Tuesday, March 3, 2010

The Obama administration is getting in on the reality TV mentality, the mouse-maze-cheese mentality where competition begets a big prize. And in this case, the prize is Barack Obama himself.

That’s right public schools … the administration has announced the chance for competing public schools to win an appearance by the president himself to speak at their high school graduation commencement ceremony.

“Public schools that encourage systemic reform and embrace effective approaches to teaching and learning help prepare America’s students to graduate ready for college and a career, and enable them to out-compete any worker, anywhere in the world,” Obama said last month. “This is your opportunity to show me why your school exemplifies the best that our education system has to offer.”

How about why it can’t?

Obama’s move to auction himself off comes at a time when many public schools nationwide are being forced to forgo the competitive edge that arms students with the education needed to excel and the exposure to various areas of study in order to keep educating students at all.

Those public schools that rely heavily on state funding are now at a significant disadvantage and what seems to be emerging is a deeper and deeper divide between districts of privilege and districts of the uphill battle.

Hanging in the space between that divide – the students themselves.

There is a thrill in recognizing talent in our students, the ones with a raw talent to create in the world of art, to work numbers with mathematical flair, to write eloquently, understand the theories of business and social studies. But these students are being faced with fewer and fewer avenues to develop those talents. Parents who already struggle to keep food on the table at home and give their kids all the advantages they can are now faced with the tough choices of moving their kids to districts where opportunities flourish ultimately, only adding to the divide created by rewards that struggling schools may not realistically be able to receive.

The president might very well be an eloquent speaker, and an inspirational one at that.

But the administration might do well to rethink their strategies in getting schools to compete for ultimate success by offering something a little more appropriate, like allowing certain programs to keep from getting cut or providing for a teacher’s salary for another year rather than adding that educator to the unemployment pool.