In 2006, former Vice President Al Gore snagged himself a Nobel Peace Prize for calling to our attention what he called an “inconvenient truth.” Another colossal threat, however, is developing as we speak—and not among the ice caps of Antarctica or in an elusive hole somewhere in our planet’s atmosphere, but in cities across the United States – and is severely damaging our nation’s most precious resource: our children.
You have heard the stats before: Fourth graders in low-income schools are on average three grade levels behind their higher income peers, and only 50 percent of them will graduate high school by the age of 18. But I think it’s rare for students to truly grasp what these numbers mean. Imagine if in your preppy suburban elementary school, old Mrs. Humperdink had taken four full years to teach you what all the other kids learned in the first grade. Or, in your high school class, only the half with the highest annual income had been allowed to graduate. I bet you would have felt significantly cheated, and I guarantee your mother would have raised some serious hell at the PTA meetings that year.
The bottom line is that public education in our country is failing miserably, and this should come as no surprise to anyone. Education reform, however, is by no means the sexiest of headlines, and politicians continue to discuss it in an obligatory manner, as a placeholder to appease American mothers before moving on to the more pressing issues of congressional sex scandals and the color of lipstick worn by Sarah Palin’s pet pig.
Well-intentioned but insufficient legislative actions such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) have made steps towards raising national awareness, but it is obvious the impetus to reverse this horrifying trend must come from within the system. An excellent example of the measures needed has emerged through the work of Michelle Rhee, the newly appointed chancellor of D.C. public schools. In her first year, she managed to close 23 of the district’s schools, firing 36 principals and over 100 from her central office staff. This radical overturning of the system has brought chaos and controversy in her jurisdiction, but it has also brought an urgency and accountability to those floating along next to the sinking boat of D.C. public education.
These problems do not merely exist in far off Washington or at the bottom of the CNN ticker, however. The public schools of metro Nashville are currently under corrective action after failing to meet the standards set by NCLB, and the Tennessee Department of Education has set into motion a series of hirings, firings and innovative restructuring of the system in its attempt to bring our city’s children up to par with the rest of the nation.
“Well, what the hell do you expect me to do about it?” you may be wondering. I am not asking every student to run out and transfer to Peabody or drive down to Maplewood High School and adopt the first struggling kid you see. The most anyone can ask at this point is awareness, and in five or ten or fifty years when you find yourself, as you will, in a position of influence in the world, then you can do something about it. And we must do something about it.       
Carolyn Pippen is a senior in the College of Arts and Science. She can be reached at carolyn.m.pippen@vanderbilt.edu.
