Incomplete Diagnosis

Ms. Michelle Rhee, whose appointment as the new superintendent of the District of Columbia Public Schools system is slated to be announced today by Washington, DC Mayor Adrian M. Fenty may have gotten off on a rocky start before even she could begin her new job. Her diagnosis of the problem with the troubled DC Public School System is wrong. She strongly believes that only good teachers will make the difference in any school.

But I respectfully disagree with her. The problems facing the DC Public Schools System are several and multi-faceted. They range from the various broken dawn homes and families from which most of the children in DC public schools come to the faceless bureaucratic machinery that over-burdens what actually transpires in the schools right in the classrooms. A child who is not properly brought up to respect the authority of significant others and adults is not ready for the rigors of academics. That child will refuse to abide by all the rules that make schools what they are. When schools are not seen as institutions, teachers cannot perform as authority figures, and everything else will fall by the way side as a result.

The first problem with educating children in the DC Public Schools System derives from their homes. One is aware of the legacies of slavery, etc. that make it difficult for black people to be trustful of authority in the US. Such legacies have for a long time made it possible for teachers to take advantage of the system to prey on the children placed on their care. This is to the degree that teachers go out of their ways to place children on the path that will systematically lead them to self-destruction. In a normal world, teachers teach and nurture children under their care but nit destroy them. But parents must also be trustful of the teachers under whose care they place their children; else they will not be trustful of their judgment. Parents, even if they lack the ability to impart discipline on their children, must be willing to cede some authority to the teachers to hew off whatever rough edges that their children bring from home to school. Those rough edges are indeed, some of the factors that interfere with the teaching and learning processes, when they are brought into the classrooms and allowed to fester.

Mr. Fenty must return to the voters, to parents in the City to ascertain the degree to which they are willing to rise to their responsibility as parents and as partners in the education of their children. Unless that happens, it is only going to be a matter of time before a burn-out sets in to erode the Mayor’s confidence in Ms. Rhee. That burn-out will affect her credibility, and things will begin to fall apart, as has often been the case. She will not be a miracle woman who will deliver what is not there. The problem with the DC Public Schools system must be fixed in the over all for it to functional well. Otherwise, Ms. Rhee’s appointment will be another musical chair, and as has been the case in the past, the cheers may not be there when she moves on.