Dang, What She Said About Public Schools!
For some time now, I've been thinking about posting about the fact that I am in favor of sending my children to public school. Because I won't do the topic half as much justice as this well-written piece, here's what some mamas had to say In Defense of Neighborhood Schools. I echo their sentiments. Oftentimes my husband and I will land on the discussion of education, and without hesitation I advocate for sending my sons to a neighborhood school, the very school that Leslie refers to in her piece.
Community is such a beautiful thing, and it's one of the reasons why I we haven't considered moving to another city, or even to another neighborhood even though our family is quickly outgrowing our house. Both my husband and I share this vision of letting our sons walk or bike to our neighborhood school. We see our sons surrounded by a great support network of families which also happen to be our neighbors and friends. Should we need a last-minute babysitter or someone to pinch hit for us, we could call on our neighbors to step in. We see the value in developing deep meaningful friendships that begins at an early age, and can be so easy when your best friend lives within such close proximity. The fate of public schools can only improve with strong support of the community and sending your kids to your neighborhood school. Both my husband and I are products of public education, and we turned out just fine.
My husband and I come from families of public school teachers and we feel the same way.
In my opinion, it's so important that we demand a solid education and sense of community for all kids. It would be terrible to have a situation where you have to have money to be acquire a good education (private school). The most talented kids who will be huge future contributors to society aren't always the kids with parental cash... an example.. Paris Hilton, she ain't gonna find a cure for cancer.
Posted by: Monica | December 01, 2005 at 12:53 PM
My kids will also go to public schools. Sabin rocks!
Posted by: afrindiemum | December 01, 2005 at 03:55 PM
Yeah...I share the sentiment, but our neighborhood school is Woodlawn Elementary, the poorest performing and possibly most dangerous elementary school in PDX. I went there to check it out when Fionn was a baby, and met with some teachers, and just tried to get a vibe, and my overwhelming reaction was "no way, man." I'll take another look before I look elsewhere, but, I have to say, I'm not going to have my hypersensitive kid be a sacrificial lamb to support my politics. It's complicated, I'm a teacher myself, and the parents of my soon to be Kindergarten students always ask my opinion, and want to know where I'm sending Fionn, and why. There is no easy answer. (Depending on your zip code!) I could even get behind a really struggling neighborhood school, but a failing, hopeless one is just too much for me to take on. We didn't think about it when we moved in here 8 years ago; we just got the coolest house we could afford. Kids weren't even on the radar. oops. SO, the kid will have his neighborhood friends, and his school friends. So it goes.
Posted by: Fionasnana | December 03, 2005 at 04:10 AM
I am totally supportive of public schools, but having spent a lot of time in at least 50% of them in this state for a previous job, I have to say that there are some that I would not send my child to. I have to also admit that we did move looking for more of a sense of community and diversity (our tiny street alone now is more culturally diverse than the entire neighborhood we lived in before), and also our son's future schooling in mind. That said, I agree that community is vital to the success of public schools and it was evident to me when I would visit schools where strong community was lacking. I think we all have to do what we can as parents and advocates for our children to ensure our children get the best education possible; sometimes that means fighting the good fight for better quality education in our neighborhood public schools, sometimes that means recognizing when the fight is more than you can handle and would be at the expense of your child's education. This is a tough one depending on where you live, I think. Overall, I do think the majority of our public schools do an excellent job of educating and nurturing our kids (I went to public schools here and survived! Is that a t-shirt? Just kidding :)
Posted by: Marlynn | December 04, 2005 at 01:33 PM