As I watch all these beautiful new schools going up it is hard not to be impressed visually and note the overall look for the City improving. I understand the old schools were far past their life expectancy but have you driven around Pueblo? (lol) Like most things in life…does the outside really matter?
With nearly my entire family in education hopefully none of them read this post…lol. (not really) In my eyes it seems as if America is in denial of how behind and out of touch with current times our education system has become. You can put up all the test scores and supposed “measuring sticks” you want but just talk to nearly 70% of graduates and they are lost.
Lost on basic life elements, leadership, & any trade obtained skills. What do I mean? Try the several near straight A students that have done some side work for me. While fantastic very intelligent kids and can tell me most of the State Capitals and who the Greek God of Sex in Mythology was….they have no idea how to balance a checkbook, anything about a mortgage, how to screw two boards together, how to sew a button on, how to budget money, credit card interest, etc….
So as I look as these multimillion dollar schools being built I somewhat cringe. It’s like the couple with the stunning nice house that has the fancy cars, are touchy/feely in public, wear all the gold jewelry, go to all the “important” events and then go home and are miserable and hate each other when inside. To me this sums up a new school right now. Does the outside really matter if the inside is broken?
I suppose one could argue that more kids will be attracted to the nicer facility and better looks and there was “no other choice”. I would argue Kids don’t really care where they are going if they are happy and have role models inside. Teachers are up against it in so many ways. Incomes for the teachers education level needed are now higher in nearly 85% of other fields in the US and attracting new teachers is approaching an all time low. So wouldn’t the money have been better spent in the short term raising teacher wages, attracting more teachers with smaller class sizes, & focusing on changing the culture? Then…build the schools.
Not with our current leaders…this is all about the looks on the outside and reality doesn’t matter. You can build a ten million dollar school that looks amazing but it doesn’t solve the problem on the inside. I will admire the architecture every time I pass by but know deep down it was just a waste of money. The education system is broken and nothing on the outside will fix anything until the inside gets revamped. Maybe they are going at this backwards….I sure hope so but can’t find a positive.
