Education Builds Character

By a m fonda

A modest proposal towards improving Educational goals of Emeryville School District

A taxpayer financed education should include programs that build character, and ready students to successfully enter into society and be able to excel in a chosen vocation, while achieving self sufficiency.

Areas of traditional weakness in the overall American educational system should be addressed in the Emeryville Schools without reservation. Quality mathematical instructions, alongside lessons that teach the value of money should be introduced as early as kindergarden pre-school. Mathematics, should be introduced early in the years when young minds are forming knowledgeable and complicated ways of identifying and solving ever more sophisticated problems and novel situations.

Children from poor and at-risk inner-city neighborhoods traditionally have difficulty with mathematical skills, difficulties that show up in later years, posing formidable obstacles keeping college degrees, higher academic credentials and promising careers remotely distant if at all doable to the underpriviledged.

Emphasizing reading in kindergarden will make a difference in advancing to higher education, however mathematical talents should also be encouraged if only to close the gap of vocational opportunities available to affluent and students of limited resources.

In the early years coping with bullying, and teaching stranger safety, topics that decrease the likelyhood of violent behavior go a long way towards building character. If we don't introduce an equal amount of do&don't lessons,into the classrooms if children start cutting classes and getting into trouble with the law, we've missed the opportunity to reach young minds, to teach principles of strong work ethics, self esteem, values of investing, balancing budgets, all the lessons that enable an individual to walk through life and maintain one's head high and make one's way through a self sufficient lifestyle.

What parent doesn't want the best opportunity for his/her child? If our schools taught the prinicipals of money management, ideally, a student will look forward to opening up his/her own bank account with the same enthusiasm present day teenagers look forward to obtaining a driver's license, this individual will understand the value and importance of education in our day and age, and education will have added a practical dimension to character development enabling the graduate to cope with the monetary demands of adult members of society. What is suggested here goes beyond present day academic testing of memory retention of subject matter that is measured during examinations which after all, only tell us if an individual is able to remember subject matter taught in the classrooom, and recall specific answers under high anxiety examination settings.

Will it be possible for the Emeryville School Board to influence the course of academic curriculum while serving in an advisory capacity to a State of California Education Department Administrator in Emeryville?

No. As a result of the State of California's bailout of the Emeryville School District, our School Board is not functioning in the traditional role of overseeing the administration of our schools. It may act in an advisory capacity if advice is asked for by the California Administrator. Anyone attending any of the recent School Board meetings would have noticed this moot, but very real point. Our school board, even with the inclusion of the 3 officials elected in August, has no official authority to act as an administrative body beyond an advisory capacity.

The California Education Department's Administrator's role, on the other hand, is to restore financial soundness to the Emeryville District, and to ensure that elected School Board members learn how to conduct the business of overseeing the school district's affairs. When school board members at a EUSD meeting suggest that consultants be hired to find out what it will cost to repair everything that's wrong in the schools, it seems to suggest that this point has fallen on deaf ears at EUSD these last few months and, unfortunately our best intentions have fallen by the wayside, and the recent recall has been conducted in vain.

In the last few years, the most qualified individuals that voters have voted into office, have run the district into bankruptcy. The SOS Emeryville group with it's endorsement of the present School Board makeup, with it's well intentioned but out of line pretentions to dictate to the State Administrator what all needs to be done, is also missing the point. (Keep in mind that investigations into the former School Administrator are ongoing, if any more wrongdoing is unearthed prior to restoration of the District back to local elected official authority, when the bailout bonds are repaid, more charges may be in order, there is a real lawful and practical virtue to abiding by and cooperating with the State of California Administeration of the Emory Unified School District).

If the voters wake up to the reality of our School District's present condition, decide a cost effective agenda is needed to improve the school climate, that school board needs members who'se understanding of their role is clear and are able to work with the California Education Administration, maintain accountability while at the same time strive to produce well rounded educated individuals able to pass exams as well learn practical skills, if the community determines that decisive action is needed to make schools practical, safe and healthy environments conducive to learning, it is likely that administrators, instructors and parents will dictate the course of their own future.