March 7, 2002
The state is taking a meat cleaver to public educa tion, and while it doesn't affect me directly since I don't work for the schools or have children, it will have an impact on the larger society we live in.
For years, the argument between the left and the right has been over whether spending more money on public schools has any positive effects on education.
Unfortunately, most of the rhetoric on both sides is anecdotal, with local business leaders complaining about illiterate people applying for jobs, for example, but not saying whether those people were products of the local school system or new arrivals.
School officials whine about the need for more money, when much of the extra money that is allocated seems to get swallowed up by the bureaucracy.
The debate over education funding tends to generate more heat than light, and, as usual, I'd like to insert my two cents.
One of the culture shocks of living in Florida and in the modern age is that there is far more emphasis on schools as not only the center of learning but also the social center for students. Maybe it's because I attended an urban system where neighborhood friends were closer than school friends, and what happened at school had less impact on us.
I was a high-school student in New York City from 1974 to 1978, the teeth of the city's budget crisis. All city departments and agencies faced huge cutbacks then, and the newspapers were filled with poignant tales of city workers who suddenly lost their jobs.
The schools were not immune to these changes. Not only were free electives cut dramatically, extracurricular activities and sports were pretty much eliminated. I remember trying out for the baseball team, showing up with hundreds of others at a practice where there were only two slots open on the team. All the intramural sports had been eliminated.
It was a difficult time, and to their credit, the teachers still did their best to educate us. Of course, this was before standardized testing really came to the fore, so if a school was underfunded as all of them were and a few students didn't do well on the tests, the school was not punished financially.
I remember feeling resentment at the lack of clubs and programs at school, but not that much since there was always the bunch from the neighborhood to play ball with. What I think worries a lot of students today is the feeling that anything done outside a school-organized event won't "count" or be a valid resume item.
In an era of cutbacks, formal programs to participate in tend to fall, and that may appear to make a person look less "special." I say it's all overblown. There are possibilities and activities outside the purview of the schools, and while they may not "count," they're just as important.
Maybe I didn't make Newtown High School's baseball team, but in the 80th Street Bohack parking-lot stickball league, I once hit a rubber ball so hard and so far it looked like it would land in the church yard across the street for a home run.
Then it hit a powerline and bounced back into the parking lot for a cheap single.
And that's not on my resume.
Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.
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