WHERE DO WE GO FROM THERE?
In September and the Fall of the year of 1999, you may recall ,we, as a nation, were faced with a series violence in our public schools system which shook the very foundations of our educational system.
Much talk was heard in those days about new and better ways to avoid such tragic events in the the future. Some of the suggestions for change, we now see, were as silly as were the suggestions were for many of the New Century crisis conditions we worried about so extensively at about the same time.
What changes will be made in our public education system as result of of that surge of violence at the end of the old century?
Very little, it seems.
There was an upsurge of "at home " teaching, I would say and, perhaps, a resurgence of the private school on the American educational scene.
All fifty states have already legalized "at home" tutoring if parents choose to do so and teach their own children. Some 700,000 such students are so enrolled and it is a short step for several families to group together; hire teachers and have their own private schools. There are religiously oriented "Acadamies" scattered through out the country now and these, I think, will also prosper as a result of the violence. Many of the schools in this group have remained small because they cater primarily to those within the religious denomination or sect sponsoring them. They were all started as a direct result of the segregation legislation of the 60's. As they have grown they have relaxed religious rules somewhat and are more open for new membership than they were originally.
Gun control areas for discussion, remains pretty much the same now as it was three years later. In our immediate area of Virginia where deer hunting is, for many, a basic part of the school year, bickering continues as to determine if an unloaded shotgun may be left locked in a pick-up truck on a school parkig lot, while the student-driver-owner is inside at his studies. Is a locked pickup a properly storage container for the gun as long as the
student-owner,or user, has the truck key and the ammunition supplies for said weapon sequestered? Such nicities as that have crowded the acceptance of such legislation out of the practable picture.
Even while much talk about "changes" in the school system continue, I I doubt that much will move. The "system" is too deeply established to expect it to change to any marked degree. The teacher's "labor unions" are in control and have been for some time, while ,at the same time, administrative personnel are so deeply entrenched in a tenured structure of academic ignorance that they find it difficult to accept. Whatever changes we see in the educational system will hit in time, as a result of the frightening new upsurge of violence, but that too will be more or less forgotten quickly. Many states rushed legislation through three years age, There was a clamouring for re-establishment of old "standards" and " values" and the politicians climbed on popular bandwagon for a time.
That surge of violence was one of the most disruptive things to come up on the American social scene in a long time and, coupled, as it was with excessive scandals in government and a generally lowering of morality in our culture, it was taken seriously by many people. But this year, locally, just before the opening of school this past week, the “crisis” in schools demanded the prompt removal of carpeting from all class rooms and replacement with tiles flooring. A threating mold had been discovered.
So, somebody's out there making changes, you see. All is not lost.
a.l.m. August 31, 2003 [c618wds]
