Copyright 2000 The Buffalo News
The Buffalo News
May 8, 2000, Monday, CITY EDITION
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE, Pg. 2B
LENGTH: 858 words
HEADLINE:
WE'VE GIVEN UP ON IDEA OF GOOD PUBLIC EDUCATION
BYLINE:
DOUGLAS TURNER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
"What's that?" asked my young driver
the other day as we drove up 13th Street, northwest. He caught a glance at a
large brick building with carved stone lintels overhanging huge plate-glass
windows.
The turrets, steeples, crenellations and other battlements of
the building soared five stories. The edifice was graced by a curved two-sided
iron staircase leading to a gorgeous set of bleached walnut doors. "It's a
public school," I said.
"Wow!" said my passenger.
"Or, it was,"
I added. "It was sold by the District of Columbia for private office suites."
"Oh," he said. My young companion, like most of his contemporaries, had
been sentenced to public schools in Northern Virginia whose architecture is
hardly distinguishable from the detention center in Sonyea, N.Y.
The
romantic D.C. schoolhouse boasted the same spirit as old Lafayette High School
in Buffalo, whose centennial will be observed three years from now.
Lots
of light from big windows, generous high-ceilinged rooms, stone adornments all
over the place and huge front doors that said, "Kid, you're entering a place
that's important, an opportunity, something to be proud of."
Public
school architecture tells much about society's attitude toward our children;
often more than we want to know. A century ago, everyone agreed that an
education was not only necessary for prosperity, but a kind of privilege.
Public education was new then, and the buildings we erected -- for the
ages -- told the world that nothing was too good for these wonderful young
people.
Utility was not enough. Our school buildings had to bespeak not
only power and authority, caring and inspiration, but the people's collective
aspirations for the future that our children represented.
Whether you
live in Fairfax, Va., or the Riverside section of Buffalo, most new schools say
something different about today's attitudes toward our kids.
These
blank, inward-looking warehouses where children are dumped off by buses or
harried parents denote a society -- and a Congress -- that has given up on the
idea that a good public education is worth taking financial, political and
ideological risks for.
Just drop some money on the table and leave. Let
tomorrow take care of itself -- as in Scarlet O'Hara.
And so it goes in
Congress this week. The theme in the Senate's debate over renewal of the Lyndon
Johnson-era Elementary and Secondary Education Act might well be "tomorrow is
another day."
Like all the other school legislation passed in the last
two decades, the Clinton administration's bill was drafted in the boardrooms of
the two big teachers' unions here, the National Education Association and the
American Federation of Teachers, and by the Clinton Department of Education,
whose policies are heavily influenced by the NEA and AFT.
Both the
Republican and Democratic ESEA bills are essentially status
quo, with a bit more currency heaved into the fire.
Little wonder.
The two teachers' unions gave $ 2.8 million to federal candidates and
political committees in the last congressional elections cycle. This topped all
other political donations -- more than the $ 2.6 million thrown at the campaign
by Philip Morris, which led the parade.
The National Rifle Association,
routinely cussed out by the media establishment for its overbearing influence on
Congress, gave a measly $ 1.18 million.
Now if the NRA can ruin a nation
with those dollars, imagine the clout two teachers' unions can brandish with
more than twice the cash.
Clearly, no one in the Senate or the House is
willing to pick a fight with these two labor behemoths in an election year. No
one. Former Rep. Bill Paxon, a Republican who used to live in Amherst, was the
very last one.
Every single member of Congress knows in his heart that
most public school systems are in serious disarray. Every year, more
constituents lose confidence in public education. More parents have their
children in home schooling.
Most innovation now deals with ways to get
children into private schools, or move promising students out of "failing"
schools -- whose number is growing -- and into some form of charter school or
elite magnet.
Teachers have lost control of their classrooms because of
administrative cowardice and principals' real worries that they'll get sued or
sent to buildings and grounds if they enforce discipline.
Yet no
proposed ESEA legislation deals with the core issues of order
in the classrooms and the hallway, and parental irresponsibility. The bills
grandly call for school "accountability," without giving schools the tools to
make parents and students truly accountable.
With everybody -- including
President Clinton, Vice President Gore and the Republicans -- yelling "school
choice," the most ambitious school choice bill provides funds to help kids move
out of failing public schools to better ones in only 20 of the 50 states.
Be it bricklayer or teacher, labor's mantra is that all jobs are the
same, all pay is the same, and all work sites are like all others. Don't rock
the boat. Nobody is special.
Someone else can worry about the kids --
tomorrow.
LOAD-DATE: May 10, 2000
