THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 5, 1996 TAG: 9603050183
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: CITIZEN'S CHALLENGE
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 213 lines
For seven weeks, they huddled in study groups across Hampton Roads, citizen juries of more than 200 parents, educators, business people and retirees, deliberating on the failures and successes of the region's public schools. They identified the most serious ailments and talked about prescribing cures.
Now, their verdict is in, revealed in a 32-page report that has been sent to a variety of officials, from school superintendents and school board members, to state legislators, and state and national education officials.
The task of the ``Citizen's Challenge: Education'' project was to search for public consensus on how to improve education. Participants decided there is much to be done: Nearly half of them - 47 percent - concluded that schools are doing a worse job educating students today than when they were in school.
There was a widely held view that schools are producing a generation of children who don't have a grasp of ``the basics.''
Too many children don't know simple math or how to spell, they said, and some are advancing through elementary school without the most essential skill - being able to read.
``What constantly came up was that there were some very basic things we had to learn as children that our children and those with grandchildren simply don't know,'' said Billie Cook, 44, a Portsmouth mom with two children in school.
``We learned in English never to end a sentence with a preposition and how to identify subjects and verbs - we find our children don't know those things. We have children in the second, third and fourth grade who can't read, so those are the things that concern us.''
At the same time, participants came to realize that society has loaded schools with a multitude of demands that go beyond imparting academic knowledge, such as teaching social skills that children aren't getting at home, adding to the challenges that schools face.
Their work could be boiled down to a fundamental concept: The entire community has a stake in making schools better, and everybody must shoulder some of the responsibility - or share the blame - to ensure that children receive a quality education.
The groups discussed a list of concerns and laid a foundation for the community to address them.
Top priorities were to:
Get more parents involved in their children's education.
Reduce the teacher-student ratio in classrooms so children can get more personal attention. That could be achieved not only be making classes smaller but also by placing more adults in classes, including volunteers, to work one-on-one with students and improve discipline.
The Virginia General Assembly has made smaller classes in kindergarten through third grade a priority, and has appropriated millions of dollars to do so since 1994.
But that requires more classroom space, a scarce commodity in many school systems, forcing them to make tough choices: add politically unpopular mobile units, go into debt to build more classrooms - if they can find the money - or simply reject the state money.
Tailor education to meet individual students' abilities and goals instead of the ``one-size-fits-all'' approach now in common practice. Participants felt strongly about greater support for students interested in career choices that don't require a college degree.
Make education more relevant to children's lives, such as linking businesses or other community resources with schools, and showing students how to apply what they've learned to the real world. Of particular interest was ensuring that children are equipped with ``life skills,'' such as handling personal finances or simple house repairs.
Give teachers the support they need to teach, including less paperwork and red tape that eats up time that could be spent planning for or working with students.
In the arena of education reform, these are not new ideas.
What is remarkable, participants said, is that the concerns were shared by all of the groups working independently in six cities across region. The groups - 10 to 15 people each - met in homes, offices, schools and churches in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Hampton.
The findings were compiled by the Virginia Beach-based Community Networking Association, a non-profit, non-partisan group that brought the citizens together.
The association, which had financial support from The Virginian-Pilot, wanted to create a forum where community members could plumb common concerns about education and then work with officials on solutions - an exercise in democracy and civic engagement.
But it will be up to the citizens themselves to turn their vision into reality, said Stephanie P. Stetson, the association's president.
That could be the toughest challenge.
``I think the people who went through this came to the realization that there's a great deal that they, as individuals and groups and businesses, can do to make a difference,'' Stetson said. ``This is an ongoing process of citizens working together to help their officials solve the problems they want to tackle. If they think the report alone is going to solve the problems, they're kidding themselves.''
So far, Stetson said, some state and federal officials who received the report have responded. In Virginia, William C. Bosher Jr., superintendent of public instruction, said he was interested in the emphasis the groups gave to parental and community involvement.
On the federal level, an official with the U.S. Department of Education responded for Secretary Richard Riley, saying the report provides a ``rich account'' of ways to improve education.
``The time to reflect on education issues over a number of sessions was an important feature of the project,'' wrote Oliver Moles, an education research analyst with the department.
Stetson said she hopes local school administrators consider issues raised by citizen's challenge.
``I want to encourage them to listen; that's their job,'' Stetson said. ``Let's work together. Make the public welcome.''
A common theme that surfaced during the project was concern about a seemingly widespread lack of parental support for their children's education. Participants surveyed at the end of the project said that stimulating more parental involvement with schools was one of the most ``urgent areas of concern.''
But the findings went deeper than that. There was a striking consensus that many parents either have defaulted on or are unprepared for one of their most important roles - versing their children in the social skills that society needs to maintain order, such as manners, respect for self and others, self-discipline and honesty.
``Those things were not pulled out and taught to us, but they were all part of the scheme,'' Cook, of Portsmouth, said.
``We learned in school you don't tell lies, we learned in church you don't tell lies, we learned from mom and dad you don't tell lies, you learned from your next door neighbor you don't tell lies. At some point we stopped emphasizing those things as important, and now you've got kids who don't have problems cheating in school or lying to get ahead, and they don't even view it as that.''
Fifteen of 22 study groups agreed that children need more help with character development or interpersonal skills, and they suggested that schools should teach children basic moral values, an idea that often has proven controversial when put into practice.
But while parental involvement was a top priority, it also proved the most elusive to address. Changing economic and social times, for instance, have created more two-income and single-parent families who have less time to meet with teachers or to help their children with homework.
There was discussion, but no consensus, on whether legislation was needed requiring greater parental responsibility. Some feared it would be counterproductive. An attempt by the Virginia General Assembly last year to force parents to help school officials discipline unruly children turned into a public relations nightmare, alienating some parents who otherwise would have been willing to cooperate.
``How do you tell them they're not parenting right? It goes against the grain of being Americans,'' said Gary Dye, 51, a Virginia Beach participant and retired U.S. Navy officer. ``If parents won't get their faces into the problem, you've got to get the teacher's face into it. Teachers now are in to crowd control.''
Some suggestions to draw in more parents include holding after-school or evening parenting workshops, or planning other community activities at schools.
In this area, schools were viewed as both the problem and the solution: schools need to do a better job making parents feel like they're welcome, and also need to improve the coordination between schools and administrators and the community.
``I don't think schools are always gracious accepting volunteers - they don't know what to do with them,'' said Barbara Isaac, 40, a single mom and homemaker who volunteers up to three days a week at her daughter's school in Norfolk. ``We need schools to be more volunteer friendly, and we need to encourage parents to be there.''
Cook, of Portsmouth, said: ``I am concerned that when schools say they want parental involvement, they really don't. They want parental compliance, they want fund-raising. What they should be talking about are the kinds of issues our children are facing in school.''
Participants say they don't want their efforts to die on the vine.
To make the report a working document that might produce change, Dye and several other participants plan to continue meeting. Their goal: To help bring about changes they think are needed to improve education.
``I don't see myself as being a scholastic vigilante, trying to run in to tell a teacher how to teach,'' Dye said. ``I think the biggest problem is getting parents involved with their kids.''
Improving schools, participants agreed, doesn't necessarily mean giving them more money. Accountability for how much - and where - educators spend what they now receive was deemed most important.
``I think the potential is there to fix our own problems, and we don't need to run screaming for another dollar to do it,'' said participant Lynn Francois, 40, a former elementary school reading teacher who has two children in a Virginia Beach school.
The key, the groups decided, is to forge strong partnerships between the schools and the community, enabling educators to draw on the wealth of resources available from all segments of society - parents, retirees, businesses, civic clubs and others. Schools should be the center of the community, most participants agreed.
At many schools, those community connections already are in place, they said, and volunteers are available to tutor kids who need extra help, serve as mentors or positive role models and to assist teachers in the classroom. Success would be simply building on what's available.
``We don't need to reinvent the wheel,'' Francois said. ``We just need to find where all the spokes are and make it turn better.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color] File photo
THE PROJECT
Who participated?
The ``Citizen's Challenge: Education'' project involved 228
people who met in six cities across Hampton Roads during seven weeks
from September through November - in Virginia Beach, Norfolk,
Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Hampton. Most became involved
after responding to newspaper articles in The Virginian-Pilot that
sought out readers interested in participating.
Most of the participants - 80 percent - worked in professional or
managerial careers. A quarter of them worked in the education field.
They averaged in age from 36 to 50, and 79 percent were white, 18
percent were black and 3 percent were of another ethnic group.
More than half - 55 percent - had children in local schools, of
which 83 percent attended public schools, 11 percent were in private
schools and 6 percent were home-schooled.
Want to know more?
People interested in finding out more about the ``Citizen's
Challenge: Education'' project can call the Virginia Beach-based
Community Networking Association at (804) 495-8301. Copies of the
32-page report the association prepared on the results of the
project are available for a $5 donation.
KEYWORDS: PUBLIC JOURNALISM DELIBERATIVE PROCESS EDUCATION by CNB