Education policy is personal

Another school year is in the books.

While learning doesn’t end, the school year does, and it’s a moment to celebrate progress.

The end of school inspires me to reflect on the developmental journey of 180 days in the classroom and what it means to me to participate in that journey as a classroom volunteer.

For more than three decades I have volunteered at Boulevard Elementary School, and I am currently part of a team of eight who meet weekly with a group of kindergartners. We are practice partners in the Many Villages program of the nonprofit Reaching Heights.

Working with our youngest students gives me a chance to get in on the ground floor of their school-based education journey, with its focus on basic skills and habits for a lifetime of learning. Over the course of this school year, I got to learn about 16 different children as they confronted an abstract idea—symbolic language—in the form of the alphabet. Mastering the building blocks of reading is important work. As Frederick Douglass famously put it in fighting the prohibition on slaves learning to read, “Literacy is the difference between slavery and freedom.”

I am always revived by the personal connection with children, the chance to peer into their minds and respond to their individual approaches to the task at hand. It’s simply a joy to discover their unique identities and creativity as we work together on reading. Each child is a special individual in their dress, their confidence, the way they walk up to our worktable, the stories they tell, what they are thinking about and the way they use their imaginations.

I love helping them attack the challenge. As they confront something as complex as symbolic language, they learn to take risks, fail and persist, and experience the joy of success. In the end, they learn the letter sounds, make words and even read. And they have an awareness of what to do the next time they face something challenging, which I hope includes asking for help. I hope they are proud and confident and better equipped to grow into whomever they are going to become.

Public education values each child. That’s what makes me a public school advocate. Our public schools—and all those minds that are nurtured into full bloom during 180 days of school each year—have never been more at risk.

When our elected state and federal lawmakers shun equality, reject democracy, abandon the social contract and the common good, they dehumanize our children and all of us. They destroy community and make it harder for all children to thrive.

Today’s legislative supermajority is out of touch with children, including those I have had the privilege of knowing. They have lost touch with the majesty of the developing mind and the blossoming of human possibilities that make education something our diverse society has always valued. They embrace individualism but abandon the individual. We cannot stand by and let this happen.

Ohio’s legislature has until June 30 to commit to funding public education in a fair way. Ask House and Senate leaders what they value about learning. See how they plan to justify inadequate funding to the students in their public schools.

The federal campaign against public education has already removed civil rights protections, equity as a right, honest history, and, very likely, federal funds for school meals and reading support. This is a direct assault on children and their futures.

Invite Ohio’s senators to meet your children and ask them to explain who will benefit from their cruel decisions. Policy is actually personal, and we need to fight for public schools in personal terms.