Centsless Lip Service

The teachers and school board of District 109 in Deerfield are still negotiating a contract, even though we are well into the school year. This process has become so contentious that they need a federal mediator. What has taken so long? Why have things become so adversarial?

Of course, in these difficult economic times, school boards are under pressure to cut costs and teachers want to increase salaries. That is certainly part of the issue here. According to newspaper reports, class size, special education, outdoor teacher responsibilities, and teacher benefits are also sticking points.

While all the parties would agree that the bottom line is doing what is good for kids, how each side achieves this goal reflects their values. Values are more than what they say. Real values are what we live. We spend our money on what is truly important; regardless of what we profess.

The larger question isn’t about District 109 or any particular contract point. The question is, why are we bickering over our children’s education? Almost everyone gives lip service to the value of education. How many times does someone say something like, “Teachers should be paid more.”? Does anyone really believe that? Is anyone one willing to put cents (or sense) to this lip service?

There may be a minority who would plunk down additional dollars (and their children may be in private education), but as recent referendums have shown, a majority of people would like to get as much as they can for as little as possible. And as my grandmother said, “you get what you pay for.”

Funding is at the heart of the issues in District 109 and thousands of districts across the country. We don’t have enough money for education. We aren’t willing to pay for what we say we want. We want education, healthcare, retirement benefits, and many other services, but we don’t want to pay for them. We say we value them. We say they are important, but we are unwilling to open our wallets.

We rationalize. Money is being wasted. We want a good value. Other people pay less. There are ways to cut costs. These are not arguments; these are excuses. Online learning, test scores, school days, unions, and other topics do not even come close to the real issues. We want a world-class education for our children, but we want other people to pay for it. Yes, the system is broken. In a perfect world, we’d pay people by the importance of their jobs to society. Blah, blah, blah, blah. This tired rhetoric leaves our children in the cold.

The solution isn’t simple. The fix is going to be difficult, expensive, and painful. And it will take a long time. Taxpayers and politicians (and school boards) don’t like that. They would prefer quick, cheap, and easy. I don’t want quick, cheap, and easy for our children.

Our actions belie our words. Our choices demonstrate our real values. Education isn’t important enough for us to spend additional money. We don’t value teachers, learning, or schools. We don’t think that what happens in schools is important, although we may say it frequently. Our every collective action screams that education is at the bottom of our list. Our system spells it out (although sometimes incorrectly). Our choices make our priorities clear. The education crisis in America is caused by the underlying belief that almost everything (certainly banks, guns, corporations, and the privileged few) is more important than our children’s education.

No wonder District 109 can’t come to an agreement.

Tribute Trouble

I am facing one of those landmark moments. My daughter is a senior in high school and with each college application, graduation robe deposit, or yearbook photo, I am more and more aware of the approaching turning point. I can’t say that I like it. I have a difficult time imagining the house without two children or living apart from my daughter for more than four weeks. But that is what I will have to do.

When we received the email from the school asking for a “youth” photo and some words to print in the yearbook as a senior tribute, I was baffled. Frankly, I have never given that section of the yearbook much attention. My daughter’s graduation was so far away and I never wanted to consider it.

So I opened a few old yearbooks and took a look. The pictures varied from blurry and bizarre to cute and commonplace. For the most part, they looked like the pictures in our old albums. A few stood out because they were either particularly well done or felt so much like snapshots that I wondered if any thought was given when selecting them. I resolved to do better and create a more interesting and arresting image.

The picture was the easy part. I had dozens of pictures of my daughter as I little girl. She and her mother whittled them down to two or three and I wrapped a big Q around them. They picked the picture and my daughter fussed with the color of the Q. Done.

The words are where I am stuck.

Most of the senior tributes directly address the graduates. Our instructions are to write about fifty words. Fifty words! I have fifty thousand or none at all. “Stay close to home,” sounds desperate. “Come back home,” sounds worse. I have so much to say to my child but much of it I don’t want to publish.

A few of the tributes have inside jokes, cryptic memories, or odd statements. As I read them, I wondered if those parents understood what they were doing.

What am I doing? What is the purpose of this yearbook tribute? The name suggests perhaps an expression of thanks or a compliment. Of course, it could also mean money that is extorted. That sounds like college tuition.

I am so grateful to have been part of my child’s growing up. “Thank you,” doesn’t begin to express my gratitude. While there are dozens of compliments I could write about my child, I am hesitant to publish them next to pictures of her classmates.

This audience gives me pause as well. The kids will be the only ones who really look at this section of the yearbook. The parents may look at their own and skim over a few others, but the main audience will be my daughter and her friends.

What do I want to say to them? Make good choices! I love you! I will miss you. Are those the messages for the yearbook tribute? They don’t feel “tribute” enough. The landmark, the assignment, and my feelings are getting mixed up, but that doesn’t make the problem go away.

I have considered pithy quotes. My current favorite is a set of lyrics from a Stephen Schwartz song that we used as part of my daughter’s bat mitzvah service. It is basically an acknowledgement of her maturity and of how difficult it is to for me to let go.

And that is the heart of my problem: I am not ready to let go. I am writing a public goodbye note when I have not yet had the time to prepare for the farewell. She is not leaving for good and we will have the summer and, given the job market, she may even move home after graduation when I won’t want her back.

Nope. I will always want her back. And I still don’t know what to write.