The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, a precursor to our US Constitution, allocated Block #19 of 3.6 square mile divisions for public education as the elite easterners decided how to settle the territories that we now drive through or fly over. Each planned community needed assets to provide education. They usually had a school on that property, but compulsory education did not become the norm in America for a few more generations. My parents went to public school in NYC. I attended public school as did my wife and two children. Literate people benefit America and probably the world. As my wife and I attend or decline to attend our 55th HS reunions, our districts did not fare as well as the one our children attended, and my household supported. Our local district, indeed our statewide districts, held their elections today.
As a youngster, my next door neighbors and a guy with the house on the corner engaged in petty level politics. My next door neighbor held a seat on the school board during my last few years of high school. Out of curiosity, and because of turmoil within the school, I would periodically attend school board meetings. A reel-to-reel tape recorder captured the audio. They did not discuss academic performance at all. We had a bimodal distribution. Suburban kids of prosperous families dominated the classrooms. Many of us would graduate to selective colleges, many more to branches of the state university system. When Facebook reconnected us forty years later, it confirmed that the public investment in our schooling served us well. There was another tier, less visible. A cohort of punks along with kids living in a minority enclave within the district who would now be called disruptive. For all the problems of No Child Left Behind, our educators of that era and the Board representing the taxpayers had no qualms about letting meritocracy play out, with consequences good and bad. Some kids at the edge probably could have benefited from more concern that the Board and school system offered them. Board discussions were not about educational attainment. They were about property taxes, with my neighbor the most vocal at promoting financial restraint, though still slightly beyond the minimum austerity expenditures mandated by state law. By the time I could vote, school budgets never passed. As my parents' generation of neighbors cashed out their houses to buyers who did not use the public school system, educational attainment of the children dropped from the board's agenda. Despite economizing on educational expenses, on my last visit to the area, a shopkeeper lamented on the high property taxes, quoting a figure a significant multiple of what my household pays each year.
In my current district, the excellence of our schools remains a source of public commitment and pride. Access to premier childhood education attracts homebuyers willing to mortgage at the limit of their means to send their children to those schools. My children graduated to selective colleges and professional careers, as did their parents, classmates, and neighbors. Two candidates came to our door this campaign season. I greeted one, my wife the other. We each committed ourselves to voting for the gentleman we had each met personally. My contact did not talk to me about taxes. He spoke of making the schools a place that top teacher talent might seek out. He looked at educational attainment as a byproduct of the people directing each classroom. I think that's mostly true, though the interests of teachers as a consolidated group and students as a consolidated group do not always coincide. Strikes, which my district has not experienced, are more of a disruption of education than an indirect investment in better education, with pain now generating future gain. Still, the gentleman at my door appeared groomed, poised, and aware of the tasks. He had children in the schools, unlike the board members who now dominate my childhood district. I could vote for him, and did.
My wife met a similar fellow. A man who stood for what we stood for when we had skin, or really our genes, in the game. Six candidates did not come to our door. I looked at their literature. One is a perennial politico, similar to the man who lived in the corner house of my childhood development but holding a more lofty elected position. Not where my vote goes. One fellow of designated minority group. I read his literature. Nothing to suggest imposition of identity, an unfortunate feature of our national politics generating some very harmful results. I could probably vote for him had he come to my door. And the other four did not seem very different. Everybody supports the dignity of teachers which leads to educational success. All regard teachers as a conduit to students. None had students as the direct mission.
My wife and I drove to the local high school gym to cast our votes. A small visitor's lot existed, inserted between three spaces for the principal and VIPs to the right and handicapped designated parking to the left. We parked, then walked into a drizzle, past the final campaign posters we would see, waved at by people on a bench near the entry who I presume wanted us to vote their way without directly signaling to us who that would be for. I expected to cast one selection, the man who had chatted with me. The ballot, not seen by me until the curtain was drawn, had been reconstructed differently. The district sorted the ballot by three seats with two candidates for each seat. My man ran against the perennial politico. Easy choice. My wife's man sought a different seat. She thought highly of their encounter, so he got an unanticipated vote from me as well. And the third seat, I hadn't a clue. I'll let other majorities select that one.
Turnout is usually low. Proceedings over the course of a year mostly run under the public's radar, though some districts in my state have had contentious, well-attended meetings when the Board wants to oust or not renew a Superintendent. That has not happened in my district. I just voted my best judgment and trust that the kids of my grandchildren's generation will get their chance to master the Three R's and beyond without undue turmoil.
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