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Page Two of The Bored Education

Consider too that a School Board’s version of the qualities that make a good Superintendent may be very different from the qualities that local teachers hope to see in their new leader.

Given all these variables, it is a wonder that our schools function at all. Although this country’s standards of education have come a long way in the last 50 years, we still have a distance to go to ensure that every child receives a fair opportunity to learn.

I suspect that being on a School Board is rather a thankless job. One must deal with many dry facts and knotty problems, so one almost never encounters the joy that ought to be at the heart of education.

I don’t doubt that such boards are trying to keep an eye on what they perceive as appropriate education for our children. It seems to me, however, that the important question is whether or not they are qualified to make that judgment.

It was Mark Twain who once said: In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

It’s an unkind (if funny) remark, but it’s not hard to understand the kind of frustration that must have led to it.

It may be that our democracy demands citizen overview of our schools, but perhaps School Boards should first of all focus on the assurance of safe, humane surroundings in which our children can learn. The physical deterioration that has happened to our schools in the last 80 years is truly shocking, and yet School Boards frequently ignore the problem even while they haggle over programs and policies. Nothing, it seems to me, is more urgent than replacing leaky roofs and disgusting bathrooms. Our children spend long hours in those surroundings.

If our School Boards could leave the instructional matters to the classroom teachers and school administrators, it might be possible to get a handle on urgencies like repairing deteriorating buildings.

An effective way to introduce this imperative would be to require every newly-elected member of a School Board to spend a full day in each of three classrooms, one in an elementary school, one in a middle school, and one in a high school.

It might also pay to be sure their visits were scheduled for the neediest, most dilapidated schools in the district. Maybe then we’d see some real action and support for those hard-working teachers who are trying to teach altogether too many students crammed into decaying, dirty and at times unheated classrooms.

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The Series, Still Learning

©2009 Julia Sneden for SeniorWomen.com

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