REPLY TO MR. ROSANDER ON EXTENDING
THE CALIFORNIA SCHOOL CALENDAR
Excuse me if I’m not overly impressed by the views expressed by Mr. Gerald Rosander in his Op Ed article published in today’s Fresno Bee. He seems to be a nice man, and certainly well intentioned by taking the time to articulate his views on improving the quality of education for all of our demographically diverse students. By any and all norms Fresno remains sadly behind much of the state in the results we achieve for our children, and Mr. Rosander is by all social norms qualified to speak on this subject of concern to us all, given his years of service to the Fresno Unifiied School District.
In a nutshell, Rosander asserts that Californians must change their agrarian-based school calendar 9 months in school, and 3 months on summer vacation—an effective use of students’ time when able-bodied children were needed to lend an extra hand on the farm, or ranch, or some other community resource. Rosander even cites some impressive numbers regarding the achievement and retention white vs. non-white student groups in our demographically diverse state school system
But were I to accept Mr. Rosander’s silver-bullet conclusion to California’s long-standing “achievement gap” among peoples of different cultures and language backgrounds, I would bypass the very standard “learning result’ (spelled ESLR in educationese) that is proudly displayed in most any California school classroom as a primary goal for educated citizens: that being the goal of “critical thinking.” For just as Mr. Rosander’s solution to raising student achievement is seductively simple –“You mean all we have to do is change the school calendar?”—it also completely disregards the complexities that surround educating children—(1) whose primary language is different from American English; (2) whose cultural disposition toward “school” is vastly different from that of those home-land ancestors who shaped the classroom methodologies we continue to practice to this day and(3) whose status as a minority ethnic group has now replaced the once-dominant white Anglo-Saxon majority as the dominant culture in our schools, comprising an overwhelming majority of our demographic composition.
Assuming that Mr. Rosander’s intention was to offer but one suggestion that may have a more positive effect that today’s management of school-time, I wish to give him credit for formulation the beginning of a thought, much like many of us do while driving in the car, or watching a no-plot television as a way of amusing ourselves with a topic of some greater substance. But in all fairness to the importance of this particular topic, it’s not like we, as people and civilized society, did not see these changes in California town coming. In all candor, the complexities of our schools have been occurring in increments over the past 30+ years, long enough for us to have formulated a series of insights than are far more promising that those offered by well-meaning Mr. Rosander. To borrow your words, sir, “time is of the essence.” The essence of what we do with the time we have will have a far greater impact of student learning, while respecting pluralistic family values, needs and dispositions toward learning than continuing to offer more of the same—only more of the same. Don’t your think?
