The Three R's are all we need

Swing the ax, spare the Three R's
By Kelvin Wade January 27, 2010 5:51PM

The Fairfield-Suisun School District is in the unenviable position of having to slash $16.5 million from its budget. There are numerous proposals from shrinking the school year, closing an elementary school, slashing music, art and sports, and focusing only on the Three R's.

Of course music, arts and sports are always the first to go. I sympathize with parents who don't want to lose these popular courses. I was involved in band in elementary school, played school sports in junior high and enjoyed art classes. These things are part of a well-rounded education.

But they're not the only items on the chopping block at www.fsusd.k12.ca.us. We could have to ax elementary school assistant principals, cut library and media technology services and lose counselors, among other possible cuts.

Former Fairfield city councilman and teacher Jack Batson wrote an article recently calling for an end to compulsory education after the eighth grade, figuring half the kids after that grade don't want to learn anyway. Now that would allow us to close a high school or two and save a lot of money.

However, ending compulsory education after eighth grade would be a nightmare. We know we're basically baby-sitting those kids who don't want to learn but there's a method to our madness. With hundreds and thousands of kids on the street, just watch juvenile crime skyrocket.

That many uneducated, idle hands aren't going to spontaneously start building Habitat for Humanity homes or helping the elderly cross the street. They'd be getting into trouble. And who wants that many more cars driven by texting teens on the streets during the day?

But Jack is right that half of our kids aren't learning because they don't want to learn. And they have undereducated, unmotivated parents at home who don't provide incentive or encouragement to learn.

If my granddaughter (who earned her first 'F' recently) can learn how to operate a smartphone without cracking the manual, design and maintain a MySpace page, remember a dozen different hula dance routines, and memorize lyrics to a gazillion songs then there's nothing wrong with her capacity to learn. It's not a lack of skill. It's a lack of will.

When Superintendent Jacki Cottingim-Dias talks about getting back to basics and that the schools can't do everything, she's on the right track. The extras are nice but if we can't afford it, we can't afford it. We've got to spend our money educating the kids who want to learn the basics.

Sports, music and arts are things students can do on their own time and at their own expense. Besides, if we're not turning out stellar students in the basics then we don't need all the extras no matter what our financial situation is.

It's a shame that people will lose their jobs. Eliminating sports will dishearten many. Nobody wants to have to close more schools. Teachers won't be thrilled to see class sizes grow. But the task at hand is to educate children in the subjects that will help them grow into productive citizens.

And for where we are right now as a society and a country . . . math trumps music. Peace.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's always tough when you have to make the kind of severe cuts the district has to make. But with the mood I'm in, as long as there's enough left over for kids to learn the three R's, cut it. Somewhere along the line, we decided we would turn schools into social service centers to make up for the awful parenting going on in the country. I mean, that's what we've been doing. The truth is, we can't make up for that awful parenting.

Parents teaching kids before they're old enough to go to school, turning the TV off, ensuring children get enough sleep and have enough to eat, instilling values into their children and providing an expectation and encouragement of learning is invaluable to kids. Parents going over their kids' homework and being involved in their education makes a HUGE difference.

But of course we've got many parents who can't do that because they're not bringing that to the table. They themselves are uneducated or didn't come from a background that offered them support.

Something happened...I don't know what. But I'm tired of hearing that today's kids can't learn. We have more opportunities than ever before. We have more resources available in terms of libraries and technology. The internet beats the hell out of the Dewey Decimal System. I don't buy that people are just getting dumber. You don't see this happening in other countries. They're still graduating engineers and doctors in large numbers. How come we're not?

Part of it may just be that the social contract isn't at strong. Years ago, even uneducated, poor parents knew that a good education was their childrens' ticket to upward mobility and they stressed it. In my parents' families, which were dirt poor, education was pushed.

So if we have to consolidate classes, close a school, eliminate sports and music, and let specialists go, then that's what we'll have to do. But somehow we've got to put the emphasis on education. Reading, writing and math.

Part of my frustration is born out of my experience with my granddaughter. I can't go into everything here but we've got to do whatever we can with whatever resources we have to graduate educated kids. Previous generations went to schools with much smaller budgets and still left school with an education. We can do this.