Prepare kids to be life-long learners
If there is one constant I have observed in the years since I graduated from Elston High School in 1992, and entered the work force in 1996 after college, it is that the work force is in a constant flux. Twice in ten years I have been a victim of technology in the workplace, having a new inovation eliminate the need for my job. The one thing that has kept me a viable member of the workforce throughout these changes is that I had it instilled in me at a young age to never stop learning.
One thing we must do as a school system is to teach this all important value to our children. With the incredible leaps and bounds being made by technolgy on a seemingly daily basis, the world we are educating our kids for today, won't exsist in 20 years from now. Just as important as any math or science class we can give these kids is the ability to learn. Just think back to a generation ago to when kids graduating high school looked forward to a 30 year stint at a factory like Joy or Jaymar Ruby, with a comfortable salary and a pension to live off of after retirement. Today both of those companies are long gone, as are the jobs that were filled there. History dictates to us, that there will be occupations and jobs that we look at as "safe" today, which will be gathering dust by the time my baby, who was born late in 2005, is entering the workforce.
We also must realize that not all children in our school system are going to be college bound, and we must adjust for those students. We have to have quality programs for those students for whom, no matter how hard they try, will never make it to college, so that they too will have the ability to find employment that they can support a family on.
Labor Management relations
Another area that the MCAS needs to look at closely is how the administration works with the teachers and staff in our system. For years now the relationship between the teachers and the administration has been on the rocks. Just recently a contract was finally worked out with the teachers after years of not having anything, but honoring a prior agreement. This new contract barely scratched the surface of the fact that the Michigan City teachers make a lower salary than just about all of their local peers in northwestern Indiana. On top of the small raise, it also got a significant amount of teachers positions eliminated, which means only one thing for the kids, larger class sizes. Repeated studies have shown that past a certian point, the larger the classes, the worse the quality of education will be for the individuals in those classes. Now if you add in lower than competitive salaries and growing workload to an accrimonious relationship with management, you begin to run into a real problem with attracting and maintaining quality labor in any field, let alone in the education field. This has become very evident in Michigan City as we have had real problem attracting and maintaining the top talent in the area. Even if we manage to bring in young and talented teachers, after a short period of time being underpaid and seemingly unappreciated by their bosses, they quickly go looking for greener pastures in surrounding school systems, if they aren't forced to leave by cutbacks from above.
No workplace can meet their potential levels of productivity when they are constantly having to recruit and train new employees to replace the ones that were seemingly just hired. Michigan City needs to be able to offer itself as not only a quality place to send your kids to school, but to be a top tier educational system, you need top tier educators. You aren't going to attract top employees with a bad reputation, poor salaries, and a hostile relationship with the administration. The hatchet needs to be buried and stability instilled in the teaching pool.
Leaders need to lead... By example
In the business world the success of most companies starts at the very top. If you have quality leadership, you have made one big step towards being a premier operation. In this respect, Michigan City has really been a huge disappointment.
The Assistant Superintendant of the MCAS, Eugene Sweeney made his now infamous statements regarding Michigan City and its teachers.
Link to article Specifically, Sweeney complained about the districts low test scores saying, “Half of me wants to point my finger at teachers and ask what the (expletive) have you been doing?” He went on to say, “I won't tie my family to this community until the attitudes of the teachers in this community change.”
If Sweeney had been the Vice President of a Fortune 500 company he would have been walking the unemployment line, instead he served a suspension and kept his job. My question is why doesn't he responsibility for lackluster results lay with the administration here? Also remember Sweeney's backround as a man who left his former postion under strained circumstances as well. He also has refused to move out of his all white town, and into the diverse community of Michigan City. In other words he is too good to live here or send his kids to school here, but Michigan City is good enough for a paycheck.
One school board member was recently arrested under suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol. As the police officer was asking him questions, he actually used the excuse of school board business as to why he was out late, and seemingly legally intoxicated while driving. So far this member is still serving.
The school administrator, formerly in charge of hiring, was suddenly and without explanation given a two week, unpaid suspension. Upon her return she was stripped of her duties for hiring, which were taken over by the Superintendant. When the Superintendant was asked about what caused the incident, all he would offer is that it was an internal matter, and was being handled as such.
The former President of the School Board offered up this quote when she refused to let a woman continue speaking past her alloted 3 minutes during an open public question session.
“The board's public meetings are just that, a meeting of the board in public,” she said. The board meets to do the public's business in public, she added, but not necessarily to have lengthy discussions with members of the public.
This is an eyeblinking statement from someone who does work for the public. It is our tax dollars that put these people into office, and run these schools. If we want lengthy discussions with our public officials, we should have them. They should be happy that there are members of the community who are willing to take the time to come out to these meetings, and ask the questions they do ask.
Finally the process of selecting a person to fill the vacated term of Tom Domkowski was another headscratching example of the school board to fulfill its basic tenant.
Even after having 12 people (including myself) take the time to write in letters, testify before the community, and answer board questions, the board completely failed when it came time to choose one person to fill the slot. The editor of the local newspaper took the board to task saying basically if we were paying the school board to make decesions on our behalf, and they were not able to make decesions, then they should all resign, and find people who could make decesions. Most importantly the editor pointed out that the Board probably was in violation of public meeting laws by conducting their debates and votes in private, and then on top of that, never making them public.
Folks, this is the leadership structure running our school system right now. There are many changes that need to be made at all levels of the MCAS, but one that has been discussed barely, if at all, is change at the top. We need leadership who idenifies with Michigan City as a life choice, not just a paycheck, and we need leadership who wants to work with the public as a peer group, and not inspite of them.
Involve everyone
A great way to boost morale and interest in the education of Michigan City's young is to involve as many people as possible in the process. The more people that are involved at any level, the more of a personal stake that there becomes for people hoping to see our kids succeed. For people who aren't involved it is easy for people to become nameless and faceless. When people are involved in things as simple as ideas for the future, it sparks an interest for what is happening in our school system, and it begins to make these kids a reality, instead of an article in the local newspaper. Even for adults who do not have kids in the MCAS, getting them involved plays a vital role, as it then becomes more of a challenge to give them a stake in the future. The Strategic Plan was a masterstroke at involving people at every level of Michigan City. The key is that we cannot let the passage of the Strategic Plan be the end of the story. There needs to be follow up and critique done of the progress we as a school system are making with the Plan. If things aren't working or fitting anymore, we need to adjust. The things that are working need to be recognized and praised.
The most important factor in education
Get the kids into the classroom. It sounds so simple, yet it is so profound. You can't educate a kid that is not attending classes. When I looked at previous years No Child Left Behind stats and saw that Michigan City had schools fail simply because of attendance rates being too low, that just astounded me. I believe that there is a role for every community member to play in the education of our kids. One of the most important things that we need parents to do is to make sure that their kids are getting to class. Kids who are not in class obviously have zero chance at graduation, which is the first step on a life long journey through learning and career. According to the US Department of Labor in 2002 a person who did graduate High School earned on the average about 50% more per week than a person who did not complete High School.
($616/wk vs $421/wk) When a person attends some college that figure jumps about another 20% ($732/wk) and finally a person finishing up a college degree earns on the average about 250% of what a high school dropout earns a week ($1089/wk vs $421/wk).
A child who is not in class has zero chance at graduation, and is instantly handicapped in their earnings ability throughout the rest of their life. 30 years ago the jobs that a high school dropout could walk into and support a family on, today require college experience. Those same jobs just don't exsist today for the people who are not educated.
What makes a City?
3 basic cornerstones are what any family looks for in choosing a community to lay down roots in...
#1-Quality of schools
#2-Quality of jobs
#3-Relative safety/crime rate
With the incredible physical and natural resources that Michigan City pocesses, there is no reason that all 3 of these factors cannot be held to an elite standard. We sit with beachfront access to Lake Michigan, with easy interstate and train access to the city of Chicago. These are all bonuses that many communities can only dream of. Where Michigan City has fallen down is that our school system has consistantly underpreformed the rest of the state of Indiana, and even area school systems. I also believe that the first cornerstone becomes the most important factor in an area, as study after study has proven that education is the one thing that can help a person overcome a lower socioeconomic status to put them into a quality job and safe community.
