This interview with performer and essayist Sandra Tsing Loh asks some hard questions about the American public school system. Even she's in the "media elite" (heh), she couldn't afford to send her children to private school, so she started looking really hard at the public schools in her L.A. neighborhood.
What she discovered was that they were nowhere near as bad as the local news and ignorant horror stories suggested. Loh wrote a book about how she became a convert to public school education, Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting, and explains that if some rich families in every neighborhood would forgo the fancy private schools and pour resources into their corner P.S., it could go a long way to improving education for everyone.
Here's an excerpt from the interview:
How do you recommend handling the PTA mom who has made school and fundraising her life's mission? She makes the rest of us feel inferior, guilty and worst of all: lazy.
The thing about her, the thing I have realized, moms are the ones who are getting it done in schools. Not mayors, not elected officials - their kids go to private schools. It's the moms at public schools who are doing all of it: cutting out cute heart-shaped figures, bringing snacks for field trips, figuring out the system, selling the wrapping paper, writing grants for the violins, getting money together for a music program. So the PTA mom is glaring at you! Leave her alone, she's getting a new gym built!Read the whole interview here.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. Ask her out .
That's what I always did with the PTA moms.
Works like a charm...until the one day when they accept your offer....then all bets are off.
mac at 4:52PM on Sep 15th 2008
2. Three comments.
(1) It's always seemed bizarre to me (and I mean "always" as in almost 50 years ago when *I* was in elementary school bringing cookies to bake sales) that "PTA moms" *have* to do all this volunteering (including giving money and/or shaking down others for it) in order to produce quality schools. Why doesn't "the public" (i.e. the taxpayers and the politicians they elect) just fund the public schools sufficiently to begin with? (I know, dream on.)
(2) Ms. (Tsing) Loh notes:
>But the school district could also make a few changes,
>become more service-oriented and come into the
>twenty-first century. My big pet peeve? No front office
>person is ever helpful! At McDonald's, they say "How can
>I help you?" I think public schools should at least be
>at that level.
My (only) child just started public kindergarten following private day care / preschool, and the contrast in the "service-oriented" category was initially startling, though I suppose it shouldn't have been. Not that the public school is totally unhelpful, or that the
private places were anywhere near perfect, but certainly "McDonald's level." I'm not at all someone who believes that "government should be run like a business" or that "government can't do anything right because they don't face competition." But surely a public institution doesn't *have* to be that way.
3. Ms. Holler, introducing the interview, says:
>Or you live in an acclaimed school district (read:
>you're loaded). Or your child is not old enough to be on
>a waiting list for kindergarten. Because for this
>generation of parents, after love and marriage and the
>baby carriage comes "What in the hell are we going to do
>about baby's education?" (Popular answer: move to
>Portland.)
More popular answer (there must be a lot more people who have school-age kids and care about them but *haven't* moved to Portland than who have, even in California) is: move to the right suburb. And no, you don't have to be "loaded" to do that. I often brag to friends about living in a place that's (sort of) affordable, incredibly diverse, and has good schools, but it can't be *that* rare. If you don't care about the diversity, it should be even easier. Or if you don't need a short commute to a city....
dr jay at 4:52PM on Sep 15th 2008
3. Public schools really ARE terrible. (And the schools use the PTA as cheap propaganda machines for the silly system.)....McCain has the right idea! Give ALL kids vouchers for somewhatless than it costs the public to educate a kid. That will reduce property taxes, improve education, and getting ALL kids to write fluently in kindergarten, and to add fluently in second-grade.
Bob at 8:44PM on Sep 15th 2008
4. By looking at any blog with a comment section, it's pretty hard to excuse the public education system.
I want my money back.
ex-christian at 8:49PM on Sep 15th 2008
5. I think after the rich parents read some of the stories on http://detentionslip.org, they would think twice about public schools.
hall monitor at 10:35PM on Sep 15th 2008
6. Excellent piece Ada. I couldn't agree with you more. One of the sad parts are so many of these richer kids are loosing a chance to mix with other cultures. Diversity is what has made America great, not isolationism. These rich kids would not only learn a lot more they would be in a position to be better leaders when they mature.
Dennis Bowen at 1:04AM on Sep 16th 2008
7. hard to believe that just one generation ago that children whose parents had private planes big enough to fly to europe were in the same public school classes with students whose families didnt even have a color tv.
Louis IX KingofFrance at 1:31AM on Sep 16th 2008
8. I sent my son to private schools. If I had it to do over again, I would send him to public school. Private schools are full of "entitled" brats with too much money and not enough parental supervision. The rich parents are able to buy their children out of any trouble the hell yuns get into, while those of us without the same resources get pounded.
Nancy at 7:27AM on Sep 16th 2008
9. The problem with public schools is two fold; bureaucracy and lack of discipline. The teachers unions control the schools. They make it nearly impossible to dismiss failing teachers. Teachers should be held to the highest standards. They should be certified in the courses they teach. Eliminate special interest groups and political correctness! I advocate a national curriculum, uniforms and rigorous testing. The second problem is lack of discipline. Too many students come to school unprepared. They have no discipline or support from home. Parents have to begin discipling children at home and become actively involved in the educational process. When I have children they will be home schooled or attend a good parochial school.
janesophie1 at 9:56AM on Sep 16th 2008
10. I find it difficult to take seriously anything regarding education from an author whose book is entitled, "Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting!"
Her biggest accomplishment seems to be from saying the word "fuck" on NPR.
Our large urban schools are currently having about a 50% drop out rate (or failure to graduate). The schools in my area are inundated with gangs and drugs. The children's parents either don't care, or are in denial.
Oh, by the way, this is America and if you want to send your children to a private school then that is your right. No reason to feel guilty about it.
Ada, you and Loh can keep the egalitarian tripe.
scott at 10:06AM on Sep 16th 2008
11. while discussing genetics with a graduate of a $12,000 tuition per semester school, I was asked if bottled hair color could change natural hair color permenently because she had noticed that her roots seemed to grow out darker since she started bleaching her hair.
Louis IX KingofFrance at 10:41AM on Sep 16th 2008
12. Ms. Loh had no other choice. She had to work hard to attempt to improve her situation. She had no other choice because of the teachers unions. Obama sent his daughters to private schools. He knows how to avoid the mediocre public school monopoly.
For Obama, choice in education is a BAD thing.
CK at 11:35AM on Sep 16th 2008
13. Public schools are sucky. Home school, home girl! Home schooling is the way to go. Home schooled kids test better than public school kids.
Just as the college and university industry is notoriously left wing, so the public schools have become societal indoctrination centers of the left. The only people who actually like public schools are left wingers.
As the schools have become more proudly atheist and Godless, so have they become more dangerous and destructive during the same time frame, for the students and society as a whole.
It used to be that teens had PEER pressure to get involved with sex, now they have AUTHORITY pressure, too, as the public schools go after the kids with a curriculum that literally teaches that teens are expected to have sex, regardless of what adults say, so the public schools will teach them how to have sex safely.
The public schools are more violent, too, these days, with deadly weapons requiring metal detectors at the entrances. Here is the great atheist society that rejects morality. Quite foolish.
Rev 3:16 at 8:52PM on Sep 16th 2008
14. Rev 3:16 is the only comment that has made sense.
Sue at 9:55PM on Sep 20th 2008