VICKSBURG - A problem with Rep. Cecil Brown's new insistence that the Legislature take action to reduce the number of students who drop out of school is that it makes the state Department of Education and local school districts look like dullards sitting around waiting on someone to tell them what to do.
One day, it seems, there is going to have to be an awakening to the proposition that individual communities will have the quality of public education for their young people they demand. A commitment to be the best can trump a scarcity of funds or considerations of poverty. Indifference can doom a district built on a pot of gold. Also, this is 2006, not 1956. A pupil or a teacher in the most rural school in Mississippi has, through the Internet, access to the same teaching and learning tools as a student or a tenured professor at Harvard.
That's enough ranting. Let me offer some perspective.
First, state Rep. Brown, D-Jackson, may well prove to be the best chairman the House Education Committee has ever had. His background is in accounting and finance, his approach to issues is calm and thorough, and he has a purposeful dedication. He's factual, not flashy. During the 2005 session, Brown, bespectacled and slender, stood toe-to-toe with Gov. Haley Barbour insisting that K-12 education be funded fully according to the 1997 Mississippi Adequate Education formulas. That didn't happen, but it wasn't because Brown wasn't tenacious.
In the other chamber, Education Committee Chairman Sen. Mike Chaney, R-Vicksburg, is also known for doing his homework. At most any time, Chaney, whose background is also in business, can whip out a spreadsheet or make a cogent point about inequities or what's working and what's not in education. He's riled teachers in the past by suggesting promised raises might have to wait, but he was an advocate for public education before he ever thought about seeking public office.
Perhaps their sincerity is what made it so unnerving when both chairmen, at a joint appearance before the Capitol press corps, tossed out "something's got to be done about dropouts" as if it were a new topic or one easily solved.
It's as if both think that by legislative decree they can force students to see something that many apparently decline to see: Obtaining an education is a gift they can give themselves.
Brown was more forceful on the topic, calling the national dropout rate "abysmal" and saying Mississippi's 35 percent to 40 percent attrition count is worse. He's also on target when he points out that while individuals suffer if they don't get a high school diploma, the public does, too. "This is an incredible drag on our economy," he said, "and it rips holes in our social fabric."
The House chairman also realizes effects of any new legislation won't be seen quickly, perhaps for decades. What he is proposing is requiring the state Department of Education to create an office of dropout prevention, to which the state's school districts would be required to report their efforts. Chaney said if the House acts on such a law, he'll offer it in the Senate.
But this isn't new. It's not even close. There may be a new wrinkle or two in the details, but Mississippi established compulsory school attendance decades ago, and though the jobs haven't been funded uniformly, there are supposed to be attendance officers in every district. The Department of Education has spent millions holding seminars, preparing materials, conducting workshops on dropout prevention.
And then there's this: Item 17 in the 14-page list of basic accreditation standards that public schools must meet to receive state or federal funds: "The school (will develop) a dropout prevention plan and implement programs design to keep students in school and to lower dropout rates."
Here's the deal: If the taxpayers, through state and local government, provide transportation to and from a decent building staffed with certified instructors and provide desks, meals and books, how much more can reasonably be expected? When does the responsibility of parents to their children and children to themselves begin?
Answering those questions is something policymakers and officials at all levels in education have struggled with ever since learning started falling out of fashion.
It won't be any easier for the 2006 Legislature. So at the very least, let's not delude ourselves by thinking a law or a government program will improve a situation - unless or until the communities closest to the problem want it fixed.
