As I write this morning, I'm hemmed in by more than the serene Hudson River view to my west and the steady hum of Manhattan's Upper West Side, Broadway @ W. 70th, to my east. Below me are papers strewn about, and I'm surrounded by texts and notebooks of education policy, philosophy, and practice, word-ly weapons of my trade. In front of me, if you'll allow the completion of the image, are two years of slugging through numerous school-related issues for the intended benefit to MUS and its unique role in the lives of our students and their families.
My family joins me this summer in New York as I study at Columbia in their program for Independent Schools. It takes me about twenty minutes from door-to-door via the 1 subway, and the gradual approach as I walk to the Teachers College buildings amongst the classically-inspired, urban Columbia campus moves me into an appropriate frame of mind for deep immersion into the luxury of slowing down from the dailies and focusing on learning from experienced mentors and peers. It's a lot of work, and the pace is frantic, but I ain't complaining. I've very fortunate.
Of the numerous and varied themes we dig into, a constant reminder comes in the essential, recurring theme of "access." Independent school students and their families often have access to the very best our society offers. Much of that access is outside of the classroom and without the restrictive arm of government constraints. In other words, simply by the relationships our people develop at MUS, access becomes available to the people, places, and things which make navigating life a lot easier. Ultimately, access to a steady income based upon the foundation of a solid education towards individual ability and its associated civic responsibility become the norm for MUS graduates. These people make the world a better place by pouring themselves out to their families, their professions, and their communities. We're used to the cycle, and we expect a gradual, progressive improvement while holding on to cherished traditions.
How did all this opportunity begin? Access, I argue. Access to the freedom even to begin the dynamic process of learning and its associated discipline and industriousness required for any individual to achieve. Hope and belief of attaining lofty goals supports the effort, and, in my opinion which is shared by MUS folks, parents and families are essential to any of this ever getting off the ground.
However, we all are painfully aware that some children are stuck, and try as the most noble program can promise, access to the aforementioned cycle is denied to an increasing number each year for complex factors, many of which may be beyond repair. That said, leave it to a storied product of our state's Land Grant university, Chris Whittle, to break into the mix and offer some access.
Thursday's Wall Street Journal offers more gas to the raging fire that is the continuing decline of American math and science scores as compared to their international peers, and the book review of Liberated Learning encapsulates, even mentions directly, some of what I have had to read and write concerning the state of our country's education policy and practice. Web-based solutions connecting limited-access students to capable teachers are showing dividends. Authors Terry Moe and John Chubb, who works for Whittle's Edison Learning, present some practical ways to provide access to better schooling, potentially even to MUS students. I think they're on to something.
While Independent Schools are largely immune to the effects of the public education inertia and associated political bedfellows, Independent School children and their families live in a larger reality to which they are not immune, that being one where access to that which they themselves are accustomed is being denied to fellow citizens, future citizens with whom they must live, move, and have their being. As the separate and unequal chasm grows, maybe some of us can be spurred to specific actions of access that reverse the international and domestic slide our children face.
