The public school system is failing those who need it most
Lauren and I went to a lunch yesterday and met with US Senator Michael Bennet.
Senator Bennet talked about a number of things but I felt much of his passion around his desire to fix our public schools. Prior to becoming Senator he was the superintendent for the Denver Public Schools.
He had a balanced view about the blame (all of us adults, not the kids) but he first shared a few data points to make the point loud & clear. Here’s some of the things I learned.
-70% of 8th readers don’t read at their grade level
-a nine year old from a low income family is already 3 years behind their high income peers and has a 1 in 2 chance of graduating high school and 1 in 10 chance of finishing college
- 1.2M of our students drop out of high school every year. Globally we rank 20th amongst industrial nations for high school graduations. Forty years ago we were first
Great education starts with the best teachers. And we are not helping recruit and keep our best teachers either. Current salaries are beyond ridiculous for teachers. We need to fix that. Teacher unions and the administrators need to ditch their current power struggles for the old discussion and ditch sacred cows. They aren’t working. Currently half of our public school teachers quit in the first five years.
There were many more stats and facts shared but the Senator’s punchline was clear when he said, ”Our public education system, as designed, does not work well enough for all children in this country, and, for our poorest children, barely works at all.”
I am fortunate that our kids live in a town where we have good public schools. And I am hardly the expert in public school matters across our nation. I learned a lot yesterday about things I knew in my gut. I need to learn more about these issues and how we can help.
I am convinced the first step is stand up and acknowledge the current model isn’t working. We can’t accept it. We can do better.
We made a campaign contribution yesterday. I think Senator Bennet is exceptionally bright and believe he’s focused on the right issues. I hope he keeps his office next year.
Sometimes when we see numbers it’s hard to put them in context.
Consider the absolute numbers of people that aren’t educated or live in poverty or don’t have adequate healthcare. The numbers can be overwhelming.
This visual presentation helps by asking what if the world was condesed to a village of 100 people. Worth watching.
(please note: the text in the beginning was meant to go fast to make a point about how confusing the numbers are without context)
One thing I know about a body of work is that it’s never finished. It’s cumulative. It deepens and expands with every day that you give your best, and give back, and contribute to the life of this nation.
That moment you realize you are in a room full of democrats
Last summer we moved to a different town outside of Boston.
Since then we are meeting lots of new people. Mostly through our kids but also getting to know the neighbors. And I joined an indoor soccer team.
Last night we went to a dinner party hosted by one of our neighbors. I didn’t know their political pusuasion and I wasn’t going to bring up politics.
But during dinner our host brought up politics. And it was clear he was a big Obama supporter and against many of the Bush policies of the past 8 years. And the other couple chimed in as well with a similar sentiment.
Don’t get me wrong. I have plenty of conservative friends. And I have friends that are way left of my politics.
But there is something nice about meeting relative strangers and happily discovering their politics. It’s more than just a breathing a sigh of a relief. It’s just a nice breath.
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(in direct contrast, I had the opposite situation last week on a train heading home from NYC. The train was packed. I was sitting in one of those Amtrak seats that was 2x2 facing each other. The two guys across from me were older, highly educated but avid supporters of Bush, Gitmo, bombing Iran, tax cuts for the rich and generally cynical about Obama. That was a tough 3 hours to take. Fortunately my Bose headphones did their job).
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I’m loving this.
