On this one-year anniversary of the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, I am remembering the students and their parents and teachers, especially those who lost loved ones.
MSD represents a great public school. Beyond the sadness of that day, we saw what a good public school can be. We saw loving, supportive parents. We learned that with resources and wonderful teachers, students can grow into beautiful, strong, well-spoken individuals.
Their voices are still heard fighting for school safety!
Unfortunately, while schools are mostly safe, safety issues are still a concern.
To make a great America, we must keep our students safe and invest in the next generation. That includes the 90% of our young people who get public education.
Here are some of the problems still facing public schools. These are not in special order. If I left something out that is a concern to you, please let me know and I will add it.
Click on each link for more information.
- Mental health services are sketchy.
- Poverty is still problematic.
- Student homelessness remains a problem.
- Special education services are needed.
- Gun control is still a problem.
- Many schools are overcrowded.
- School infrastructure is old and creates unseen safety hazards.
- Drills can be frightening to students.
- There’s no discussion of lowering class sizes.
- There’s a critical need for school counselors.
- More school nurses are needed.
- Arming teachers and staff remains controversial.
- Misuse of student data, compromising student privacy.
One serious issue is how does one invest in making public schools safe if they dislike the concept of public education?
Consider how Florida is one of the most anti-public education, anti-teacher states in the nation! They will do anything they can to promote charter schools and vouchers.
This unfair condemnation of public schools and teachers also runs unchecked throughout the country.
Just the other day, Donald Trump, Jr. called teachers “losers” and accused them of being “socialists.”
He spoke to conservative students:
Keep up that fight. Bring it to your schools. You don’t have to be indoctrinated by these loser teachers that are trying to sell you on socialism from birth. You can think for yourselves. They can’t.
He encouraged divisiveness and demonstrated bigotry and hatred. He owes the country an apology.
Public school teachers are America’s public servants. Americans own public schools.
In his State of the Union Address, President Trump said nothing about public schools (only a comment about school choice). He never addressed school safety. Never spoke of pride surrounding the next generation.
This was a terrible oversight, but not unexpected. He and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos want to end public schooling. This will not make America great or our public schools safer.
Our public schools are our public schools. The students in those schools have diverse backgrounds and beliefs. Our children are our children collectively.
We must stand by and support this great American democratic institution and help every school be a great school like Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School!
We must get behind our local schools and protect, not attack them.
All schools must be safe, lovely places, well-funded and supported by the public. We must never give up on the students who attend public schools. All are welcome.
This is our challenge.
And we must never forget the beautiful children and loving teachers who have lost their lives simply learning and loving in America’s public schools.
Thank you, Nancy, for persevering with your impassioned plea on behalf of our nation’s public schools and public school students. One additional concern I would add is the push for more and more education to take place digitally, and for students to be continually assessed online. The data generated by this misguided approach to teaching/learning leaves students and families vulnerable to hacking or other misuse of their work on both the academic and social/emotional fronts. In my opinion there is absolutely no benign reason to collect this data. Resources for protecting the privacy of school children can be found at the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy website: https://www.studentprivacymatters.org/about-us/
Thank you, Sheila. Very important. I added.
I have grown used to republicans bashing education. Not since Bob Dole took time off in his acceptance speech for the nomination to the presidency in 1996 to suggest that teachers were the problem with education, has any politician on either side of the asile given teachers a reason to vote on education issues. Democrats joined the republicans in bashing teachers with the phrase “the teachers union”. Many teachers have voted strong republican tickets the whole time, mostly motivated by a social conservative mentality.
The irony of all of this is that the teachers who accept the conservative mantra that government is bad somehow make peace with the defunding of local schools by their own representatives. They are voting for people who are making them work for less, condemning their students to big classes, and besmirching their name before the public to create a perpetually bad image of the profession. If you confront conservative teachers with this paradox you get one of these responses:
The democrats are worse
The democrats hate God
The democrats believe in evolution and global warming
The democrats are trying to take away our freedom and give it to big government
The. Democrats (specifically Ted Kennedy) invented NCLB
The democrats like queers
Ronald Reagan won the battle against big government back in the day and caused the upsurge in the American economy in the late 1980s and 90s
Nowhere is the contradiction between words and deeds more apparent in the body politic than in the movement to privatize schools. Preaching local control and the evil of big government, privatizers take away community schools and doom them to poor funding. This is rationalized by suggesting that they are giving power to individual families with the idea of choice.
We cannot build a nation on a loose amalgamation of individuals. Local community was the bedrock of the American way in the mid-Twentieth century. When the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of races was unconstitutional, republicans and democrats alike banded together to make sure the law of the land was exercised peaceably and humanely. My father met on a council with black and white leaders in out town to make sure we went through the process in a civil manner. I am aware that this was not the case in other places, but this happened in our small town.
Five years later, a huge fight to consolidate schools in the county was settled by keeping two high schools that were important enough to the communities to make the suggestion of one high school a divisive topic. After years of bickering, a compromise was reached and harmony returned to our county. I sure am glad we had that battle during an age when the far right was not using the fears of the individual to drive a wedge in local politics.