You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." - Matthew 22: 35-39
As we think about whether American society embodies Jesus' teaching that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, we need to be concerned about public schools, the primary institution where we have agreed to nurture and shape God's precious children. Public schools are our largest public institution, serving nearly fifty million children.
In the national conversation about public education, our role in the church is special. We are concerned about our schools as an ethical and public policy matter. How do they embody attitudes about race and poverty, power and privilege, and cultural dominance and marginalization, and how do disparities in public investment reflect these attitudes?
The United Church of Christ has spoken prophetically to name poverty and racism as among the primary causes of injustice in our nation's schools. General Synod 15 warned: "While children from many areas have comfortable schools with all the educational trimmings, poor and ethnic minority children often face overcrowded and deteriorated facilities, and a lack of enrichment programs or modern technology." General Synod 18 cautioned: "Because the poor and their children are disproportionately people of color, the educational inequities in our public schools reinforce the racial/ethnic injustices of our society." General Synod 23 proclaimed public school support - and advocacy for the same - as one of the "foremost civil rights issues in the twenty-first century." General Synod 25 called all settings of the UCC to do justice and promote the common good by strengthening support for public institutions and providing "opportunity for every child in well-funded, high quality public schools."
Featured Resource for October 2008
Justice and Witness Ministries' annual beginning-of-school resource, the 2009 Message on Public Education, lifts up the importance of schools to form each whole child, created in the image of God, in contrast to the test-and-punish philosophy of the federal education law, No Child Left Behind, that has dangerously narrowed the curriculum in schools serving America's poorest children. A second key article challenges us to evaluate justice in charter schools according to values of access, equity, and public purpose. If you would like additional printed copies for discussion in your congregation, please contact Jan Resseger (216-736-3711) or ressegerj@ucc.org.
Check out Sam Dillon’s article in the October 13, 2008 New York Times,"Under 'No Child' Law, Even Solid Schools Falter." Dillon describes the danger of the No Child Left Behind Act's “2014 deadline” by which time public schools will be labeled “failing” if they do not bring every child up to basic proficiency on standardized tests. To accomplish this, back in 2002 states had to set benchmark targets for score improvements each year until 100 percent of children are proficient. Most states projected small improvements in the early years and then huge growth in scores each year in the later years. We have now reached those later years. Dillon reports that in California, to make Adequate Yearly Progress, public schools must now raise scores 11 percent per year until 2014. It should not then be surprising that, as he reports, this year “about half the state’s 9,800 schools fell short” this year.
"Tyranny of the Test: One Year as a Kaplan Coach in the Public Schools" is Jeremy Miller's story of his role as a Supplemental Education Services tutor under the No Child Left Behind Act. Miller exposes the flaws of redirecting public tax money that could have been spent to strengthen public school staffing and programming to Kaplan, a private contractor providing NCLB-mandated services to schools labeled "failing" under the federal law. The story contains shocking statistics about the role of private contracting and profit: "The failure of schools serving low-income students has been a windfall for the testing industry. Title I funds earmarked for test tutoring increased by 45 percent during the first four years of NCLB, from $1.75 billion in 2001 to $2.55 billion in 2005. With the ever growing stream of funding flowing through the nation's schools, the number of supplemental-service providers nationwide has exploded... In 2003, Kaplan hired former NYC Chancellor of Education Harold Levy as an executive vice president and general counsel, and in 2006 relocated its headquarters for Kaplan K12, the division of the company that works in schools, from Midtown Manhattan to luxury offices downtown. According to Crain's, the company made the move 'to be closer to the New York City Department of Education.'"
Action Needed Now
The reauthorization of NCLB will now drag into 2009. Please tell your Senators and Representatives that you remain very concerned. Send the letter to Senators and Congressional Representatives at our TakeAction page. Please send the letter as-is or as you edit it, and urge others to do so.
Use the new Faith-Based Study Guide for adult education classes and congregational reading groups to support congregational study of the award-winning new book, TESTED by Linda Perlstein. TESTED is now available in paperback. This author spent an entire school year in the third grade classrooms of one elementary school to understand NCLB's test-and-punish philosophy.
Become a co-signer of this important statement "A Broader, BOLDER Approach to Education," released with much fanfare by a prominent group of sixty leaders including Julian Bond, pediatricians T. Berry Brazelton and James Comer, school superintendents Rudy Crew and Arnie Duncan, sociologists Pedro Noguera and William Julius Wilson, educators Linda Darling-Hammond and Deborah Meier, and including the Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches. The statement refutes both the strategy and the philosophy of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the federal education law, whose five-year reauthorization is pending in Congress. Signers believe it will take a far greater effort by not only improving schools, but also expanding access to quality early childhood experiences, expanding access to pediatric care for all children, and improving out-of-school activities for children. At the the project's website, you are asked to co-sign. Please add your name to this effort.
May 2008 What Can Your Church Do to Support Children and Their Public Schools? is a guide for school-congregational partnerships. Will any of these ideas help your church support the children and teachers in your local schools?
April-May 2008 United Church News Column: "Let's Reflect on What Really Makes for Excellent Public Schools" lifts up the story of Chicago's Harold Washington Elementary School as a contrast to the kind of education prescribed in NCLB.
Updated Resources speak to delayed reauthorization of No Child Left Behind Act:
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For additional faith-based resources on justice concerns in the federal education law and links to important resources from others, see our Rethinking No Child Left Behind web page.
Here is our 2008 Message on Public Education.
The following web pages on our site will help you explore public school injustices that need to be addressed:
Rethinking No Child Left Behind
Graduation Gaps
Equitable State Funding
A Civil Right
The Public Good
Language and Culture
Valuing Teachers
Religious Liberty
Worship Resources
