Imagine, if you will, a classroom with 35 students in it. The desks are in various states of disrepair; chunks missing, the tops engraved with 50 years worth of names, dates, profanity. Two or three of those 35 students don't have desks at all. Teachers desks are too small or too broken. Some of the teachers don't even have their own desk, because they have to share a room with another teacher. Some classes don't have enough textbooks, and some are torn up and unreadable. In the the summer the heat is on; in the winter the heat is broken.
Now, walk out of that imaginary classroom. It's raining outside, so the roof is leaking. There's some brown gunk running down the walls, but no one knows what it is, so it stays there for a while. There are entire conversations written out on the bathroom walls and stalls. It's $60 if you want to play sports. It's another $60 to join the Student Council or SADD. The members of that SADD group can barely afford to go to the middle school and meet with the incoming eighth graders because it's $200 for a bus to go down the street. Teachers have taken pay cut after pay cut after pay cut in stride, when teacher's salaries are lower than everyone else's to begin with.
The library is stocked with irrelevant and outdated books. The computers are from the Stone Age of the age of computers. The copier works only half the time; every other day in a good week. There aren't enough seats in the cafeteria for every student to eat their lunch.
Imagine the regional accredidation team's reaction when they were thrown into the same situation that the teachers and students in that school must deal with every day. They were deeply impressed by the faculty and student representatives' attempts to make the best of their situation. The team thinks the curriculum is great, the teachers are knowledgable. The school has a mission statement, and uses it in lesson plans and as a guideline for every school day.
But the building, they said, is not clean enough. Class sizes are not small enough. Technology in the classrooms and library is not new enough.
The school is placed on warning status.
The news is discouraging, but reflects what the school body already knows: It's not good enough, now let's change it.
So the school works for a change. A parent advocacy group is formed; its goal to get class sizes to 25 students. The faculty works endlessly to prepare a budget that will address the needs of the school and the students. The town doesn't have any money, so the plan must go to town meeting. It passes. Now it faces the ultimate test: Special Election. The Under-25 group works tirelessly to educate the town about the issue. The faculty and students work to raise awareness. Everybody knows the fate of the school's accredidation rests on this vote.
It fails.
It hits the people that worked hardest to pass the measure like a car going full speed down the highway. The parents who's kids most likely will not have an accredited high school in their town. The parents who's kids are currently in the high school, but may not have an accredidation to back up their diploma.
It hits those parents and those kids hard, because they know that their neighbors are the ones that voted against the plan. The parents who's kids are all grown up. They don't need an accredited high school. The senior citizens, who were recently won millions of dollars to renovate their senior center. They don't need an accredited high school. Their taxes are already high enough, why raise them again for things they don't need?
Fast forward two years. The class of 2008 is walking across the stage, recieving their diplomas one by one. But the night is lacking. The arena is quieter than in recent years. The graduates look down at the paper they've just recieved all dressed up in a little leather booklet. It's their diploma. Only, it's really just a piece of paper. Because remember that plan to improve the school so that it would get full accredidation? It failed.
The previous four years of the graduates' lives, mean nothing. The piece of paper inside that leather booklet that they've worked hard and long for, means nothing.
Their high school diploma.
Means nothing.
I am a student enrolled at this high school. The faculty, superintendant, and other students these past two years have worked relentlessly to get our school accredited. It has been hard tonight for me to stand by and watch my future begin to discintigrate before my eyes. I hope that if you read this article, you'll think about what is happening in your community. What is going on in your daughter's school, your son's school, your grandchildrens' schools, your school? Even if you don't have a child currently enrolled in your town's school, think about the parents that do. It may mean a slight increase in your taxes. But even though those kids are kids now, in the future they will be your leaders. Your Congressmen and Congresswomen. Representatives and Senators. A handful will be your future Presidents. What they do while they are in these positions of power all starts with their education. The better the education you allow them to have, the better they can represent you later.
