20/10/2001 - 12:32 p.m.

Education System

I will admit here and now this is not a subject on which you want to get me started in conversation. I don't shut up when I get started on the futility of gaining an education in the American public schools (this doesn't mean I think you should go parochial, that will leave you a horrible person as well), or when I discuss the moves made in this city to boost the district. Get out now if you're not up for a lengthy diatribe on the schools.

Des Moines is supposed to have some of the nation's best schools. I'm terrified to discover the educations being given in other states. One of the things about public school is that everybody learns, and until everybody does learn, everybody else is screwed. Basically, they're catering to idiots. Intelligent people are all but ignored unless they're asswipes. (That's my trouble, I can't be bothered to be extraordinarily nice to people who make me put up with shit, and so I get screwed over even more. The history of my educational life is shocking.)

Asswipes get to go to the special schools in which they're simply taught to conform. In the end, I'm glad I'm not there, but when you are tracking people into "Central Academy", as it's called, you would assume that all the intelligent people went there. Not so: ass-lickers and financially influencial kids go there. Now, I admit, it's a generalisation, and not everybody comes out a cookie cutter dipwad, but that's because they're not causing trouble on the point that really they're not getting anything any better than they'd get at their regular school. (My brother attended for one year. His English teacher knew less about proper grammar and the correct way things are done on expository papers than I do. The rest of his classes left much to be desired as well.) So, there's that. The rest of us are stuck waiting for the people with goldfish minds (goldfish have a memory retention span of two seconds) to work out what the hell's going on.

On top of that, there's a horrid thing going on in America called the "middle school" or "junior high". This mysterious thing is an educational nightmare. Middle schools put kids ages 11-13 in the same building together on a high school class switching schedule. Now we've got 1300 kids with wonky hormones in one building together, can somebody honestly tell me they don't see the initial problem? On top of this, the middle school doesn't have to hire teachers with secondary teaching licsenses (junior high's used to have to, I don't know if that is still the case). So, you have a bunch of elementary school teachers working in a high school system with a lot of kids with hubris. (It's become my new favorite word, deal with it.) This leads to horrific outcomes.

Ask any high school senior to look back on their education and give the worst years of it- nine times out of ten, the three years of middle school will come into the picture someplace. There is no education picked up here. There's quite a bit of fashion statement and clique forming and "gang" rivalry and rumour going on, but education doesn't happen. I only remember reading terrible books and growing sarcastic and disgusted. I wasn't like that before middle school, but I've no friends left from that time to document...

Those are my initial complaints about the actual education we receive. The district policies I haven't even started on. Here we go.

We have a "no tolerance" weapons policy. In this city, you can be suspended for having a plastic knife, you can be suspended for carrying a GI Joe in full battle regalia, and a million other instances where the only word is "no tolerance" which translates to "whatever the hell we think we ought to make trouble about". At my school in particular, you can get suspended for being beat up. If somebody walks up to you in the hallways and starts beating the shit out of you for no particular reason and you were to curl up on the floor in a ball to protect yourself (rather than hit back) you would still get suspended, because "it takes two to have a fight".

It is district policy now to have an armed policeman in every high school. (There are other schools that do have them, but the high schools are required.) After a "no tolerance" weapons policy, we have a policeman walking the halls with his gun out in the open? I'm sorry, but that doesn't make me feel safe. That's a reminder that should somebody else start making trouble, that damn cop can just open fire in the middle of the hallway. That doesn't make me feel safe.

During the 1999-2000 school year, an additional one cent sales tax was put into effect. Now we pay six cents to the dollar (which is a bitch to figure), and that penny goes towards the schools. Since most of the school buildings were built before 1950 (the oldest is Greenwood at 1901), the money would primarily go towards building three new elementary schools. However, they tore down six. The new schools are built on three sites that were formerly occupied by the smaller schools.

One such nightmare stands nine blocks from my house. It looks like a factory. There are practically no windows, and the playground arrived only last week. (Swings, seesaws, and all manner of recreational things are outlawed here, so it sucks, but the thing is, it's October. They'll have indoor recess practically the rest of the year, when are they gonna use it?) The building is set to hold 800 kids, and the building formerly there was set to house 400. Parking lots for teachers take up practically as much space as the school.

I am particuarly cut up over the construction of this school because they tore down the elementary school four blocks from my house (built in 1909) to build it. It was a lovely old building. It had a time capsual in the library set to be opened in 2000. The building was demolished in 1999. 90 years. It makes me sick.

Well, at the time, they said that the vote of the tax would bring all kinds of money into the schools and funding wouldn't be a problem because all the old money for school repair could be used for educational stuff, and they'd worked it all out, there was definately enough money etc., etc., etc. Well, they voted, it passed. In the next months they started explaining it was going to cost more and more and more, and that well, no, they didn't have the money, but they'd gone ahead with all these plans... They're cutting budgets. The choir wouldn't have access to any money at all if it weren't for the parent Booster club with it's own checkbook. The drama were never given any money in the first place, so we're not seriously affected. But it's suggested that nobody will be going on field trips where buses are involved this year or next. Teachers are being asked to give up one day of pay to go to solving the problem. Can I refuse to pay the extra penny? I don't see that it's going anyplace except maybe into Superintendent Witherspoon's pocket. He gave himself a huge pay rise two years ago as well. Bastard. HE ought to go a month without pay.

As to teacher salaries, they just changed the way they're paying them, going from an experience to a performance payment system. It's no longer based on how long they've been there, but on how well the students do. Tests get easier, we spend more time teaching the Goldfish top add, which lowers standards, but by golly, the teacher has everybody turning in their homework!

Just one last little giggle- Texas says that their public schools rose in the standardised tests ratings under Bush's governancy. Well, African Americans and Mexicans were finally starting to receive less prejudice (because of work from the last govorner) and were starting to stop dropping out of the schools. They stayed in, and suddenly were doing well. That's due to no effort on Dubya's part.

I can't believe I turned out OK. I didn't even get into my discussion on the fact that the school's are referring kids to doctors to perscribe them Ritilin, anit-depressants, and other mind altering shit like that. They're training us to exist in suburbia- where everything is the same and strict neighborhood rules are enforced. I'm not going to suburbia, but I'm scared for everybody who doesn't know any better.

One last thing. Up until recently, I thought the phrase "All I ever needed to know I learned in Kindergarten" didn't refer to sharing and stuff. I thought it seriously meant everything you would ever need to know you had learned in Kindergarten, because I always thought, Well, yeah, I did. The Mark Twain quote "I have never let my schooling get in the way of my education" I always thought everyone took that to mean- school sucks, you have to do it on your own. I learned a few weeks ago of somebody who thought that it meant don't let reading, writing, and arithmatic get in the way of your own personal growth (learning morals). I'm incredulous.