The Education of a Public School Parent

Conversely, the police have chased drug dealers through one of those elementary schools, and we had to deal with a high school teacher who flunked one of our children because the special ed staff had failed to explain that he had a learning disability requiring accommodations for his assignments. My youngest daughter was harassed as one of the few white kids on her bus and pushed down the bus steps one afternoon last spring. When I met with the summer school teacher of one of the “extra” kids who lived with us, he told me, “All she has to do is show up every day, and we’ll pass her to seventh grade.” Surprised, I asked him, “And what about her learning the multiplication tables?” He merely shrugged.

Of course, outrages and disappointments are not confined to the city. A friend in Wayzata agonized about her son’s tired, mediocre third-grade teacher. “She just wasn’t a very good teacher,” my friend explained. Another friend’s highly regarded south-suburban high school routinely has police officers and drug dogs patrolling the corridors and lockers. And just about wherever you live in the metro area, classrooms bursting to the seams with forty kids, some sitting on the floor, have become a shameful fact of life.

When I think about our family’s experience with the public schools, I can’t help but consider the bigger picture, which includes politics (school district, city, state, and federal), budget constraints, racism, economic disparities, urban versus suburban biases, the changing global economy, and future work force needs. Because all of those things are part of the mix, to one degree or another they all affect our children’s education. But it’s the kids’ everyday experiences—and their teachers, classmates, and classmates’ families—that create the lasting impressions of their school years.

My experience as a public school parent began in 1986, when my oldest daughter, whom I adopted when she was nine, was in elementary school. She attended Andersen Open and then switched to Barton Open, both in south Minneapolis. Two decades later, I still have fond memories of friendly, productive classrooms and caring teachers committed to teaching. Happily, our experience at yet another southside school, Lyndale Elementary, has carried much of the same goodness, thanks to teachers and staff who know what works and who understand their importance in children’s lives.

With so many years and so many children, I have no shortage of stories about the public schools. But our daughter Grace’s recent year at Lyndale reflects the mix of what’s good, bad, and challenging about the city’s public schools that our other children faced as well.

The Lyndale chapter began two years ago when our son Pete, then fourteen, was accepted into Washburn High School’s aviation magnet program. Pete and Grace, who was nine, had both attended the Quaker school in St. Paul. (I’ve changed the kids’ names to give them a bit of privacy.) That school had been a perfect fit for Pete. He went there from kindergarten through eighth grade, with one year out for homeschooling because of a learning disability, which the school could not deal with because it did not have the resources. But we had grown tired of the daily carpooling, and Grace wanted to attend a bigger school. Also, she was heading into fifth grade and already knew that she wanted to go to Anthony Middle School, where many of her neighborhood friends would be going, the following year. We decided to get both kids back into the Minneapolis system and went looking for a good spot for Grace.