I’ve posted before on the Reason.tv series from Drew Carey, entitled, “Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey.” Today, I’m posting Episode Two from that series, about the Cleveland public schools.
I’ve not posted recently on our schools, and for that lack of attention, I’m surely culpable. (There are no column-inch limitations in cyberspace — there are plenty of electrons to go around, for all kinds of topics.) Where I have posted on education most recently, it was about an incident and its aftermath (the Minett case), that was an educational issue only in part. In fact, I think that case was best understood apart from more conventional school law concerns.
Most educational issues, fortunately, are genuinely school matters, and involve a curriculum, the teaching of it, and students’ responses to that teaching.
Although we’re a small town, only a fraction of the size of Cleveland, we have some attributes of a much larger city. We are ethnically diverse, as Cleveland is, for example. I’m convinced that the last census count under-represented some ethnic groups within town, and in any event, there’s been even more demographic change since the 2000 census.
Sadly, we also have a problem that large cities have: a significant number of Whitewater families with children in poverty. That condition is more common to rural America than brochures, press releases, or marketing campaigns will ever acknowledge. I’ve yet to see a marketing effort, for any city, along the lines of “You may not have known, but we have a lot of indigent families in town, and we think it’s time to mention the fact.”
Perhaps, just perhaps, there are lessons that we could learn from places like Cleveland, or rising-star programs like the one in Oakland, California.
I’ll follow up, tomorrow, with a post on the possibility of a charter school in Whitewater. Libertarians have long-favored charter schools, and I’ll write about the possibility, and aspects of its proposed implementation, for our town.
Here’s the description accompanying the video:
Cleveland’s public schools are failing to prepare students for their futures and as a result, all parents who can afford to have been fleeing to the suburbs for decades.
Yet some urban schools, like Think College Now in Oakland, California are finding out that a combination of administrative autonomy and accountability can lead to amazing results.
Within Cleveland’s own boundaries, charter schools are booming and delivering quality education at a fraction of the cost of traditional public schools. Does Cleveland have what it takes to fundamentally reform its K-12 education system and become a leader in 21st-century education?
Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey is written and produced by Paul Feine; camera and editing by Roger Richards and Alex Manning; narrated by Nick Gillespie; music by the Cleveland band Cats on Holiday.
Video Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvzh82EpWBU&feature=player_embedded
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