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Community will: The ABCs of successful public education
Editor's Notes
By Bob Bouyea
Jon Butzon is passionate about education. You could see that as he spoke about helping all children succeed in school.
“In 1961, President John F. Kennedy made his famous speech about how we were going to walk on the moon within a decade. The thing that made that possible was our national will,” said Butzon, the executive director of the Charleston Education Network, a private, nonprofit organization whose mission is to advocate for children, systemic change and for the achievement of excellence in public education.
The goal of improving our education system so we have well-educated and employable students graduating is a collective community wide will, Butzon said.
He and four other panelists spoke to about 100 attendees of a recent Business Journal forum on education. The others were Charleston County School District superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, school board member Brian Moody, Butch Clift, apprenticeship coordinator for the Carolinas Associated General Contractors, the largest construction trade association in the Carolinas, and Anita Zucker, a former teacher and director of community relations for The InterTech Group Inc.
The panelists agreed that our school districts need our continued help. But why do the school districts need so much help? Don’t we pay our taxes, which allows the districts to hire teachers and other staff members?
Goodloe-Johnson puts that into perspective. First she identifies herself as the mother of 42,000 students. Second she points out that there are a lot more demands on teachers then ever.
“People don’t understand what it takes to be a teacher or a principal or an administer today,” she said.
And she is right.
They are disciplinarians. In some cases, they are teaching children what is appropriate behavior while trying to teach reading and math and language arts and social studies and science. National statistics show that the majority of a teacher’s time is spent dealing with discipline issues involving a few students. The rest of the class suffers because of this.
They have to be nurses. They have to make sure some students take their medicines at the appropriate time.
They have to be financiers. They invest their money to buy pencils, paper, art supplies, tissues, hand soap and much more, and receive 0% return, monetarily.
They have to be detectives. They are required to report suspected abuse. They need to be on the look out for any violent tendencies in students. If they fail to realize that a bruise was not the result of a playground fall or miss a potential sign of a violent student, they could jeopardize their career.
They have to be counselors. They must be able to spot potential disabilities, whether emotional, physical or learning. And then advise the parent that professional help is needed.
The have to be lawyers. They must know the intricacies of the No Child Left Behind Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, to name a few. And if the laws aren’t carried out to the letter, and even sometimes when they are, parents don’t think twice about suing if they perceive any inequities in the education their child is receiving.
And on top of all that, they have to achieve excellence in teaching reading, math, social studies, language arts and science as required under the NCLB. And they are looked upon to develop the area’s future workforce.
Even if educators weren’t burdened by all this, there is still the issue of children who aren’t prepared for school. Many children begin school unable to recognize letters or the sounds they make. Many have never been read to, and some have never held a book before entering school. Many are sent to school hungry.
So what can the business community do to help? The first words out of Goodloe-Johnson’s mouth were not get out your checkbook, although that would have been an easier answer. Her response was to volunteer at a local school.
Businesses need to encourage employees to take an hour or two during the week to volunteer in the schools.
One area both Goodloe-Johnson and Butzon said schools need help in is teaching children to read. Business people could be role models for the children.
“One of the hardest things to do is teaching a child to read. Not every child has had that opportunity before entering school,” Butzon said.
“Get involved in a kindergarten or a first-grade classroom to help a child learn to read: This is righteous work. The Lord’s work!”
To these educators, and many thousands more, failure is not an option.
But do we, as a community, have the will to shoot for the moon and make it happen?
Bob Bouyea is the executive editor of the Business Journal. E-mail him at bbouyea@charlestonbusiness.com.
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