The group of 26 business leaders who have expressed their deep concern for the “state” of Richmond Public Schools need to suck it up. They need to put their money where their mouth is and get their foot in the door of schools that need them. It will never be an easy fix to get the schools where the Gang of 26 wants them. It will take volunteers, money, and a community coming together to care for the whole child, not just the academic side of the kids.

If the Gang of 26 really feels that the state of city schools, “an emergency situation that must be dealt with immediately and with bold action,” then they need to start showing that THEY are willing to help. Per Buttermilk and Molasses, NOT ONE of them showed up at last night’s Public Square on education hosted by the Times Dispatch.
It makes me wonder if they even care. At all. Or even if they know how to care. You don’t care for something that’s broken by throwing your political weight around and declaring a “crisis!” That is like screaming “FIRE!” in a crowded theater and then making sure you are the first one out. You care for something or someone that is broken by showing up and saying what can I do to help. You set an example for your employees and your peers by showing faith in the system (ie Gov. Kaine sending his own kids to Richmond Public School’s Holton Elementary) and showing that you will help by showing up on your day off, or paying your employees their salary while they take a few hours to tutor or volunteer at a school. You show you care by offering scholarships to kids from the projects who manage to succeed despite great odds against them. You care by offering them internships (or even just a glimpse) of how your company works and what kind of life they might be able to have if they put the work in.

Richmond Public school kids have heart. They are smart in ways you cannot imagine. Many are social geniuses. They are funny and bright. But when they come home to a parent who is too tired from working two jobs to read to them or cuddle them, when come home to a parent who doesn’t know how to read, how can you expect them to succeed? When they move every few months (and have to start over at a new school) because money is tight or come to school hungry, who can blame them for not being able to concentrate. They might be worried about a father in jail. Their mind might be focused on mom’s new boyfriend who abuses them, or about the neighbor who got shot outside their house last week.
Teachers only get the students for less than 7 hours a day. The other 17 hours a day, the kids are in daycare, on the streets playing, or watching the mind numbing T.V. to escape the reality of their life that seems so bleak.
It is programs like Richmond Public School Woodville’s Micah Initiative or Nationally funded Head Start and Even Start that start to make changes for these kids. It is programs like Gov. Tim Kaine’s Start Strong plan for offering universal preschool to Virginia’s children. Getting lots of help early in the students life is what helps these kids feel successful, value learning, and resist the pressure of the street. Not a new school board.
As the Rev. Ben Campbell, pointed out in today’s Style Weekly, race does have something to do with it. The many of the African Americans who could have lead the way for their peers have followed the white flight to the suburbs — their thinking corrupted by the white middle class who did the same. You know if the “busing” in the 1970’s had been done with care, instead of with a vengeance, we might have learned that integrated public education could work — and be a good thing. But it wasn’t and we didn’t.

This blog is run by 2 parents Richmond Public Schools students. Parents who feel passionate about their children’s education. Recently, NWEN posted an opinion from the principal of Mary Munford, Greg Muzik, (where our children go).
Muzik had a great retort to the 26 business leaders who recently called for an appointed school board and other changes to the Richmond Public Schools system. As a successful principal in a Richmond public school, principal Muzik knows better than many business leaders what works and what doesn’t in a school environment. Granted, Mary Munford has a more affluent population than most other city schools, but it still has its share of troubled, poor and kids with special needs.

A new school board is not what Richmond Public Schools needs. What it needs is caring business leaders who put their money and their time where their mouth is. Of course educating a kid who doesn’t get what he needs at home is going to be harder. Of course it will cost more money and require more teachers than the counties need. These are kids who have one parent. Kids whose dads are in jail (again). Kids whose dads didn’t bother to stick around and help. Kids whose mom did drugs and alcohol while they were pregnant with them. And some kids who are perfectly normal, and have everything they need at home, but just get sucked into the hype that school is not worthwhile. Teachers are the support system of the community. THe dedicated workers that take measely salaries for thankless work that gets criticized by business leaders who have never stepped foot in these school or in the home of a 3 year old living in the projects. It is time that the Gang of 26 show they have a heart. They need to educate themselves — volunteer in the inner city schools, see why it is so much harder and costs so much more money to get these kids learning. And then they need to come up with a real business plan to help.