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New Kid on the Blog
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Hello, my name is Chris Krehmeyer, President and CEO of Beyond Housing and your host for New Kid on the Blog. This blog is provided as a community service to educate, enlighten and empower people concerning housing, the foreclosure crisis, community development, poverty and any other topic relevant to the mission of Beyond Housing. Beyond Housing reserves the right to approve any comment posted in response to my blogs and will not post any comment that contains offensive or suggestive language. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, we can disagree without being disagreeable. I am looking forward to exchanging ideas with you.
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Apr
19
Written by:
Chris Krehmeyer
4/19/2009 11:03 AM
Here we go again! Arne Duncan on the national level and Kelvin Adams on the local level are leading the reform of public education. Both men seem very thoughtful, sincere and committed to making the public education system better. My fear is that they too will fall into thinking in a silo trap that true change can happen by just focusing internally on systems. Teacher accountability, principal accountability, more technology, better buildings and more – all good issues to focus on but even as a collective group if success is had on these topics test scores will not move as far as they might otherwise due to all the real life issues of poverty so many students and their families face each and everyday.
J.D. Forbes has an incredibly moving piece in today’s Post-Dispatch where he juxtaposed a murder of yet another young man in North St. Louis with a small in-home day care for children not yet in kindergarten just one block away. Forbes described and through his photos depicted the crime scene, the police investigation, the neighbors angst, frustration and resignation as well as the innocence of the young children finger painting in the front yard of this day care. Jonothon Kozol wrote in his great book, Amazing Grace, that children at this young age no matter their life circumstances are all the same and that looking into their eyes one can see “pure innocence”. Kozol goes on to sadly point out that just a few years later the daily onslaught of what poverty does to families and communities slowly takes away this innocence and with it the hopes and dreams of far too many children.
It is time that we acknowledge that as uncomfortable as a discussion around poverty makes us feel it must occur. Let us have the discussion about what has worked and what hasn’t. Let’s determine how we can look to what has worked or is working today and do more of it. Our economic times are difficult but there is no time to wait when a child’s life hangs in the balance.
I hope that as Mr. Duncan and Mr. Adams continue on their difficult journey’s to fix an educational system that has been broke for far too long that they each force leaders at all levels to make strong families and strong communities an intentionally integrated part of their work. At the end of Forbes’ article he describes walking away from the young children sitting and finger painting and one of them yells out “I love you” – we should love these beautiful, innocent children enough to not only make their schools better but to help their families be stronger and their neighborhoods better.
Please let me know what you think of this idea of linking education reform with strengthening families and communities.
Tags:
6 comment(s) so far...
Re: Public Education Reform Must have a Partnership with Community Development
Chris,
I think you're definitely on the right track. We cannot continue to look at improving only 1 part of the whole and somehow thinking this will "cure" the entire problem. If a body has cancer, it would be ludicrous to treat only one foot or one arm - the entire body needs to be treated aggressively until the cancer is gone.
In the same way, without a thorough, thoughtful approach (i.e. linking education reform with strengthening families and communities as you suggest in your blog) to all aspects of the problems facing our society today, the cancer will not be cured and the patient will become terminal.
Keep fighting the good fight - it's because of concerned, committed individuals like you that give me hope for a better future.
Thanks for all you and Beyond Housing do!
By steve bartholow on
4/20/2009 9:03 AM
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Re: Public Education Reform Must have a Partnership with Community Development
Christopher Krehmeyer:
Every teacher knows the extremely difficult, up-hill battle these children face every day of their lives. The home is where it all begins, and teachers can not replace what they lack in their families, what they lack in environmental enrichment, what they lack in nutrition, health care, and security . The kids start to give up in third or fourth grade, and many have developed a jaded, wearied attitude earlier than that. If they have problems with their ability to learn language, it has its causes in everything that they do not have. They do not have parents that can read and write, and they may have mothers who did drugs and alcohol while they were in utero. They have parents in prison, and they have gone hungry many nights. They come to school and eat the awful food provided by the food service, Aramark. This means they eat greasy pizza, burritos, and hot dogs, maybe an overcooked tray of soggy green beans or corn, and a desert with cupcakes, chocolate donuts, and one peice of fruit. They often do not eat the fruit, and never eat the vegetables. Then at home, they eat whatever the adult brings home from their job at the fast food restaurant. In the Green party, we have labeled this diet ¨Nutricide¨. The only healthcare they have is the school nurse who is not always at their school. The colds and flu are constantly moving among the littler ones. They have dirty clothes and dirty faces, and they have tooth infections that if not taken care of, can kill them.
They believe that they have little to no chance to get out of poverty, and most of them understand that their adult lives will not be any different than their parents. They learn the importance of fighting and dominance over the other kids. The belief that they do not deserve anything and will have to fight to get anything is ubiquitous. Teachers have to be able to break through this culture, and making the lessons interesting and fun, being a good conflict resolver and disciplinarian, and working hundreds of times harder than their students is not doing it. These children need everything and mostly the intangibles things such as emotional support and caring. Teachers can not fill this role. Not completely.
By Substitute Teacher in SLPS on
5/1/2009 10:26 AM
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Re: Public Education Reform Must have a Partnership with Community Development
Chris, would your organization stand behind a charter school upstart?
By S. Waggoner on
5/15/2009 10:47 AM
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Re: Public Education Reform Must have a Partnership with Community Development
I rarely say no to an opportunity on my first take - let me know what the topics are.
Chris
By Chris Krehmeyer on
5/15/2009 12:27 PM
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Re: Public Education Reform Must have a Partnership with Community Development
Good post, but have you thought about Public Education Reform Must have a Partnership with Community Development before?
By Vino Rosso Piemonte on
8/20/2009 8:07 AM
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Re: Public Education Reform Must have a Partnership with Community Development
Vino Rosso Piemonte,The idea is not new just really complicated to make happen. Lots of people smarter than I have thought of this link - I am just trying to keep the idea out there.Chris
By Chris Krehmeyer on
8/21/2009 7:39 AM
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