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The Moscow School Board is currently coping with two dilemmas: short term and long term problems.
The short term problem is due for solution by next fall, when some restructuring will be cobbled together, probably pleasing no one. I hope the result is not as bizarre as the "compromise" a dozen years ago, when Lena retained excessive enrollment, and the new mobile classroom was [unnecessarily] placed by McDonald.
The long term problem is how to regain support among the Moscow voters. Fundamental changes are needed.
Communication from the district has been abysmal for years. Teachers love to lament the lack of parental involvement, but this is a two-way street. When my son attended the Moscow schools (1986-1994, 1997-1999), I found the lines of communication to be almost non-existant.
Perhaps the district can address some unholy sacred cows which still permeate our marginally functional schools. I have included an excerpt from Camille Paglia which is worth pondering.
************* Camille Paglia excerpt **************
The entire American school system needs to be stringently reexamined from primary grades through college. If high school has turned into a seething arena of boredom and competitive tension erupting in mayhem, it's partly (as I told Interview magazine after the Columbine massacre two years ago) because modern schools have become dungeons for active young men at their most hormonally driven period of life.
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Forcing restless teens of both sexes to sit like robots in regimented rows in crowded classrooms for the better part of each day is a pointless, sadistic exercise except for those with their sights on office jobs. This school system is not even 200 years old, yet most people treat it as if the burning bush floated it down from Mount Sinai. Too often, school has become a form of mental and physical oppression.
Exactly what is being taught? Certainly not wisdom or perspective on life. Can anyone honestly claim that current high school students know more about history, science, language and the arts than students 40 years ago? As for college students, the shallowness of their training in the humanities has become all too evident as graduates of the elite schools have entered the professions and the media over the past 20 years.
A gigantic, self-perpetuating school system is forcing students along a pre-professional track whether they want it or not. Perhaps as many as half the college students currently enrolled in the elite schools may not really want to be there but have just numbly followed along in the track of their parents' and peers' social expectations. They have no other options. If our pampered students have the best of all possible worlds, why are so many of them binge-drinking and anesthetizing themselves with brain-wrecking designer drugs?
End of Camille Paglia excerpt. The entire item can be read at
http://www.salon.com/people/col/pagl/2001/03/21/spring/index.html
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For Vision2020 readers who have not seen my postings over the years, I am including a link to one pertinent posting. You are welcome to search the archives for other missives.
http://lists.fsr.com/vision2020/1998/9802/0252.html
For readers who want to expand their awareness of schools outside the bounds reported by the local media, the web is a rich resource. Almost every major city newspaper has a link to education news. Some newspapers are mindless advocates of the local systems (like the Moscow Daily News used to be), but some newspapers provide meat in their stories, and even an occasional thought-provoking editorial.
Robert Probasco rcprobas@email.com
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