At last it is obvious: why does this school district lag the
county, state and nation in academic performance? Answer: because
78 percent of the community and four out of seven board members do
not value education. They may think they value education, but
actually they lack discernment. They would not know education if
they tripped over it.
At last it is obvious: why does this school district lag the county, state and nation in academic performance? Answer: because 78 percent of the community and four out of seven board members do not value education. They may think they value education, but actually they lack discernment. They would not know education if they tripped over it.
This fact was made painfully obvious over the last few weeks as we saw a group of cheerleaders beg and whine to be granted board approval to attend a cheerleading event in Hawaii, in spite of the fact that going to Hawaii would involve missing three days of school.
We saw their parents rally and demand a reversal of a school board vote which forbade the so-called field trip. Most shamefully, we saw two school board members cave in to the pressure and change their votes to allow the excursion.
Let us examine this issue from the ground up. The purpose of school is to educate the young. We finance these institutions with our taxes so that our youngest children will learn to speak English, read, write and add in the hopes that by the time they are adults, they will be able to support themselves or benefit from higher education.
Our purposes are served well with regards to the youngest students. But we hope in vain for a large portion of Gilroy’s teens. Only 38 percent of our high school students are proficient in English language arts and 17 percent proficient in math.
California State University’s Early Assessment Program shows that only 25 percent of GHS graduates were ready for college English and zero percent were ready for college math. Seventy-five percent of our graduates will have to waste time and money taking remedial English courses; all of them will have to take remedial math courses, because they were not adequately prepared in high school.
There are only 180 school days in a year. There are 185 days, plus 17.5 hours of every school day, for non-academic pursuits. Cheerleading is a non-academic pursuit.
Mind, there is nothing wrong with cheerleading, as a free-time activity. Some girls love it. Other students love football, or track, or tennis, or swimming or broadsword or horseback riding or backpacking or dance. Physical activity is good for people; that is why we include it in the curriculum.
But it is not academic. Schools do not exist to provide physical activity. They provide physical activity to enhance academics. When physical activity becomes destructive of academics, then it is time to curtail it.
The parents of the cheerleaders made a big fuss over how “hard” the cheerleaders have “worked.” “They earned this trip,” the parents said.
Baloney. Let us see all members of the cheerleading team earn 2000 or better on their SATs and 4’s or 5’s on their AP exams. Then we can talk about having earned time out of the classroom.
I have a young friend who “works” very hard on his extra-curricular activity. He spends more than four hours a day perfecting his technique. He is highly trusted, honored and relied upon in his peer group.
But his chosen extra-curricular activity is the Internet game World of Warcraft. So he has spent the equivalent of 56 24-hour days in the past year staring at a computer screen and wiggling a mouse around. His virtual life is rich; his academic performance is disappointing; his college prospects are poor. “Hard work” is not necessarily an indicator that one has accomplished anything worth doing.
A trip to Hawaii could be academically worthwhile, as a trip to Washington D.C. for Future Farmers of America is worthwhile. Geology students could tour volcanoes, marine biology students could snorkel and count fish, anthropology students could observe native cultures. Neither having a luau nor cheerleading is academically worthwhile; such recreational activities should be saved for the 185 days when school is not in session.
This vote demonstrates very clearly to me that Jaime Rosso, Javier Aguirre, David McRae and Jim Rogers do not know an education from a hole in the ground. If Gilroy does not re-elect Tom Bundros to school board, we will deserve the shoddy education our children receive.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a mother of three and former engineer. Her column is published in
The Dispatch every Friday.
