You Think Schools In Pakistan Are Bad? Come See Mine

The New York Times reported Monday on Pakistan’s Islamic schools, which fill the void for some kids in a state where public education hasn’t been valued or even known to exist. In America, gangs fill the void where public education isn’t valued or respected – where it’s “left to the dogs, ” as one Pakistani puts it in this article. In America, drugs, sex, illegitimacy, homelessness, joblessness, boarded up homes, burned out store fronts, and young men and women hanging out on street corners fill the void where public education is “left to the dogs.”

The Times report is good reading, but it would be worthwhile for reporters to trace the effects of failed inner city schools with regards to violent crime, jobless and homeless rates. We have a big enough problem in our own country. It could and should be reported on by every big city paper in the country, constantly, until people of all classes and colors are made aware that conditions in inner city schools are intolerable for both students and staff. More money is being thrown into Pakistan as we try to keep it from going totally to hell. More money is being thrown into our public schools, which are half-way to hell as is.

Which is more important: The threat of violence in other countries, which is real for sure, or the degradation of life and liberty in our inner cities – held hostage by gangs, drugs and lack of education?

Ceiling tiles are missing, there’s little to no access to computers or the Internet, bathrooms stink of neglect and waste and police patrol the halls of my school. Teachers stash away copy paper because our quota is up for the year and we’re trying to ride out till June on 300 sheets from Staples.

So little is available here and in other city schools where my Teach For America colleagues teach each day. Many of my colleagues have set up fund raising websites and online drives. Others spend their own money on things like overhead projectors, LCD projectors, DVD players, TV’s, etc.

I bemoan the achievement gap because it’s a shame that in our great nation, there are schools literally falling apart and kids receiving a God awful excuse for an education. I learn more from the faces of my students when I have to tell them to copy the directions from a writing project onto their own sheet of paper because I don’t have enough copies for them to keep, than I ever could from a test result or study or college class. I’ve seen enough here to convince me that it would take a miracle from God to fix our educational system.

In schools around the nation – largely in our inner cities where many of those 6,000 irreparably bad schools that President Obama said reside – kids are short changed materially. I don’t think it’s all because some districts get more per pupil spending than others. A lot of the problem is mismanagement of money – money that disappears on projects and programs that never come to fruition. A lot of the problem is a lack of community, parental and student pride in the schools, so many of which are cracked and beaten and flat out shabby looking.

I try to keep my room tidy and neat, but there are rat droppings in the corners most days and roaches scattering and bopping around. The other day, a roach got up into a girl’s hair during first period. I only have one live electrical circuit – not that I have a classroom TV or overhead projector with which to use it with anyway. Pardon the whining, please. There’s really no time in the day for it. But I write only to point out a sad similarity between inner city schools and schools in other sad parts of the world like Pakistan.

If basic maintenance isn’t provided for our government schools, it will continue to be very difficult to instill the sense of community pride necessary to build burgeoning scholars devoted to education. I look around the school here and in others I visit in this city – graffiti is more noticeable than good work or motivational posters – holes in the ceiling are more evident than awards and trophy cases. A clear message is sent to the kids, who then go out into the world of cities full of burned out storefronts, boarded up homes, liquor stores on the corners, greasy food joints, etc… Where are they supposed to turn? The Crips, the Bloods, drugs, sex, illegitimacy, abortion, welfare -- it’s all linked.

Driving into the hood for school in the rain on Monday morning, I saw a good bumper sticker on the van in front of me: “Think nothing’s impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.” It was appropriate for me, as I finish up my second year of a two year commitment to teach in this city. The problems are the same.