[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 73 (Thursday, May 24, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E925-E926]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        HELP SCHOOLS HELP PUPILS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. GARY A. CONDIT

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 24, 2001

  Mr. CONDIT. Mr. Speaker, we hear a lot about the crises in education 
and the failure of our public schools. Recently, Mr. James Enochs, the 
Superintendent of Modesto's schools, addressed this issue at a district 
meeting. I think we can all benefit from the comments and opinions of 
those who are involved in the front lines of education. I submit 
Superintendent Enochs' comments for insertion into the Congressional 
Record.

                        Help Schools Help Pupils

                          (By James C. Enochs)

       I have been asked to comment briefly on what the schools 
     need. It seemed like an agreeable enough topic. But, as with 
     much of the discussion about education, if the answer is neat 
     and simple, it is probably wrong and misleading.
       I am not a great pep-talk speaker. I think it is more 
     important that we all face up to some of the grim realities 
     that confront us. I get a lot of unsolicited advice in my 
     job. Much of it from my friends in business, or as they 
     prefer to call it, the ``real world.'' Our conversations 
     invariably end with my reminding them that they have three 
     distinct and important advantages over schools:
       You get to screen your applicants. You can take them or 
     reject them based on the qualifications or lack of 
     qualification they bring to the opening. We can't do that. We 
     are required to take everybody irrespective of their 
     qualifications.
       You can pay them to get them to do what you want. We can't 
     do that.
       And, of course, if they don't please you, you can fire 
     them. We can't do that, either.
       And thank goodness we can't. Because those are hardly 
     solutions to the kind of issues we face. Which is why I have 
     chosen to be very direct and begin by telling you that you 
     probably can't help us very much with the things schools need 
     most. We need--we desperately need: More stable families; 
     fewer abused children; less dope, alcohol and violence in the 
     lives of our students; fewer gangs in the schools and more 
     parents; we need kids who are fed before they come to school; 
     we need more parents with the sense to discipline their 
     children and guts enough to turn off the television; we need 
     young children whose parents have taken the time to read to 
     them; we need fewer fathers--and recently mothers--who think 
     the axis of the earth passes through the 50-yard line; 
     adults, suffering from a prolonged adolescence, who 
     mistakenly believe that Saturday's hero is more important 
     than Monday through Friday's good citizen and scholar; and we 
     need 400-500 fewer pregnant unwed girls every year.
       That's what schools need most. And, of course, that is what 
     society needs most. In effect, my problems are yours; I only 
     have to deal with them before you. And they certainly don't 
     yield to something as simple, and unthinking as just don't 
     accept them, or ``can'' them if they don't shape up. And I do 
     think that an understanding of that--an understanding that 
     not all failure is institutional failure--is a necessary 
     precondition for a genuine partnership between schools and 
     business.
       Modesto City Schools, with nearly 35,000 students, is among 
     the 25 largest school districts in California. And one of 
     every eight children in America lives in California. . . Our 
     school enrollment is greater than that of the 24 smallest 
     states combined. And the public needs to understand something 
     about that school population. And if you understand 
     California, you will understand Modesto City Schools.
       There is no place on the face of the earth with a more 
     diverse population. Two-thirds of the state's newcomers are 
     foreign-born. In fact, 15 percent of California's population 
     was born in another country; and in the public schools, more 
     than 30 percent of the children are of parents born in a 
     foreign country; and for one-third of the children in 
     California, English is a foreign language.
       In Modesto City Schools, we have nearly 7,000 students who 
     speak more than 40 different languages. That's an increase of 
     157 percent in the past 10 years. While it is hard for some 
     people to accept, Modesto and, as a result, Modesto City 
     Schools has taken on the characteristics of most urban areas 
     in California: A very low educational level of parents. 
     Nearly 30 percent of the parents of MCS children did not 
     graduate from high school; a high percentage of welfare 
     recipient families: nearly 9,000 of our students.
       Families constantly on the move: We measure mobility on the 
     number of students who leave or enter school after the first 
     school month: nearly 10,000 students a year. Only 30 percent 
     of the students who start kindergarten with us are still 
     enrolled--by the eighth grade.
       And I have mentioned the high and increasing number of 
     children who do not speak or read English as their primary 
     language. Just to translate that into something more 
     manageable, the raw material resulting from these trends and 
     the social disintegration of the family, has turned a typical 
     class of 10th graders into a statistical nightmare in the 
     Golden State:
       Eight students will be on public assistance;
       Three students will have sexually transmitted diseases;
       Four will speak no English--none;
       Three will be teen parents;
       Three will grow up in public housing;
       Two will be victims of child abuse;
       Three will be regular drug users;
       Three of them will have been born out of wedlock;
       And half of them will have experienced at least one divorce 
     in their family.
       Now, if you look at that list, it must occur to even the 
     greatest critic of public schools that educators didn't do 
     it--we didn't introduce them to drugs, or break up their 
     families, or force them onto public assistance, or get them 
     pregnant, or any of the other myriad problems they pack with 
     them to school. So, it's no good to say, ``That's your 
     problem, Mr. Superintendent; I pay my taxes and that's 
     enough.'' Well, today's social dynamite piling up in the 
     nation's school is tomorrow's headache for all of us, 
     including the business community.
       Among other consequences, the link between the social ills 
     that plague many young children and early school failure, 
     later high school dropouts, and ultimately a functionally 
     illiterate or marginally literate, unskilled work force is an 
     inexorable progression.
       And to paraphrase that oil filter commercial, we can deal 
     with it now, or we can deal with it later. But we have a 
     problem. It was captured very nicely about a year ago in a 
     cover article in Time magazine with the rather sharp title, 
     ``A Nation of Finger Pointers.''
       The major premise of the article was that we are becoming a 
     nation of passive crybabies. People who absolve themselves of 
     any individual responsibility, sit on their duffs, and assume 
     the status of victims as a result of someone else's 
     incompetence or even malevolence.
       I get it from both ends. Some teachers and administrators 
     want to blame it on the absentee parents who are sending us 
     all these undisciplined kids who do not value education and 
     are loaded down with problems created by those parents. It's 
     the ill-prepared raw material argument: ``How can we teach 
     kids like that?''
       On the other end of the process, I get it from the business 
     community who says much the same thing, but substitutes 
     ``educators'' for ``parents.'' Educators are sending us all 
     these undisciplined kids who do not value work and are loaded 
     down with problems created by the schools. It's the same ill-
     prepared raw material argument: ``How can we hire kids like 
     that?''
       So, what we have here is a problem in which everyone is 
     either a victim or a scapegoat. If we have a problem, don't 
     join hands anymore, point fingers. What we don't have is that 
     old-fashioned American interdependency, shared 
     responsibility, mutual understanding, the common ground where 
     people meet and solve problems. And that is what this is 
     about today.

[[Page E926]]

       We need community people--business people--to support us in 
     our efforts to elevate academic excellence and good 
     character--to convey to the young that we value the qualities 
     we pay lip-service to. We need businesspeople who can 
     stimulate interest in career development and training. 
     Students have heard it all before from teachers and 
     counselors. They need to see it and hear it from the people 
     who will be doing the hiring and firing.
       And finally, we just need more adults who will spend time 
     with these kids; kids who haven't had many caring adults in 
     their lives. Someone to read to them, to listen to them read, 
     to treat them like they are somebody.
       I can't tell you how many people tell me, ``I feel so sorry 
     for those kids.'' Well, frankly, that's not good enough.
       There is a revealing exchange between the great Englishman 
     Samuel Johnson and his friend and biographer James Boswell in 
     the greatest biography ever written. Boswell confesses, ``I 
     have often blamed myself for not feeling for others as 
     sensibly as many say they do.'' Johnson replies, ``Don't be 
     duped by them anymore. You will find these very feeling 
     people are not ready to do any good. They pay only by 
     feeling.''
       He's right. When the young have grown to adulthood, they 
     will not think kindly of those adults who have given them 
     sympathy without help.

     

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