By Colbert I. King
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Unlike many college students who spend their spring break partying, about a dozen students from Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., are going to seize the "chance to give back to the community," according to a news release from the D.C.-based National Center for Children and Families.
The center said the students, supported by Appalachian State's Alternative Spring Break program, will leave their school, in the heart of the Appalachian mountains, to volunteer their services to "one of our nation's most economically distressed areas."
And where, you may ask, might that be? Why, precious reader, the Appalachian State collegians are coming to us.
Their spring break excursion will take them to Southeast Washington -- specifically to J.C. Nalle Elementary School in the Marshall Heights community of Ward 7. Once there on Monday, the students are expected to work through the week with children in kindergarten through fifth grade, as well as on various projects around Nalle.
I can hear you: "Folks from the Appalachians are coming to help us?"
Is Bush a Republican? Yes, they're coming here.
True, others, such as Hurricane Katrina victims, could use their help.
But the 90-year-old National Center for Children and Families has decided that the District has an economically distressed area that needs all the help it can get.
D.C. leaders, past and present, take a bow.
Frankly, Nalle, like many D.C. schools, does need help. Nalle has been getting it, too, from the Freddie Mac Foundation, the Children's Aid Society of New York and the National Center for Children and Families. These groups have helped transform Nalle into a community school where enrichment programs, mental health and social services are provided to children along with hours of volunteer services.
I know Nalle, having featured it in three columns [" A Tour the Mayor Should Take," July 28, 2001; " D.C. Dumping Ground," Sept. 8, 2001; " 12 Days of Christmas," Dec. 24, 2005].
The Christmas Eve 2005 column was about the body of a black woman found frozen, her brains scattered across Nalle's playground, lying in a pool of blood between the hopscotch squares and the monkey bars. Visiting the crime scene days later, I saw broken locks on the playground gates and a metal school door that led to the playground and was scarred by 13 gunshots.
The door, used daily by children, had been in that condition for at least three years.
Several days after the column appeared, the school system finally delivered a chain and lock for the gates and sheet metal to cover the bullet-pocked exterior door.
That was then.
Now, students from North Carolina's High Country are going to pass up fun in the sun to perform acts of kindness not far from the homes of Ward 7 residents Vincent Gray, chairman of the D.C. Council, and at-large council member Kwame Brown.
Their help should be welcomed. But what does it tell us about ourselves and our efforts on behalf of our children?
Let's face it, despite the heroic work of many parents, teachers and education advocates, our public school system is hardly a source of pride.
More than a billion dollars is spent annually on our schools, and what do we have to show for it?
In 2006, only 36 percent of all D.C. public school students were proficient in reading. At the secondary level; only 29 percent of students were proficient.
Math scores weren't any better. Last year, 26 percent of elementary students were proficient. At the secondary level, the number dipped to 23 percent.
Those statistics were provided by Superintendent Clifford Janey in testimony before the D.C. Council last month. He didn't mention that many students haven't even acquired basic reading and math skills.
And the physical condition of our schools is disgraceful.
Which gets us to the school-takeover debate.
What's really at stake?
Natasha Cabrera, a professor of human development at the University of Maryland, said it well in an e-mail last week. "The real tragedy is that the decaying D.C. public school system is making sure that the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to widen. It is the most effective mechanism we have to perpetuate social and economic inequalities in our society."
In the past decade, the school system has had six superintendents and an elected, appointed and now hybrid school board. And it has been studied to death.
What's been missing? In a word, leadership. A school system in crisis needs a leader who acts accordingly; a decisive, child-focused school chief who's in it for results.
The District needs a leader who is brave and relentless enough to take on the entrenched school bureaucracy and who won't cave under pressure, whether the source is a special-interest group, a union or the media. In other words, someone who doesn't need the job.
Forget governance structure. Do we have that kind of leader in the house, or do we leave it to Appalachian State?
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