Dear U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos:
Given your job title, unawareness of American public education with its tumultuous and racist history, and that you and your entire family including your grandchildren have never had to attend a public school, I strongly suggest you take one year to travel the nation and each day randomly choose a public school to visit starting in our cities. If you’re afraid to step into our public schools, let me be your guide.
First, students sniff fear, so keep a game face. No smiling, waving, embracing, hugging, engaging in pleasantries or sorrowful expression at the sight of impoverished neighborhoods. A polished businesswoman impresses adults not kids. You might consider wearing a baseball cap, sneakers and slacks and tone down the bling. A tattoo, nose piercing or strip of pink hair would be a good way to bond with kids, especially teen girls. They’ll think you’re cool.
Let me guide you through this middle school entrance where everyone forms a single line before passing through metal detectors. Like I said, ditch the jewelry; it’ll just set off the alarm and rile the adolescent crowd. Then once inside the building, you should assume the position with hands up and legs spread as another teacher gently pats you down. They’re checking for permanent markers used for graffiti and any sharp object that can and will be used as a weapon to harm others or themselves. Yeah, some teens really do cut themselves just to feel something. It’s so sad but not uncommon. Don’t stare at the pregnant student either. It’s nothing shocking.
Try to ignore the throbbing rap music blaring from parked cars with parents and students. They both like the same music. And if a parent does stomp through demanding an unscheduled conference or confrontation with the principal or a teacher, just step aside and keep quiet. Mind your business. Look straight ahead, and ignore rude cussing and shoving even between students. Let administrators handle the rough stuff, my dear.
We can wait in the cafeteria where most students are provided a breakfast as well as lunch every school day in our public schools. You’ll see many kids waste food. Few really want the breakfast, yet they have to take dietary proportions given by cafeteria staff. This is because of a federal government partnership with the U.S Department of Agriculture. See, America produces tons more food than we can consume. So the schools are a great place to at least get the food delivered, whether or not kids like it, eat it or toss it in the trash. At least they have the option to eat at school. But looking across the room, you’ll agree some kids are likely eating breakfast at home and then an extra something at school—which may contribute to our epidemic obesity rate. Let me commend you, by the way, for keeping your figure slim and trim. Very admirable. You go, girl!
No school like an old school
That first bell is mind splitting, isn’t it? All the kids are herding to their classes while a good ten percent of the student body will arrive tardy 10 to 20 minutes or later every day, the same kids from the same families all year long. Now morning announcements will start, spoken through the office PA system. In some schools, announcements will be in English and then repeated in Spanish, so this morning ritual may take quite awhile. You might notice some classes remain talkative and do not pay attention while others are quiet. You will undoubtedly notice very few kids actually saying the Pledge of Allegiance or bowing their heads for the traditional moment of silence. It depends on the teacher, what’s important to him or her. Maybe the class is behind in assignments, and completion is the priority. Just letting you know it’s not totally about disrespect but could be.
OK, I’d like you to inspect student restrooms. We’ll just stand inside the girls since the boys always smells of urine. Look at this: little or no toilet paper, no soap, no paper towels. You wanna know why? Mischievous kids ruin it for everyone else. Some exasperated custodians will not stock paper towels, leaving kids to air dry their hands or wipe them on their clothes. Toilet paper can be a play thing to stuff the toilets, stopping them up to overrun—a big mess and common in schools. The soap, well that was another thing some kids played around with, using way too much and making a mess, never cleaning it up off the floor or wall. Many schools will not provide soap, bar or liquid, in student restrooms even in the newest buildings. Too many students playing around in the restrooms, sneaking in for fights and other misadventures, is why restroom doors are removed or remain open at many schools.
Now let’s walk the halls. Most classroom doors have to remain wide open to avoid potential lawsuits involving inappropriate teacher behavior. But every kind of sound plus all the teachers’ voices echo down the corridor. I don’t know how any kid can concentrate. I wouldn’t have been able to. What about you?
Oh, sorry you had to see that! My goodness, look at that graffiti: stick figures in sex positions and words like ‘b—’ and ‘m—-f—-’ and gang tags. Adolescents think they’re the first to shock us with sex stuff and bad language. Just expect to see more of it on occasion: inside books; on walls; in restroom stalls; scratched into painted lockers, windows, steel doors, even video monitors.
I wanted to mention to you an outdated feature of our nation’s schools in the 21st century: Some classrooms still use VCRs and video monitors instead of DVD projectors or Smart Boards with internet connection. You would think every single classroom in America would at least have a Smart Board by now and every student supplied or required to have a laptop for school. Maybe by 2050, huh? Of course, who knows how technology will change by then?
So classrooms here along the first floor seem to be running smoothly. Most classes are very organized, some in apparent disarray. It depends on the teacher and style. Some administrators will demand a streamlined approach, however, and those schools will have to follow suit. A school’s tone, its order or chaos, starts at the top with the principal.
Up the down staircase
Ready to go upstairs? No, we can’t take the elevator, dear. They rarely work in some schools. I’m not sure how this inconvenience and hazard continues after the Americans with Disabilities Act, but it does. Accommodations are made if a student needs to go upstairs. For example, a kid in a wheelchair may have an assigned crew—and other kids will volunteer for this—to lift and carry the kid in chair up a flight of stairs. Other arrangements may be to keep a kid in a wheelchair on the first floor, maybe arranging for a tutor if the math lab is upstairs, for example.
Let’s step into this classroom. Ooops! Gosh, were you hit by that tiny bit of eraser? Feels like shrapnel, doesn’t it? Dog-gone kids. Just quietly walk around the room. Notice how students suddenly are paying attention to the teacher, acting studious, reading. They want to impress you because they don’t know who you are and why you’re here. They think you’re monitoring their behavior. At this moment, they’re truly learning and concentrating. This is a beautiful sight, what school’s all about. Sigh.
But look around the room. See? No cameras anywhere. That’s a problem in this day and age. If a kid is so inclined to misbehave or act out, it’s the teacher’s word against the student or students. But with you here, there will be no outburst, not until you are gone and things get back to normal. Unfortunately, school classrooms should have cameras by now, don’t you agree?
Oh no! That sudden loud order from the vice principal means we’re in lock down. We have to stay in this classroom for now. We’ll know it’s over when we hear a special code over the PA. See how the teacher places a red or green card outside the door then locks it, if it can be locked, while students remain in their seats or in worse scenarios crouch together in a back corner? I think this lock down is to let drug dogs roam free, an unannounced routine. Usually the dogs sniff out something in student lockers or backpacks. Later we’ll probably see police officers escorting arrested adolescents, hands cuffed behind their backs, as they leave school.
Yes, this school is one of many with armed police officers, about one per high school and middle school. This school district has its own police force. Years ago schools used security officers without guns. But in recent years, they’ve been replaced by real law officers who wear handguns. I guess everyone feels safer.
Now that lock down is over, let’s go into the staff parking lot. Students are not allowed access, but there’s no fencing or any way to prevent stragglers from passing through. Today I see four cars have been keyed, all of them red. That means it’s a gang thing, a retaliation of sorts. Adolescents who are entrenched in gang culture assume their teachers are gang members, too. There are cameras monitoring activity around the school’s exterior. Maybe those who scratched the cars will be caught but not if they wore hoodies and aren’t from this school.
Let’s go back inside to watch lunch time. Some cafeterias are tightly monitored with students not allowed to talk above a whisper while some schools allow low conversation. The thing is: kids are known to get out of control quickly, group laugh, ruff house, yell, break into fights or throw food. So don’t be alarmed if you hear a coach or loud teacher instruct everyone: “QUIET!! NO TALKING.” I’m sorry teachers have to come across as mean. You know they really aren’t. It’s just hundreds of youngsters and five teachers monitoring lunch, like keeping a lid on a boiling pot sometimes.
Skip to my Lou
Would you like to pop in to another public school for afternoon touring? Let’s go! This is an elementary school where most students are from Spanish-speaking homes. Many of their teachers also speak Spanish as their native language. This school has a bilingual program whereby every other day, lessons are taught in one language or the other. For example, Monday may be English, Tuesday Spanish, and back and forth through the week. The effectiveness of this type of bilingual education is skewed because a confused kid will often have to break into Spanish on those English-only days to figure out what’s going on. It’s hard on them, and if the teacher only speaks English, the kid must figure out what’s being said and taught sink or swim. Their mandatory state tests will be in Spanish until they reach middle school. Some bilingual teachers support full English immersion at school.
Before leaving, let’s go outside to the rows of small metal buildings surrounding the school. They’re called portables, one-room buildings placed here decades ago as a temporary measure until the school was expanded. But by now, many portables are fifty years old, and few schools actually were expanded through the centuries. Heating and air conditioning are problems in some portables but also throughout many school buildings. There are all kinds of reasons, but mostly the air ventilation systems are not monitored and maintained by an on-site crew. It can take years for air in one freezing wing to be repaired while another area across the school building remains unbearably hot. It’s the way it is. Students learn to bring jackets or wear layers every single school day: summer, autumn, winter and spring.
And that brings me to my final concern about our nation’s school system. Why aren’t American schools year-round by now? It’s practically the middle of the 21st century, and the long summer breaks have been unnecessary for decades. Expanding the school year would be a good place to start in improving our students’ education and retention. Teachers, families and states may kick and scream about it. But you know a lot of knowledge has gone to the wayside in order to maintain a nine-month school year decade after decade.
I understand your reluctance to take American public schools seriously. You support privatizing all services, providing school choice to everyone, and doing away with the U.S. Department of Education altogether. In countering these proposals or grand plan, in actuality our nation’s schools should be under one command. The Department of Education should enforce the same curriculum for every school, rural and urban, so communities aren’t set back by poverty and school board politics. Communities and citizens have failed our schools. The oversight for correction, modernization or privatization must be at the federal level. States would disagree on student courses that are important and essential. But that is a national decision. And you, Madam DeVos, are the Decider.
It’s been my pleasure showing you just a couple of our urban public schools. B’bye! Feel free to call me any time.
