Choices for our Children

Choices for our Children

Jeffery Canada, Waiting for Superman, perfected the ideology of a child when he shared that as a boy he was deeply saddened to learn that Superman was fictional. Jeffery stated that his sadness was in realizing that “no one was coming to save him” from his poverty stricken life. Nowadays with the help of popular media culture, poor or lack of positive role models, economic strains on households, divorce rates, teen pregnancy, commonality of violence, and just plain hopelessness children are not sitting around daydreaming about a savior. Poorly educated children today will negatively affect the livelihood of society’s future. People should not continue to go on and ignore or complain about the growing issues that impede educating children. Adults must invest resources into children and education in order for change to take place. There is an old wise saying, “We are only as strong as our weakest link.” Children are the future adults of society. How does one go about to solve a problem that is so profound? Is there a solution? Where, when and how do we start?  Caring, passionate and responsible individuals do the best that they can, however they can.

Most children think that the essence of life is only what they see and believe to experience (Canada).  Joel Osteen once said that a famous rapper was asked why his lyrics were so negative and violent. The rapper answered “I’m just keeping it real, that’s what’s going on in the world we live in.” Joel later stated that “if that young man would have traveled only three to four blocks outside of his neighborhood, he would have seen the many nice family friendly filled subdivisions of people who were living a totally different lifestyle.”  Most successes begin with a simple thought or a kind word of encouragement.  Now, the first African American President of the United States of America, Barak Obama wrote a book entitled, “The Audacity of Hope.”  Obama noted how his success beat the odds. Statistically, the biracial son of a single white mother and Kenya African native father should have never become anything of world impacting importance.  Many American children are raised in ill-fated, undesirable, and underprivileged conditions, yet they grow up to live successful lives. Barak Obamas mother like many other mothers took time to read to her children and impart the importance of education into her son and daughter. Some children don’t have parents that encourage them. People are born as innocent babies into various situations. Sometimes it is not until a child comes across a teacher, mentor, or friend of a different background that may knowingly or unknowingly say a word of encouragement that changes the course of the person’s life.   

Jacksonville Florida is a city that steadily works towards improving the outcome of students that attend the local school system. Duval County consists of many successful political, business and leaders that have taken an effort to give back and help strengthen the community. Beverley Hartley-Wilhite, a Duval County Public School kindergarten teacher participated in the recent community improvement forum JAX2025, a program that focuses on the improvement of Jacksonville Florida by year 2025.  Beverly’s contributing ideas to the forum include “structuring a mentoring system for students, establishing ROTC at all schools, schools offer an hour and a half of time to an after school study hall, and encouraged that morals be taught at school (Fouraker).’ Hartley-Wilhite further discussed that her suggestions could improve student grades, encourage self-disciple, decrease juvenile crimes, and assist to inhibit teenage pregnancy (Fouraker). FCAT is a Florida standardized test that is used to measure the progress of Florida students. Not making satisfactory scores on the FCAT could prevent a student from passing on to the next grade level or graduating from high school. Studies reveal that Hispanic and African American students from low income, uninformed, and substandard households are less likely to meet FCAT requirements than their colleagues of White suburban students that live in more sophisticated socioeconomic status (Borg, Plumlee, Stranahan). Students benefit when caring teachers like Beverly concentrate their focus and energy on making positive changes in efforts to supplement disadvantaged kids. Mary Foster, Student Advocate Coordinator at Frank H. Peterson Academy, works with the HOPE program.  HOPE, communities in school program assigns an educator to counsel, mentor, and support students that have been affected by challenges such as: bullying, depression, violence, death of a parent and siblings, pregnancy and confusion (Woods).  Rosie Wright, HOPE advisor at Fort Caroline Middle school states, “Kids don’t drop out of school, they drift out.”  “They don’t connect their education to their future.”

For those that yet ponder, where is it that we start? We start where we are! The local school system, teachers and students are not without its issues. However, the Florida Times Union, Jacksonville.com reveals that Duval County schools offer many programs, learning environments, styles and options for educating students. To name a few of these options; ESE slow learning student programs, Choice schools, Magnet programs, Charter schools, support for Home Schooling, ROTC programs, Team Up after school tutoring and activities, STAR, Aviation Florida Air National Guard programs, FBLA, Communities in Schools, Teen Parents schools, HOPE and Upward Bound (Palka). Jeffery Canada, Superintendent of Schools in Harlem New York, as a child, visualized education as a way out of a birthright of poverty.  Many times people can’t change how they start in life but they can make conscious decisions and efforts about how they will continue in life, thus affecting their future.  People can also change the course of the lives of others by the words they say, showing patience even when it is not deserved, and by displaying compassion. Most Educators display these values when they go to work every day and make an impact on our future leaders of our communities…our children.

Hagans 5

Works Cited

Borg, Mary O'Malley, J. Patrick Plumlee, and Harriet A. Stranahan. "Plenty of Children Left Behind High-Stakes Testing and Graduation Rates in Duval County, Florida." Educational policy 21.5 (2007): 695-716.

Fouraker, Bruce. “Helping Envision Jacksonville’s Future.” Folio Weekly.com. Northeast Florida’s News and Opinion Magazine. April 10- 16, 2013 p54

Great Schools Staff.  “Choosing a school: An overview.”  

            http://www.greatschools.org/find-a-school/defining-your-ideal/33-choosing-a-school.gs?page=all, April 15, 2013

http://dcpsweb.duvalschools.org/parents/academic-programs/teen-parents-program/index.html

http://duvalchoice.com/options/choice-schools

Palka, Mary Kelli. “Limited options for Duval transfer students.”                       

 http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-07-11/story/limited-options-duval-transfer-students#ixzz2QaoliKrm, July 11, 2011 - 6:33pm  |  Updated: July 12, 2011 - 6:39am                    

Hagans 6

“Three schools, three perspectives: Fighting to succeed in Duval schools. Three students' experiences show how the system can help.” Posted: June 5, 2010 - 6:00pm

 Supovitz, Jonathan A., Henry May, and Brooke Snyder Taylor. "The impact of America's Choice on student performance in Duval County, Florida." (2002).