Investment in Education is the PATH out of this MESS

If you are like me and you've suddenly found yourself to be a working-from-home-single-parent-of-two-who-now-also-apparently-teaches-homeschool it is quite likely that your appreciation for what your children's schools offer has increased by one gazillion percent. The care, structure and nurturing that our schools provide is what allows us to be successful functioning adults with children. As the daughter of two school teachers and an adjunct professor at a community college,  I thought I already understood the importance of the education system. Chicago schools have already faced weeks of homeschooling this school year as CPS teachers went on strike to get a better contract for their students. But for those who couldn't keep their kids home, there was always daycare and camp and even a play camp option at school. It isn't until global pandemics hit and those options are completely wiped dry for ALL of us, that we begin to understand what value our schools are providing us as working parents.

It has been five weeks of homeschooling madness and I can't remember what my name is anymore. There are really only two options when you are trapped at home with children 24/7 without help.

1. Be present and available to play and teach and answer the 1 bazillion questions that come out of those cute little mouths.
-or-
2. Shove a remote with Disney Plus in their cute little hands and retreat to a far away room, close the door and pray they don't find you and ask for snacks.

There really isn't any other option and to be honest...even option 2 doesn't really do much if you need to get work done. My children made no more than 6 appearances in my zoom classrooms on the first day of trying to teach online. If there is a moment for us to truly understand and appreciate educators...NOW IS THE TIME. Even if you don't have children of your own, if you are trying to conduct any kind of work with a parent who is now working from home with children, I'm sure you are seeing the ineffectiveness at play. Education systems are paramount to our collective success.

And yet we only spend 2% of our federal taxes on education. TWO percent. But spending isn't the only problem. If fact, America's spending isn't far off from other countries with better educational systems. But when you look at the statistics of how US students fair next to students from other countries there is an embarrassingly wide gap. According to a 2018 article in the Guardian the most glaring difference is in teacher pay.  In general teachers in the US are not trusted, overworked, and underpaid, leaving a high burn-out rate. The work and the model isn't sustainable.  In Finland, one of the most respected educational systems in the world, teachers are paid as much as lawyers and doctors. In fact, the acceptance rate into an education based graduate program is lower than medical and law schools, which means they are drawing among the most intelligent pool of individuals in the country to lead classrooms. In addition, education is 100% free all the way up to a PhD.

Why does this matter?

In this country we like to tell our children that they can be whoever they want to be. But that isn't really true is it? Only those who can afford to invest in their children's education can claim this fact. You can't really become a doctor if your mom can't afford to feed you breakfast and if your mom can't afford breakfast she certainly can't afford eight years of med school. Educational success in this country is based on income. The poorest schools in our country get the least amount of support. We have a reward based system. If your school's students do well on standardized tests, your school will get more funding. So the poorer schools get less resources to allow their students to succeed. In some of the public schools in Chicago, there is no library, nor access to counselors or specialists. These aren't breeding grounds for bright stars of tomorrow, they are holding cells for students who cannot see a future beyond their front door.

But...If it's not affecting your kids or your school why should you care?

Here's the thing. It is affecting everyone. When we don't give every child the same opportunity to succeed, our country loses. Our country has failed time and time again to acknowledge the importance of our education system by cranking out bullshit governmental
mandates that were not researched or backed by people who work in the field like common core and "no child left behind" which, by the way has left every child behind. Holding each child to some arbitrary standard at each grade level, is like telling kids who aren't 5 feet by 6th grade that they cannot continue on until they grow. But here's the thing...some kids may never be 5 feet tall, does that make them stupid or unworthy? No! There is no STANDARD for learning when every human is born with different gifts and abilities. We cannot demand tests equate success when there is no universal goal for what success actually is. Each state spends 1.7 billion dollars on standardized tests each year, and how is this helping improve our education system? This money would be wiser spent investing in a new system that values its teachers and consistently re-evaluates what works best for individual student improvement.

In Finland students are not given homework because it is believed that mastery happens in the classroom. I have implemented this belief in my college classroom. I assign very little homework that cannot be executed in the room and I have seen tremendous growth in the expectation that the learning happens in the room.  In Finland students are given a 15 minute recess break for every 45 minutes spent in the classroom. This has said to improve retention, memory and the ability to manage stressful situations. Because education is valued and every child is given equal opportunities to grow and learn, and every student is encouraged to grow within their unique gifts and strengths-- the work force is more equitably respected. In America during this time where most of our jobs have been deemed non-essential we are finally seeing the value of grocery store workers and public transportation operators. We suddenly see the value of our custodial staff and our restaurant workers as providing things we need to survive a global pandemic. But it shouldn't take a pandemic to value every worker. You see it was this shift in focusing on education in Finland that brought pride in all elements of the work force and allowed their country to be the first in the world to eradicate homelessness.

Imagine that.

That is all it took. To look at every child and say...your life matters. Your success matters to our economy, to our collective success. Your gifts should be honed and celebrated and you will be important to all of us someday. Imagine if we could do that? Imagine a world that nurtures every child...that truly refuses to leave them behind, not by mandated testing but by nurturing and celebrating their gifts and potential by pushing them towards their strengths.

Of course this thought extends beyond education. In order to get there we have to decide that every child matters from the moment they are born which means offering universal health care. It means we must value everyones health as a priority and create mandates for paid sick-leave and maybe even paid-time off for mental health. We must re-evaluate the minimum wage or put caps on mortgage and rental rates to ensure that every citizen is able to afford housing as long as they are working. But before we can get there...we must come to acknowledge that if we want to imagine the most beautiful world we could live in, we cannot allow one child to fall between the gaps. We must show each child that they are important and valuable and worthy of the ground beneath their feet. I shudder to think how many Einsteins and Margaret Hamiltons and Mary Olivers we have lost in our failure to invest in our educational system. But we can turn it around...we can make a choice to demand more from our government on the other side of this.

So when we finally get to send our students back to their beloved teachers and their overcrowded classrooms, let us do more than wrapping starbucks gift cards in corny coffee mugs to their teachers on the last day before break. Let's show up in townhalls, city halls and elected officals offices and demand progress on improving our education system, increasing teacher pay and organizing systems for funding that gives educators autonomy in the methods for improvement. And let's not stop until we are next to Finland in the standings of education.  We can do this.

We can change our world... when we put our children first.

-Kirstin Franklin