As If We Need These Kinds Of People Impacting Education

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-2-2012/tucson-s-mexican-american-studies-ban
http://fairtopartlymoderate.blogspot.com/2012/03/stuck-in-middle.html
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/tucsons-mexican-american-_b_1399157.html


If you know anything about this blog you will know I support education, teachers, and those who make good decisions about education.  I happen to be a teacher, which biases my perception, but I try to harp of teachers if the make the rest of us look bad just as equally. No one gets anywhere in life without good teachers, that much is fact.  

When I first wrote about this I had mixed impressions about the labeling of people and classifying them as such and such Americans.  I still contend we need to get right down to being Americans, but if we are going to use labels then by every means we need to be proud.  I wore my green polo and goofy hat for Saint Patrick's Day with pride.  Anytime I can, I remind folks that I am southern, and a Tennessean as if they needed reminding.  Still yet I would prefer to be viewed as a human first.

That aside, the more I read about the ways this decision was made the madder I get.  We need competent people in education, not people who make serious decision based on hearsay.  In addition to that, we do not need people making important decisions to close effective programs  based on hearsay.  The fact that a school board member voted to shut down an effective program is beyond me, but to do so without even fully investigating it is baffling.

Genuinely effective programs in education are few and far between, especially those that bring about changing in high risk groups of minorities. Anytime we lose such a good program we lose a particular group of students.  In today's world we can hardly  afford to lose any group of students. The lasting effects of this poor decisions may take years to produce, but the amount of effort to negate the negative impact will be ten fold the amount effort it would have taken to keep the program alive.

Thus the mind set of those who make decisions in education.  They subscribe to a fix now, deal with the problems later mentality that is detrimental to students, faculty and education as a whole.  Rather than seriously study the curriculum of the Mexican-American studies program in Tuscon, the school board simply closes it.  Rather than actually observing the teachers of the classes over a period of time, they close the program that has raised graduation rates substantially. Now there will be a considerable group of high achieving students and award winning teachers on the free market and away from Tuscon.  The teachers will undoubtedly be snatched up by a willing system, but the kids are far less likely to land on their feet without the help of this program.  If they do land on their feet, it may not be in the field we would like most. 

Having pride in your race and heritage is not wrong.  Educating yourself and those around you is something that is commendable.  Doing so in a way that gives young impressionable students a place to feel safe and rewarded is even better. Cutting a program such as the one in Tuscon is simply foolish.  Worries of indoctrination and discrimination are valid yes, but I would imagine that indoctrination are best taught by educated teachers in a safe environment such as a school rather than other less reputable sources or places.