Naysayers, how do you like us now?”
From radio commentaries to simple public comments, this is the clarion cry on behalf of the Greenwood Public School District after the Mississippi Department of Education published results from the latest achievement tests. I’m sure I could be categorized as a “naysayer,” and my response to those who urge us to celebrate is the same as the nation’s response to President Bush’s declaration of, “Mission accomplished.” Not yet!
Neither Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. nor Medgar Evers died for our right to celebrate the fact that our scores went up because those most likely to make the lowest scores dropped out. In fact, I believe they would be outraged to know more time was spent defending against a perceived “attack” on the leadership ability of our local superintendent than on developing strategies for reclaiming and retaining the 40 percent who dropped out.
Think about it. The superintendent is not the victim here. If you have a 40 percent dropout rate (the second highest in the state) and half of your students are not graduating, what do you have left? A core group of students who are motivated to learn, to excel – a core group of students whose test scores will increase. What you have is a de facto public charter school.
Yes, motivated students who want to learn are “diamonds,” the pride of every parent, school, teacher and administrator. I commend my own with every progress report and report card for improvement and for excellence. Yes, those who achieve deserve praise and recognition for being the very best they can be. Last week, I attended a Greenwood Public School District School Board meeting and witnessed the celebration of excellence at every level – students, teachers and parents. I stood in awe of teachers who are doing a remarkable job. To you I say, “Well done.”
Yet, we have to show conscientious concern for the rest of the children, those who need us the most? If one child falls through the cracks, the cracks ought to be fixed. If we can’t depend on the professionals to come up with innovative and unique ways to motivate these young people and keep them in school, do we simply resign ourselves to forgetting about them? Have we become numb to the fact that fewer than half of those who begin school will graduate with their class? Do we really want to believe that 40 percent of our children don’t want an education? Do we “celebrate” that we have narrowed their life options to Delta Apartments or Delta Correctional? According to the tenets of my faith, what we do to the least among us, we do to our creator. Sadly, we’ve forsaken those children least likely to succeed.
I heard someone suggest that President Obama ought to cite our local administrators as a national model of how to improve education. I hope this comment was intended in jest. If it wasn’t a joke, our problem is bigger than I imagined. Our nation does not need a model for disenfranchising almost half of its student population. The models are those schools that target at-risk girls and boys, students deemed “uneducable,” and transform them into scholars, not schools who say, “Good riddance. If you’re failing, move on out of the way so the scholars can maintain the rankings for us!”
For the record, our local superintendents are good people with good intentions. Unfortunately, if you are starving to death and I merely intend to feed you, you will surely die. Good intentions alone are not enough.
Why continue to focus on the 40 percent dropout rate? After all, 40 percent is just a number, right?
If 40 percent of the airplanes that flew crashed, would you fly? If 40 percent of the patients who sought treatment at a local hospital died, would you seek medical attention at that hospital? If the bank lost 40 percent of your deposits, would you continue to do business with that bank? If you worked 40 hours and were paid 40 percent of the salary due you, would you continue to work for that employer? If you can answer any one of those questions with a resounding “no,” it ought to be clear that until we provide a quality education for every school-aged child in our community, celebration is premature.
If our foreparents, with borrowed textbooks and one-room schoolhouses, could educate boys and girls to become doctors, lawyers, preachers, teachers, scientists — whatever they desired to be — surely we can do the same with today’s technologies, hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant monies, and the best and brightest teachers teaching our children.
One gospel songwriter declared, “Don’t wait ’til the battle is over, shout now! You know in the end we’re gonna win!” Looking ahead, I don’t see victory for those who are under- and ill-equipped to survive in this global marketplace because they lack the basic academic background to survive, let alone thrive. I’ll celebrate when the focus — the effort and the energy — is turned toward them.
• Troy D. Brown Sr. is a contractor with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
