The why oh why oh why

After a recent tour of schools in my district, I observed that residents of the 23rd district appear to have abandoned zoned public schools for the private and magnets. This purely anecdotal observation is or should be disturbing to public school educators because my district is predominately middle class, property owning and educated. In most cities, people like those who live in the 23rd district form the backbone of the public school system. They are more likely to have the kind of job that lets them out of work to participate in parent-teacher conferences or volunteer as a tutor or teacher"s aide. They are more likely to have a parent that does not work outside the home and is available to organize and execute fundraisers. They are more likely to be educated themselves and as a result have high expectation for the education of their children. They are also generally politically aware and inclined to become activists in support of public education.

So, last week, I posed the question as to why these irreplaceable people appear to have abandoned the zoned schools in their midst for other options. Since there are a bunch of smart and thoughtful people who live in the 23rd District, I got a few answers. (Before we begin, a couple of warnings, disclaimers and caveats: People make educational choices for all kinds of reasons. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Middle class does not mean white. We are lucky in Nashville to have a healthy non-white middle class thanks in large part to the prominent role institutions like Vanderbilt, Fisk and TSU play in our community. Not all private schools are perfect, to die for examples of educational excellence. Private schools in Nashville exist for a host of reasons and to varying degrees of success.

1. Influence and Control: This really tops the list of many parents. Being able to go to a school director and provide advice, suggestions or criticism and knowing that you are taken seriously and your input thoughtfully considered is important to many parents. Frankly, it is probably important to many private schools because they can hear what their customers are saying and respond accordingly. Which is not to say that our public schools should be run entirely by parent whim. I think most private school directors will tell you that they don't accede to every wish of their parents. But information provided by parents about divorces, health, safety, developmental issues, lunch menu are taken into account, along with other factors.

2. Plant and Equipment: Let's face it, private schools look nice. They are well landscaped, painted and cleaned regularly. Stuff that breaks gets fixed quickly. Public schools - in the words of one parent - usually look more like prisons than schools. The architecture is bland and unappealing, the landscaping is limited or non-existent. Almost everything is built and maintained on the cheap and it shows. Is all that green grass and mulch worth $10-15K a year in private school tuition? Maybe not, but perhaps some think it reflects an attention to detail and dedication to high standards inside the building. It is inexcusable and unacceptable but public schools frequently find themselves beginning the year without the supplies and equipment they need to operate. That sort of thing rarely happens in the private schools.

3. Teachers: My generation was probably the last to be educated by women who had few career opportunities. They were limited to things like teaching and nursing. As a result, the school systems could pick and choose the best and the brightest of women and pay them next to nothing. Now the best and the brightest can choose pretty much any profession they want and it is a much tougher job market for school systems. Spoiled by high quality, low cost labor, political leaders were not prepared for the sea change that was the 1970's. With salaries falling behind the competition, quality suffered. Much has been done to recover and compensation is rising back to the appropriate levels. But the chain was broken. The place of teacher in our culture was diminished. Those brilliant men and women who enter the teaching profession because they have a passion and a commitment to their art can choose between public, private and magnet schools. Private schools regularly pick off some of Metro's best talent and offer them the autonomy that site-based management brings even if it is for less money. To sweeten the pot, private schools often provide guaranteed admission and reduced tuition for a teacher's children.

4. Safety: The kind of violence that makes the newspapers is rare in our schools. But, for the involved, concerned and active parent, it only takes one incident. Parents still talk about the shooting at JT Moore which was what? Ten years ago? The lock down/arrest debacle at Hillwood was also quite some time ago but parents offer it as anecdotal evidence that our schools are not safe. They know about a few incidents and wonder about what they do not know or hear about. Is it fair? No. But it is a fact.

5. K-4, 5-8 and 9-12: My constituents who send their children to public school K-4, frequently move on to other alternatives in 5th grade because they find it completely inappropriate to put 5th graders on the same campus as 8th graders when peer influence is becoming a factor in their child's development. Peer influence tends to travel down the age scale. A 5th grader is more likely to pick up the habits and behaviors - good and bad - of an 8th grader than the other way around. Hillwood has found this to be a problem for the adjustment of 9th graders and in an acknowledgement of what every parent knows, segregated them in the Freshman Academy.

6. School size: An elementary or middle school should only be as large as the Principal's capacity to remember everyone's name. Anything bigger and anonymity provides refuge for cut-ups and a wilderness to get lost in for kids who need attention.

7. Academic Excellence: I put this last because it the first thing most parents look at. Poorly performing schools cannot attract families who care about their children's education and have the resources to find other alternatives. In turn, these schools have difficulty raising performance level because the kids left behind are often the most difficult and expensive to educate. Thus begins a downward spiral of deteriorating performance and loss of motivated and involved kids and families. For many middle class families, college preparedness is important. We appear to have this notion that middle school or 9th or 10th graders have some notion about what they want to do with their life. So, we let kids decide NOT to get on the college track before they actually have to decide if they are going to college. Whether you go to college or not, there are simply things you should know and intellectual skills you should have. Every kid should be educated as if they were going to college. If they don't actually go, they will likely prove themselves to be highly trainable in a trade.

I kind of breezed by a discussion of the magnet school option. A lot of my constituents send their kids to magnets and several teach at them. Magnet schools prove how great public education can be. Our academic magnets provide an education second to nothing else in this city. The college entrance statistics on kids who graduate from Hume Fogg and MLK rival those of top college prep schools in this country. As one parent says "private school education at public school prices." Without magnets, much of the parent support that still exists for public education in Nashville will deteriorate further. But magnets, like private schools, skim the best teachers, students and families off the zoned schools and educate in a way that should be the norm, not the exception. Academic magnets are one of the few ways we keep a limited grip on middle class families. But for reasons I have never fully understood, we only offer this option to a limited number of families each year and force the rest to find other alternatives.