Take Praise, Criticism with a Grain of Salt

This appears in the March 2011 issue of Excelsior.

In the last year, KPS and the KPS community have experienced a fair bit of recognition: President Obama's visit; a lengthy article on our progress in the national education journal, Kappan, by Western Michigan University Professor Gary Miron and two of his colleagues; and recognition of the Kalamazoo community as the 2011 Champion for Children by the Michigan Association for School Administrators, the superintendents' state association. Most recently, two of us accepted an invitation to participate in a small-group meeting in Washington to advise federal officials in a number of agencies on ways to streamline regulations and help improve service delivery to children.

At the same time, we are continually reminded of our challenges in the largest district in Southwest Michigan, one in which 69 percent of our 12,400 children are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. Most recently, a report lamented the low student achievement in the state of Michigan, the gap between white and African-American students in urban districts across the state, and the need for substantial improvement.

The report didn't mention the profound, negative effects of cuts in budgets and services on our children's education in the last several years. It didn't mention the tremendous poverty with which so many of our children struggle daily. It didn't mention how poverty disproportionately affects African-American students in Michigan and across the country.

The report didn't mention that 86 percent of KPS African-American students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, but only 46 percent of KPS white students are similarly eligible. It didn't mention that this first percentage is higher than that of Detroit, higher than that of almost every city in Michigan.

More broadly, it didn't mention that all cities in the state with more than 65,000 residents experienced a significant decline in their average household income from 1999 to 2009, and that Kalamazoo's decline was the second greatest in the state in this category.

To say the least, the report is thin in both its explanation of issues and its solutions to these issues. Nonetheless, it does make a contribution: to point out clearly how unacceptable the current level of Michigan student achievement is.

In urban districts and communities, charged with the complicated responsibility of educating a wide range of young people, many of whose parents have little formal education themselves, we sometimes decry the conditions from which our students come and in which we work. Whatever those conditions are, however, it is inescapable that if our children are to rise, to become fully what they are capable of becoming, it will be in large measure due to how well we as members of the Kalamazoo school district and community do in collectively supporting our children. The days of succeeding in spite of one's formal education are over. The days of dropping out of school and forging one's own successful path are no longer. More than ever before, success in school is necessary for success in adulthood.

It was George Bernard Shaw, the playwright, who once said, "Life does not cease to be funny when people die, any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." We appreciate the praise that we have received, even while acknowledging that we continue to have a long way to go before we are fully the district and community that we need to be for children. We recognize our shortcomings, even as we build a better district and community each and every day for our young people.

Thank you for your partnership in this effort.

Michael F. Rice, Ph.D.
Superintendent
Kalamazoo Public Schools