Negativity

AT this time of year, negativity is the last sentiment I'd like to write about, but listening to today's MPR interview with Mitch Pearlstein of the Center for the American Experiment was *full* of negativity.

The Midmorning host Gary Eichten said Pearlstein was talking about "reforming public education." Instead, he talked about destroying public education - not that he thought anything about it was good anyway - by letting vouchers and the free market take care of the "problems" of our public educational system. He acknowledged that more money provides access to better education when he asserted that poor "black" families should get vouchers so they can send their kids to "good private" schools rather than the "poor public" schools in their neighborhoods.

So he would rather see that money go to individuals than to the public schools themselves. But the public schools could use that voucher money to reduce class size, provide more one-on-one education, and reconfigure themselves so that they have some of the characteristics of so-called successful privates.

He had nothing but bad things to say about teachers' unions, too, setting up a false dichotomy (one of many logical fallacies in his comments) between unions and "neighbors and community members." "When people see that the choice is between these two groups," he said, "they'll choose the right group."

I am SO tired of the negative public rhetoric about public education, teachers, and schools. We hear this lambasting at every level: our governor, legislators, media (including supposedly "liberal" MPR), every-day citizens. It's come to be a commonplace to say "our schools are failing," when Minnesota's public school system is one of the best in the entire country: despite the disrespect for teachers, teaching, and education for citizenry (which our founding fathers had in mind when they created a public education system).

Teaching professionals persist by and through herculean efforts and despite the constant barage of public disrespect: they're committed to their profession, their subject areas, and their students, and this commitment and achievement simply must be part of the public dialog.

Come on, teachers: let's start combatting the negative rhetoric of "failing schools" by getting vocal about our achievements despite odds, our joys tempered with sorrows, and our pride in the strong students we've nurtured.