By Karen Stearns
I commend you on Sunday’s front-page article on Delaware School’s efforts to, as you put it, “turn the school around.” Of course, it’s not the school that needs turning around, but rather a social system that sanctions poverty and the conditions families must live in where on our Near West Side children must fight every day to come to and concentrate in school.
But more to the point, while I am inspired by the committed staff and leadership at Delaware, one thing your article points out that has undermined education in the city schools for all the years I’ve been living in Syracuse, teaching and now educating teachers, is the constant initiation and abandonment of the next “miracle” program that is going to improve test scores and save city schools. Any Syracuse city school watcher could list dozens of programs over decades that were funded and then abandoned either because the money ran out or folks became indifferent, or because it looked as if there were a better solution around the corner.
I can only speak from an English teacher and English teacher educator’s perspective, but no “program” ever substitutes for immersing young people in literacy-rich classrooms and activities that require them to read and write increasingly complex texts. The test “prep” all the ELA state exams require is that students read and read a lot — devouring book after book from first grade through high school. Similarly, they need to write daily (and not just in “journal” entries) and develop extended pieces on topics that matter to publish for real audiences, i.e., interested readers.
Young people only get to be power readers when they read and read and write and write. Much of that happens online now, of course. But no special “program,” or “packages;” no fill-in-the blanks or scripted test “prep” are necessary; and no additional funding, except if used to buy books and keep teacher/student ratios appropriate to a reading/writing classroom, is necessary. Children and adolescents do not develop sophisticated literacies by reading a novel or two a semester, much of which may be read to them or read out loud in class, or writing a 10-minute journal entry. That’s like suggesting I can make Jim Boeheim’s team by listening to him read me the playbook and then shooting a couple of baskets.
I hope all of us will consider dropping off a box of age-appropriate books for all of the Delaware teachers to put in the hands of their students to take home and read, or check in with the school librarian/media specialist and ask what s/he would most like to have from our community. The late Charlie Chew, former chief of English for the New York State Education Department, greeted everyone he met with the question, “What are you reading and what are you writing?” That’s the million dollar question we need to be asking young children and adolescents every day.
Lack of fair funding limits success for students in poor districts
To the Editor:
The most damning fact in the talk about education reform is that our interest in “how to” has never been matched by an equal interest in “how to fund.” Many reform initiatives have proven successful, but we never support them for long.
Paul Riede’s article “Back to the drawing board to save a school,” highlights this profoundly self-defeating pattern. Riede captures the challenges faced by the children at Delaware School (98 percent living in poverty) and he captures the investment of many who educate them. He documents breathtaking flashes of success dating to 1989, with each success crumbling as temporary funding disappears.
The problem in education reform isn’t a lack of ideas about how to improve education; it’s a failure of will when it comes to following through. This is not a school issue but a societal issue.
Recognizing that innovation takes resources, the federal government is funneling stimulus monies to each of seven “persistently low achieving” schools in the Syracuse City School District. Meanwhile, the district is anticipating a $47 million shortfall in state and local funds for next year. This will never add up to sustained success for the children at Delaware School or for the city of Syracuse.
Education reform depends on solving the tough question of fair funding for public schools. Providing a quality education to all kids, regardless of where they are born, is not just the right thing to do, it’s a way to build stronger communities for us all.