<p>There are public schools and then there are other public schools.</p>
<p>I have just begun a part-time job as Site Manager to the afterschool program in our suburb’s district. Although S-2 only attended here for h.s., when we moved in, I had the impression it was a toney, well-managed district (it is) with strong percentages of grads going on to college (they do).</p>
<p>My area of expertise is in Elementary Education. Before moving here, I taught First and Second grades in a poverty rural elementary school in upstate NY (Catskill Mountains) where students’ demography is roughly equal by thirds: African-American, Latino, Caucasian. There are no significant commercial/industrial tax sources in the community to generate resources for quality schooling. That tourism industry fell on hard times since the l970’s and hasn’t recovered.</p>
<p>Many children were being raised by rural grannies who live upstate, whose children went to NYC and fell apart financially or druggily there. The grannies are descendants of the largely AA and Latino labor force from the resort industry that thrived in the l950’s-60’s. The grannies are saving their grandchildren, but are sometimes angry at their own children (for making them child-raisers again). They contribute a swat to the behind and admonitions to mind the teacher, but it’s a fear-based view of school. </p>
<p>Those children that stay in the community and become parents are often young themselves, rarely married, and in the early stages of coupledom where the daddies are still hanging around. So I usually had a single mom and curious/interested dad who attended various school events. The parents had recent memory of a crummy high school experience themselves, so they also were wary of coming back into a public school building, this time to shepherd their little 5-year-old into the same poor school community. Although a lot of the attitude was fear-based, they too echoed the admonition to “show respect for your teacher.” </p>
<p>With this baseline of family support, I worked with some burned-out and some gifted young teachers who had family ties to the community - went off to state teachers colleges and returned to work at schools they had attended themselves. </p>
<p>Last week, as I walked through the elementary school halls in my “toney” district, peeking into classrooms just being set up, I saw the stunning difference in physical resources. The rooms were TWICE as large, bright and sunny. Centers were abundant, 6x as many computers per child as in the poverty district. It was clean and looked happy, even before the children arrived for Day One. I saw areas for quiet reading, and school-owned resources for manipuatlive math and science. I recall how much the other teachers and I purchased and brought into our classes to supply more than just the workbooks and curriculum binders. I recalled the pennies-type budget we were allowed to purchase Level Reading books, and our scramble to find books at garage sales prior to school opening day for our classrooms, levelling them by our training so students would have age-appropriate reading matter in the class. </p>
<p>I can write about it descriptively now, but honestly, last week as I peeked into all these attractive modern suburban classrooms that teachers were setting up for a new year, I remembered the leaky-roofed dingy schools of our previous home where I’d taught. I choked up. The difference in resources was too great, and palpable. </p>
<p>I thought: How can we possibly think that being in K or First Grade is equal for both sets of American children? It’s worlds apart. The resource gap between rich and poor districts, always based on local tax base of housing and businesses, is a huge problem. It hurt to see it right in front of my eyes.</p>