children

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Things I Should Have Said to My Father


My father was/is my hero. He died at the age of 57 when I was just 20. And because I was so young, it had not occurred to me to ask him a large number of questions plus just talking to him about things in general.

I am the eldest of three children my parents had and simple math shows that my father was much older than most people who were having children, particularly when considering how old a parent is when having that first child. My mother was 35 when I was born. That was in 1949 and at the time having a first child at that age was considered bordering on dangerous. Of course, it wasn’t as we know today.

My father lived in a large old house, built in 1790, a farmhouse style home, that my family occupied since 1791. The makeup of my family in 1912, when my father was born, was an upper middle-class family, a family that could afford to have a cook and housekeeper. My grandfather was a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had a strange feeling towards his children and their education. While two of my three uncles went to college, my father graduated from Wentworth Institute of Technology, a trade school in those days that had strong ties to the textile industry of Massachusetts. The industry was quite extensive at that time and my father, who graduated in 1932, became an employee at the J. P. Stevens Mill in North Andover Massachusetts, his hometown. When the war broke out in 1941, my father delayed his entry into the service because of his father’s impending death.

My father served in the U.S. Army Air Corps and was part of the armament section for a B-26 which had him serving in Morocco, Algeria, Italy and finally France. He declined a promotion that would have required his transfer to the Pacific theater of operations. But when he returned home, a law which required J. P. Stevens to take him back, was ignored and he was told his position no longer existed. A patent lie but my father was a gentle man who was not one to take issue.

From what I have told you, you might think I knew so much about my father. But those unasked questions came to surface when I interviewed his sister Charlotte in 1988. Even that interview was wanting for a more logical and extensive series of questions. Still, I learned a lot about my father’s family experience through her. But still, it was not done in his words.

A sampling of questions I might have asked: What are your earliest memories of your family? What were Thanksgiving and Christmas like? Tell me about your going to the Center School (elementary) and Johnson High School. Why did you want to go to Wentworth instead of a 4-year college? Why did you end up getting our house instead of Uncle Ike or Uncle John? Why did you go into the jewelry business and watch repair? How did you learn to repair watches? I am certain that were I to sit with myself, I could easily come up with 100 questions I would love to hear the answer. But as I said, my father died when I was just 20 years old and too much “all about me” as is common among young men and women then and today.

Year later I got a master’s degree in U.S. history which brought home the idea of written family histories. My thesis would have been ever so much better had I known of personal journals of the people involved. After I retired from the Federal Government with 30 years of service, I went into teaching, and I frequently would tell the children to learn as much as they can about their family history. It is only to common for a person to say that their family history is boring. But it is not! Each of us is a part of history and we all witness history from out own unique view. That view can be crucial for future historians. This fact was brought home when I was writing a paper in grad school about the beginning of the Revolutionary War. I found the diary of a young man who lived just south of Boston and wrote down, albeit briefly, his take on the first shots of that war. That was invaluable.

Not to put too fine a point on this subject, I was taking the train from Boston to San Francisco (Oakland) when at dinner one day in one of the mid-west states, I was seated across from an elderly woman. I asked her the usual questions, where are you from and what did you do from work. From that modest beginning opened up a wealth of information, totally unexpected. She too had said hers was a boring background as she was “only” a schoolteacher in a one-room schoolhouse in southern Ohio. In the late 1980s that was a story worth telling.

I do not expect any young people to read this article, however, I know adults will. I implore those of you who are reading this article that you get a written history of your family of birth and that you pass on to your children your own personal experiences. The importance of having first-hand knowledge of the events of history is extremely important. What you experience is unique and worthy of being told to following generations. When history is written, it is these first-hand accounts that will give a much more full understanding of history.

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Where Racism Does Not Exist!


For the second year in a row, I have been tasked with teaching kindergartens. Last year it was in Somerville, Massachusetts and this year is in Greenville, North Carolina. In Somerville I had a class of about 40% Latino students and this year in Greenville, I have a class that has 16 black students, 1 Hispanic student and 1 white student. At this age of 5 years, I dare say, most American children have no concept of race. They are pure in heart and mind. They are the perfect American.

If they are perfect at age 5, what happens by the time they are age 12 and all that has changed? The answer is quite simple. It is primarily the influence of their parents. They teach their white children, their black children, their Hispanic children that it is “us” against them. Secondarily, it is the influence of their peers and of the social norms of their neighborhood.

For 14 years now, I have been teaching in racially diverse school rooms. I can say that between 90% and 100%, the children in these classes have maintained their color blindness. They are racially mixed and most times to turn their backs on any one particular group would bring an end to those whom they call friend. They are mostly unwilling to do this.

It is easy to say that this sort of discrimination is part of white culture. But the white culture is not alone. Certain parts of black culture and Hispanic culture are also discriminatory.

When I was a child, my Roman Catholic orthodoxy taught me religious discrimination. We Catholics were right while all Protestants were not going to heaven. A ridiculous idea in most of today’s culture. Black culture was so tired of the overt discrimination they felt that they took to the streets to protest and, at times, these protests turned violent.

It was my father who greatly tempered my Catholic doxology with his Protestant Unitarian view of the world. They sought to find the expected good in all people.

Almost always through the eyes of young children, we find a perfect world. Yes, a good part of that is their lack of understanding of the world at large. Their world is one of family, school and play friends. Why cannot adults garner the same attitude as their children? Because they lack the understanding necessary to see all people in the same light. They have mostly allow other people to do their thinking for them, a most unhealthy way of life.

Whjle their may be nothing we can do for older prejudiced adults, their is something we can do for children and adults. We can educate them as to while certain minorities feel so angry as they do. They are not angry just to be that way. They are angry because of the overt and covert discrimination they have felt. Fully enlightened education will work. That education must begin at an early age. We as parents, as educators, as leaders of the community must see to it that our children and young adults are witness to a culture of good-will and acceptance.

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Parents Are Failing their Child’s Education


I was able to retire at a pretty young age. Shortly thereafter I undertook substitute teaching. At one point or another I worked all grades, kindergarten through 8th grade. In those positions I got an up close and personal look into what is expected of today’s youth and how they are meeting those expectations.

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Certain things have not changed since I was in the public-school system. Those students with a high degree of intelligence do well regardless of the situation into which they are thrown. That is a qualified “do well” however. The qualification is that if there is something at home which is very negative or if they have undergone a traumatic experience. Such students will need more and specialized attention. I will go into that a little bit later.

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I believe that all students, regardless of capacity, have expectations thrown upon them which far exceed those of my generation and for a number of generations following. Towards the end of my educational experience in the public system I remember that “new math” was being introduced. That, of course, is a misnomer because there is no such thing. Math, regardless of what name you put upon it, in essence has not changed much in 100 years. Certain portions of advanced, college level, math have been introduced such as theoretical math. But for our public-school kids, such things do not and should not apply.

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I have worked in four different school systems in the near-in Boston suburbs. One thing that was a constant across these systems was the amount of parental responsibility. This most important part of the educational system is greatly lacking if not entirely missing from the student’s education. How much a parent involves himself in their child’s educational experience greatly influences that child’s ability to succeed. Most importantly, the parent must set boundaries, discipline and structure for their child. A rebellious child is most likely looking for attention. When these things are not in the child’s home life, they end up in the lap of the schools, and in particular, the student’s teacher. These students frequent present a disruptive influence in the classroom which requires extra attention from the teacher. This, in turn, impacts the other 20 to 25, or more, students in the classroom. Then there is the student who consistently fails to do his homework. This again goes back to the parent who does not participate in their child’s education by failing to ensure that all homework in completely done.

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When I was young, that information that was not given me in the schools, came to me via television, newspapers, magazines or my friends. The advent of social media on devices like computers and cell phones have given the young person an unprecedented access to the world. Some of the things these children have access to may not be healthy for them. This is a point at which society today struggles to differentiate what our children should see from what they should not. The cell phone, in particular, has become a device too often used to bully other children. And this is where parents fail most frequently. I have had many experiences in the school system where a parent is called in to talk about how his child misbehaves and is a bully. The parent, however, will not accept what is being offered and declares that his child is not a bully. One factor in their making such a decision is that they do not fully understand what a bully is.

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When I was in elementary school, one of the ways we boys settled disputes was through wrestling on the playground. Fist fights were extremely rare and even then, they were forbidden. But somewhere along the way it was decided that no child should touch another child for any reason. We also played flag football which more often than not turned into tackling from behind. I do not remember any of us ever getting hurt but when we returned to the classroom a lot of our extra energy had been expended. But today’s overly protective atmosphere does not allow for this.

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Today’s students are being taught concepts, particularly in math, which were usually not introduced until high school when I was in school. While I can see the benefit of an earlier introduction, it is sometimes put-upon children who are too young to understand these concepts and so they fail.

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These educators, who I suspect all reside in college academics, have built a model that does not allow for the greatest chance of success at a particular grade level. Students fall behind and fail because this teaching model has failed to introduce the student to certain fundamental aspects of education. First, and foremost, students are not taught how to study. And by this I meant, at some point, possibly the third or fourth grade, a full year class in who to read effectively, how to study effectively and how to write effectively, be taught. Students are taught how to read and write, but that knowledge is never intertwined with how to study.

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Finally, it is my belief that all school systems be required to have a state certified social worker at each school. The social worker would not be answerable to the school’s principal, but to the city’s mayor or town’s manager. Their being independent from the school system, and that being understood by all students, might greatly help students who are struggling with bullying, bad home life and trauma. Such a person could easily have a great effect, a positive effect, on a student’s success.

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In recent years school systems have come under fire for failing their students. To some degree this is certainly true. But to a much greater degree it is the parents and state education administrators who are actually failing our students. This can all be resolved via parental involvement in a school system’s doctrine. Through Parent Teacher Organizations, parents can take control of how their child are taught and what they do in the schools. Communities must come together with educators. They must look closely at the students who are failing or those who are underachieving and find a course that will address those students’ needs.

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It is not our schools that are failing us, it is we who are failing our schools.

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Parent Child Misunderstandings


Many years ago, on a trip to Canada, my father lost his patience with me.  He exclaimed, to my horror, “you’re just like your mother!”  My father was an incredibly patient man, but more than once I pushed him past all reasonable patience, and into something else.  That was just one such time.  I remember that incident so well because I could not believe what he had said.  And for years afterward, I made it a mission to insure that I was not anything like my mother.  She and I had always had a contentious relationship, and that is putting it mildly.

My father grew up in an upper middle-class house while my mother grew up dirt poor, and adopted by an aunt and uncle who could not have made her feel more unwelcome.  They were married shortly after World War 2.  My father was a WWII vet and met my mother after he got back.  It was a set up but a mutual friend, but a good one.  My view of my parents’ marriage was that it was excellent, a model of what a good marriage should look like.  I have not changed that view at all.  But what I have changed is my view of them as individuals.  Unfortunately, my father died right before my 21st birthday, and I never really got to know him.  That was in large part due to adolescent and teenage selfishness on my part.  I forgive myself that because I believe it is something most, if not all, teens go through.  While teens we think how dumb our parents are, and when we get older, we discover how dumb we were.

My mother lived to age 89.  I firmly believe she could have lived longer if she had desired.  But I think she gave up living.  Along the way she had lost the only man she ever loved, and she adored him.  Of that there is no doubt.  Then she suffered the loss of a child when her son, my brother, died.  That almost killed her, literally.  At some point after that I decided to discover who she really was.  My mother was very tight-lipped, and did not care to talk about her childhood.  It was miserable so why would she?  Her father had deserted the family when she was only 4, and then her mother died when she was 11.  She was shuffled around between relatives, not uncommon in those days, until she settled with an aunt and uncle.  She graduated high school and went to a hospital that sponsored a nursing school and took up her profession.  She was, by all accounts, an excellent nurse, and it served our family well during some lean times we experienced.

I was so angry with my mother for years for doing this and not doing that.  But at no point did I stop to consider the tools available to her for bringing up a handful like me.  She called me a bull in a china shop, an apt description, as I was my own little force of nature when I was young.  I had to have my way which frequently collided with her having her way.  Seldom was it a question of right and wrong, just a question of who would prevail.  That made it difficult for my father, brother and sister to contend with but I don’t think either of us ever considered that very much.

In my 30s I suffered from a particularly severe case of depression.  Although I know the reasons, they are not germane to this.  What is important is that my mother did not take the news well.  I know now that at the time she viewed it as a failure of hers.  It was not, of course, but that was what she grew up believing.  I found out some years later that she had suffered an extremely severe case of depression of her own that required ECT.

Then I became a parent and had children of my own, three daughters.  I adore them but I know for fact that my good intentions do not always come across that way to them.  I am certain they have thought of me as intrusive, and not being sensitive to their desires.  It is this realization that let me know that I was indeed, in many ways, very much like my mother.  We parents have this tendency to take our children’s problems personally, and our distaste for something they are doing is really our fear that they will be hurt.  We do not always express ourselves well, and I know that was the case with my mother.  My mother had the extra problem of having virtually not support system when she was a young parent.

The human being has yet to be born who does not have one serious problem during their life.  Usually it’s many.  As parents we want only the best for our children.  We want them to have better lives than we experienced.  We want them to be happier.  We sometimes, foolishly, want to shield them from failure, sickness, and bad people.  That is simply impossible.

If your parents are still alive, get to know them all over again.  Ask them lots of questions about what they experienced when they were children and when they were your age.  I had to learn about my father through his sister because, as I said before, he died at such a young age.  And parents, just be sure to tell your children that you love them, and be big enough to admit that you are still capable of making mistakes.

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Is Your Child a Bully?


I think if you gathered 100 parents of school-age children in a room, most, if not all, would say their child is not a bully.  The fact is, I would say at least 10 of them has a child who is a bully, and maybe more.  That is not a scientific fact, but it comes from my experience over the past 4-plus years in the classroom of a primary school here in Massachusetts.

What does a bully look like?

The picture above, “Butch” from the “Little Rascals” series of the 1930s who played the bully, might be akin to what so many people think a bully looks like today.  The fact is they look a lot like this:

To be clear, I do not know who the girl and boy are in the above pictures, but in my experience they could easily be bullies in their schools.  The fact is, a bully does not have a particular look, a particular family type, a particular race or religion.  Bullies are as likely to look cute as they are mean.  And a kid who looks mean may be the furthest thing from a bully.

Bullies do not act out in any particular place.  A child can be an angel in the classroom but a bully on the playground, on the school bus, or when they are walking home.  A bully is not a dumb kid, and I believe he, or she, is more likely to be of above average intelligence, but are saddled with a severe case of insecurity, and a bad self-image.

A bully is not just he kid who beats up other kids.  A bully is more likely to wage a psychological war with his prey, constantly picking on his target by belittling him, and degrading him.

The skilled bully, very common, knows when not to act out, around his teachers and parents.  He presents the well-behaved, sincere, and caring young person.  But in reality, just beneath the surface, his is angry and looking for a target of his aggressions.  Girls are as likely to be bullies as are boys.  Size of the child is not an indicator of anything as a small child is just as likely, if not more so, to be a bully as the big child.

Schools are required by law to deal directly with bullying, even perceived bullying, immediately and in writing.  Parent must be informed immediately.  But that is exactly where the problems truly begin.  Too many parents, when informed that they child has been caught bullying another child, deny that their child could possibly engage in such conduct.  Their “angel” is simply not capable of being a bully.  The fact is, everyone is capable of being a bully.

There is a movie that comes out tomorrow, Friday March 30, called “Bully.”  I have not yet seen it but plan to.  I would hope that all young parents would go to the movie and take their kids along, regardless of age.  Bullies happen in the first grade just as they do in any other grade.  But in taking their kids to the movies, their children might open up about problems they are having with bullies at their school.  Some children may see their own bad behavior in the movie and how it plays out, and will tell their parents of their own bad acts.  It is my experience that bullies do not like doing what they do, they simply do not know how else to act, lack coping skills, or in worse cases, lack impulse control.  Sometimes the fix is as simple as making a child aware of how wrong their actions are and making consequences for them.  But other children need professional help, not a bad thing, and in rare cases, medication.

Bullying is epidemic in our schools.  But we cannot lay this problem at the feet of our teachers.  It is the parent’s responsibility to teach their children who to act properly and to discipline their children appropriately.  We each have a personal responsibility where our children are concerned.  We each have to accept that we just might be harboring a bully and that until we take action, nothing will change.

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The American Love Affair With Violence


There is a documentary out about bullying in American schools.  For some crazy reason it is rated “R”.  There is a movement about to get that rating reduced to “PG-13”.  As a parent, I would like to see the rating changed to “PG”.  The movement wants to give greater access to the movie to young people.  The thing is, bullying starts as young a six years of age!  Schools are required to report and respond to incidents of bullying immediately.  But bullying does not start in the school.  It starts at home!  The only question is: why?

I suggest the reason for bullying starting in the home is American’s acceptance of a violent society.  No other country in the world promotes gun usage.  Now gun ownership is not a basis for violence.  The person behind it is, of course.  But adolescents and teens are awash with images of violence on television, in the movies, and in their video games.  I have always found it curios that we take great pains in hiding one of mankind’s most wonderful and common acts, sex, while we flaunt violence.  Where is the sense in that.  A 14-year-old boy knows more about weapons than he does about his own sexuality.  He feels far freer to ask someone how to use a gun but is scared to death to ask someone about safe sex!

I am not suggesting that we open up pornography to our nation’s youth but I am suggesting that American parents are failing miserably in educating their children about sex while they take great pains to educate them about violence.  Most of that education, unfortunately, comes via the parent’s fascination in violence without properly instructing the child about it.  The parent will watch a blood and gore movie in front of his children and not say a thing about what the child is being exposed to.  But God forbid a well-made movie shows a woman’s breasts and the parents will be shooing the child out of the room.  We have the wrong forbidden fruit in America.  Where violence should be the forbidden fruit, sex is.

Children learn a lot from their parents.  Adults can be as much of a bully as a child.  When a child sees his parent yelling at a store clerk and verbally abusing such people, the child learns that such things are all right to do.  They turn around and practice those learned techniques on their classmates.  Similarly, when a child is in a car with a parent who is a very aggressive driver, or who has road rage, the child assumes such behavior to be normal and acceptable.

Every parent misbehaves in front of their children from time-to-time.  But when the responsible parent recognizes his inappropriate actions, he informs the child of how his actions were incorrect and not to be repeated.

I think far too many Americans act irresponsibly.  They are very slow to take responsible for their actions, and at times refuse to.  They forget that their bad acts, in front of their own children and other children, is showing bad example and teaching our children the wrong things.  Prior to my retirement from teaching I had occasion to take aside three students and apologise to them for what I considered some inappropriate actions.  And while they did not think what I had done to have been any big deal, their words, I said that I was wrong.  Children need to learn that adult authority figures make mistakes and are willing to take responsibility for those mistakes.

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How We Mess Up Our Children’s Minds Everyday


You do not have to be a parent for this post to be relevent.  Just be a member of the human race necessarily means you as an adult contribute to what children learn.  Parents, of course, are who a child models himself after. But children see everything around them and notice a lot more than many people give them credit for.  One way a child learns is through imitation.  They also form the value system through things they see, things they hear, and what any group of people they come in contact with are doing.

I wrote earlier about how we are failing our children in education.  What I did not include in that article is the education a child receives outside school.  Every human on earth learns from his environment, his experiences.  A simple example of this is how we refer to people having “street smarts.”  Anyone who grows up in an urban environment is intimate with that education while someone who grows up in rural America does not have it.  This may seem like simply a matter of where you grow up, which it is of course, but it is a great example of exactly how we learn.

In probably every country on Earth people discuss their future when they are looking towards their children.  But most of such discussions revolve almost exclusively around two things, formal education, and religious education.  I will not comment of religious education but I believe formal education to be an extremely large portion of any person’s ability to succeed in the world.  For argument’s sake I will put that portion at 51%.  But leaves another 49% to be accounted for.

From my experience in the primary education classroom, I can tell you there are informal activities that hugely affect every person’s life experience.  First among these is socialization.  In any group of kids you will find the full spectrum from the social butterfly to the wall flower.  But be warned, the social butterfly may not be any more self-confident than the wall flower.  Sometimes children act in one particular way as a means to cover up their fears.  The wall flower is afraid of rejection but it is possible the social butterfly acts as such because she fears not having friends.  One thing I know for certain, children always give clues as to why they are acting as such.  As much as we need to reassure the wall flower we need to ensure that the social butterfly is  simply having fun and not play acting to cover up a fear.

When I was a boy my mother caught me reading a girly magazine of some sort.  For an instant I thought I was in serious trouble.  My mother was a true disciplinarian.  But to my great surprise, and of course her credit, she told me the pictures of naked women were not in themselves bad things.  It was my reaction to those pictures, or as I think she put it, what  I did with those pictures that made the difference.  The message for me was, enjoy the beauty of the naked body but always respect women in person and in my actions.  I bring this up because as a society we have this predilection of hiding nudity from our children.  But most parent do nothing to hide all sorts of violence from children.  Children are bombarded with images of wonton killing but protected from nudity.  I find that absurd.  Worse,  children take violence as the norm and nudity as “bad.”  A teacher who happened to show young children a picture of Michelangelo’s “David” would chance firing but that same teacher showing a picture of one person engaged in killing another would probably not even be spoken to.  This shows a basic lack of good definition of right and wrong in our society.

What children need the most of are models and depictions of caring and love, of friendship, of good citizenship, of heroes.  These things are woefully lacking, in my opinion, in the lives of too many children.

In school yards today the rule is a child cannot in any respect put his hands on another child.  Boys rough-housing, wrestling, and other such activities are often outright banned.  Someone seems to have forgotten that this is exactly what boys do and it is usually very healthy.  When I oversee children at play I allow for a certain amount of rough-housing.  Even more, when a child comes to me crying about having fallen and hurt themselves I comfort them a little but I do not allow them to go running to the nurse.  I reassure them by noting that they are not bleeding but they are feeling the pain of having bumped themselves.  I send them off by promising them that if they are still hurting a lot after 5 minutes I will allow them to see the nurse.  Not a single child has ever gone to the nurse after that.  What I am teaching them is that you are going to fall, you are going to hurt, but you will be all right if you give things just a little time.  I always allow them their pain but always have them take some time with it just so they can see they will be all right.

What I have seen is too many parents at one end of the spectrum or the other.  There are, unfortunately, parents who protect their children from little or nothing.  These children become adults with bad attitudes, who are very defensive and worse who strike out at others, who are maladjusted and headed for a life of frustration and failure.  At the other end are the overprotective parent.  They will have a boy who wants to play football but the parent will not allow it because they think football too violent.  They are the parents who attempt to control who their children play with.  They are the parents who fawn over their child when the child is hurt and goes out of their way to end the hurt as quickly as possible.  They seem to have forgotten that living through hurtful things is a good thing when the child involved fully appreciates how they will be all right afterward.  They will not have such an experience if the parent takes it from them.

Some of the things no child needs to see are his parents have long verb altercations, or any physical altercations.  They need to see their parents hugging one another, and kissing.  They need to be disciplined.  There has never been a child who does not try to find and push boundaries.  It is a normal learning activity.  But when such boundaries do not exist, what do they learn?  They need to hear their parents apologise to them.  They need to know that telling the truth when they have been wrong is not a bad thing.  That is, they have to experience reward through truthfulness.  Parents should never, ever, lie to their children.  When the child walks in on the parents having sex, definitely do not chase the child out but tell him mommy and daddy were loving each other.  Then tell them it is private time and ask the child to leave.  Children need a healthy response to their missteps.  Most mistakes children make are innocent but they learn better when they are given gentle but firm correction and not being yelled at or worse.

The bottom line is, if we want our children to act responsibly we have to act responsibly.  We must acknowledge our mistakes in full view of our children.  We must never make hollow threats.  We must gently guide.  We cannot condemn failure as failure is a part of life.  We have to remind our children that frequently great success comes after a long series of failures.  We have to make it all right to be less than perfect.  We cannot afford to allow our children to be enamoured with physical beauty over inner beauty.  It is our duty to give good example as that gives our children the greatest chance of success.

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America is Failing Its Children


I think everyone has heard the expression, “You have champagne tastes and a beer budget.”  Well, that is exactly the American mindset these days.  I will qualify  my remarks by stating that for the past four years I have worked as a teacher in the primary grades at a public school.  Not only that, the particular school is in the poor section of a blue-collar city.  The kids, for the most part, are absolutely wonderful.  The majority of them are of first or second generation Hispanic background.  The next ethnic groups are Brazilians, Haitians, people from India, and Tibet.  The caucasian population of the school is around 20% or less.

Four years ago this school suffered a devastating fire that displaced the students to two other aging schools.  Both of the buildings were built in the 1930s.  The students are still a year away from occupying the rebuilt school.  The reason for the long delay is mostly political but under the guise of financial.  To be certain the city does not have the financial means to build a new school quickly, but the state has more red tape than is reasonable.  Unfortunately, occurences such as this are not unusual for America’s cities.  To really understand the challenge you must look only at the city proper and not its extensive suburbs.  What is the economic background of each city?  What does its tax base look like?  What does a cross-section of its inhabitants look like?  All these factors, and more, actively feed into each city’s ability to educate its young.

You can go to the Federal Government’s census site and see a map that shows the distribution of wealth by city in the U.S.  What you will find is the central large cities and their immediate suburbs, as a rule, have significantly lower wealth than its more distant suburbs.  This is important because the ability of any municipality is directly tied to its wealth.  The Federal Government and the individual states do take measures to mitigate this inequality but it is still very skewed.

To fairly evaluate each community it is necessary to consider the challenges the face each.  In Massachusetts, Sherborn, a community of 4200 has a median income of $186,000 while Lawrence, a city of  70,000, has a median income of $36,600.  Lawrence has a school population of roughly 19,000 while Sherborn’s is roughly 1,400.  Lawrence is a distinctly Hispanic city while Sherborn is populated mostly by people whose first language is English.  What does that have to do with anything?  Simple, by law communities are tasked with providing an education that addresses the needs of its student base.  If that base is comprised by a large number of students who have English as their second language, it adds a level of difficulty.

This is just one of the many problems faced by schools located in America’s cities.  These are problems that the far suburbs and rural America do not experience.  obstacles such as poverty, transportation, child care, crime, are just a few of external issues cities deal with.  But they also have to build modern facilities with good educational tools, computers, labs, books, and attract the best staff possible are huge obstacles to America’s cash strapped cities.

In considering the quality of education any one student receives, you must first consider what is that student’s educational environment.  Is the building that student enters large enough, and equipped well enough to meet that student’s needs?  Or is it overcrowded, broken down, and out-dated?  Does the community have the funding level to compete with other localities in the state in attracting the best teachers available or must it rely upon something less?  To put a point on that last question, consider that most school districts require that its teachers obtain a master’s degree within a certain amount of time from hiring, if they do not already possess one.  The average salary for someone with a master’s degree in excess of $75,000.  The average salary of a teacher with a master’s degree is $50,000.  That is a serious problem!  Even more, consider the fact that someone with a master’s degree in math can command in excess of $100,000 why would they opt for something less, or, why would they not consider their options outside of teaching should they become disenchanted?

The thing is, this whole political argument about how education is failing our children is very disingenuous.  The problem starts mainly with those in politics failing to accept that they themselves have set unreasonable standards of education given the level of funding they are willing to commit.  It is similar to saying “Here is $25,000.  I want you to go out and bring back a new Cadillac.”  How is that possible?  It quite simple is not!  The offer that a voucher system will resolve such problems!  Really?  Same level of funding but changing the distribution model, how does that improve education?

America, if you want your kids better educated, if you want all Americans better educated, you have to stop kidding yourselves that there is any equality in the quality of education from one locality to another.  And before you can expect a better education system, you are going to have to address each and every problem urban educators are faced with.