Here it is. One of the big problems with the education gap
in our public schools. Most of the studies show that the
problems are family/social in nature. Many of the schools I
looked at for instance had mobility problems. Families
moved around so much that there was no attachment by
children and no involvement by parents. And in one of the
schools I helped start, many of the kids didn't even have a
place to sleep or a good meal until they got to school. Over
the past decades, responsibility for social services has
rested with our counties and more recently has become a
joint county/city function. But both our city and county
administration have failed to adequately solve these
problems. So now the burden has fallen on our schools to
not only education children, but to solve the social
problems that are at the heart of most of our public
education problems. Therefore, we have attorneys going
after things like truancy through the courts and have our
schools provide more funding to deal with addressing family
social problems.
So the question is: Are we going to hold our city and
county governments responsible for addressing the underlying
social problems that cause our schools to have serious
education problems? Or are we going to make our schools
responsible for addressing these underlying social ills in
addition to educating our children? Right now, we are not
set up for the latter, but by default our schools are having
to do this work. And the tax dollars dedicated to education
are now being shifted to addressing social problems. So in
reality, our education tax dollars are paying less for
education and more for social services.
So while Mayor Sayles Belton and Commission Stenglein have
failed to address these problems in any meaningful way,
Catherine Shreves and other members of the board are having
to step up to the plate and cover not only the educational
component of our schools, but the dysfunctional social
component of our community too. And they are trying to
connect with wherever in the system she can get help like
the County Attorney, who at least is trying to be creative
within the confines of her role. Although I may not agree
with the underlying strategy, I think it is admirable. Maybe
we need to change the name to of the School Board to:
Community and School Board and give them power over the
Mayor and the County who seem to have failed at their jobs.
;-)
Russell W. Peterson
former Standishite
_______________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy
Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more:
http://e-democracy.org/mpls
