Fri, 05/31/2013 - 08:58

William C. Shuttleworth

For the past two years, the politicians have been popping their corks over the need for school reform. Citing spurious data that suggests America’s school plummeting to dangerous levels, we are engulfed in legislative efforts to prevent our schools from inflicting even further damage to our children. Let’s stick to Maine for the time being. Our state legislature is convinced that we must develop a system for determining the ability of teachers to improve student learning. We have bills before us supporting moneys be funneled to religious schools. Our governor has declared our schools to be in a state of disaster, in tones that parallel the damage done to Oklahoma in week's past.

Well, are our schools this bad? Have Maine schools become hazardous to the health and future of our children? There are a lot of opinions and I have certainly been relatively quick to point out that we can and should do better. After all, we are only graduating about 80 percent of our kids, too many kids are in special education, the drop out numbers should scare you and too few kids are seeing post secondary education as a viable option. On the other hand, we rank relatively high on nationally normed tests of student progress; we do well in incrementally improving student learning as required under the federal law, No Child Left Behind. We have some interesting initiatives in the works such as a Five Year plan for high schools in which kids graduate with college credits. We are now embracing the value of hands on learning. We have reluctantly begun to see that charter schools can help some students without destroying public schools. The glass is more than half full and while the Chicken Littles we send to Augusta purport they know all the answers, improving schools from within can only be part of the answer.

First, let’s do a little math. If you add up all the hours a child spends in school from Kindergarten to graduation, it is about 14,040 hours. From birth to graduation, a child actually lives for 157,680 hours. The percent of time a child actually attends school is less than 9 percent. So, let’s round it off and say that a child spends l0 percent of his entire life from birth to 18 in school. So, what about the other 90 percent?

Let’s think about it without pining for the good old days when Beaver Cleaver’s mom always wore a dress and had milk and cookies when the boys came home. The world of a parent has changed, but it doesn’t mean that it has to be for the worse. But, it seems that it has. Over half of our children now live in single parent homes. This is a real burden to the remaining parent (often mom) that balances the needs of work and children. Our kids have far too much unsupervised time and too many of our children live the life of a couch potato, addicted to television, the web, Facebook and the almighty cell phone. Kids average more than 60 texts a day and 77 percent of all kids in middle school and older now have their own cell phone. (Just stop for a moment and think about how many calls you made in 1980?) Kids watch about 34 hours of television in a seven-day week, a full time job.

Over one third of kids are overweight by the time they are 12. No wonder, they are lapping up sludge at fast food restaurants. The average family eats out five times a week now. The kitchen table, you know, that round oak thing littered with laptops, purses, cell phones and laundry, has become an artifact of ‘how we used to live.’ Too many kids have a diagnosis of something or other. In fact, nearly one in four kids now wear a psychiatric diagnosis. (It gets worse as you grow older; nearly 50 percent of all Americans now qualify for a diagnosis that aligns with the newly published American Statistical Diagnostic Manual). And, we have a dichotomy where some kids are horrifically over-programmed for after school events to kids who come home to nothing, for hours.

It isn’t easy being a parent. I was a single parent for years and it was a struggle, but, folks, parenthood was not ever promised to be easy. Parenting is tougher than Basic Training, but it is vital that parents do their job. Make breakfast and dinner a priority; make sure your kids are not sleep deprived. Make sure that they are not sending messages and texts that place them in danger. Make sure they breathe fresh air, get outside for two hours every day and play, eat a balanced meal, limit soda to special occasions, create time and expectation to read, do homework and talk about it daily. And, please, take time to teach kids the basics of civility, such as ‘thank you,’ ‘please,’ and ‘can I help you?’ Teach them to do jobs around the house, hustle for spending money, the joy of wearing a hole in their jeans, and the comfort of a parent who says “No!”

This whole notion of school reform starts at home. And, nothing I have suggested costs a cent. In fact, it is priceless.

William Shuttleworth admits to being the flawed parent of three grown children, a sitting school superintendent, relentlessly introspecting on how to improve schools and families. He can be reached at wshuttleworth@hotmail.com

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