A BRIEF CRITIQUE OF THE LAS CRUCES PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT’S EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

      I have read The Bulletin’s 21 November coverage of re-elected School Board members and their current thinking about educational problems to be addressed and the educational solutions to be adopted.  I am appalled.  Their greatest concerns are matters of accommodating students on the basis of their feelings of belonging and comfort.  So they decry the discomforts of students facing tests or having homework.  Not surprisingly, not one of them shows the least concern about the lack of educational attainment by K-12 students.  Not one mentions the persistent decline in proficiency scores in basic subjects, namely, reading and mathematics. 

An etymological note: “education” derives from a blend of two Latin words, “educare” (to bring up, rear, train) and “educere” (to lead out).  Semantically, the blend means a development from an exclusive responsiveness to one’s inner world (infantile narcissism) to a comprehensive responsiveness to and mediation of one’s inner world and the outer world (adult maturity).  The Las Cruces Public School District has no awareness of this meaning of “education.”  In fact, its philosophy amounts to a rationalization of infantilism.

 

The School Board and the Superintendent yield to the many parents who complain about the number of tests and the homework assigned to their children.  There is too much homework, it is too time-consuming, it is too hard—one re-elected Board member said that not all students can get the multiplication table and urged that the schools should settle for whatever learning happens—, it upsets their children, and it causes too many problems at home.  They also yield to the many teachers, especially elementary school teachers, who cannot teach what the state curriculum requires.  Past Superintendents Stan Rounds and Karen Trujillo admitted to me that none of them knows grammar; neither meant to remedy this professional deficiency.

 

As a result of accommodating these complaints, the standards of educational attainment are simply whatever the student does, without regard to subject-matter mastery.  Board members with many years experience as teachers have no more sense about education in public schools than people with none at all, and perhaps less.  Worse, these Board members act on the soft bigotry of low or, in their case, no expectations of a school population predominantly Hispanic.  They conceal their bigotry with a show of sympathy for the students facing tests and homework, not a commitment to them as future adults who will have lives to live as citizens with personal needs, social obligations, and economic responsibilities.

 

To show the slackness of the educational philosophy of the Las Cruces Public School District, I analyze and evaluate its overarching statements of vision, mission, and values.

 

First, its “Vision Statement: Where all learners thrive.”  This vision is blurred by its vagueness.  Thriving suggests to me potted plants in an environmentally controlled greenhouse.

 

     Second, its “Mission Statement: The Las Cruces Public Schools provides a safe, caring, equitable, and student-centered learning environment that cultivates civic and community engagement, promotes excellence, and honors diversity.”  This statement fails to state a mission usually expressed as a purpose, that is, to do something.  Providing a “learning environment” suggests ensuring only suitable classroom conditions, sufficient furniture, and functioning equipment.  Such environments per se do not cultivate engagement, promote excellence, and honor diversity; there is no need to encourage them.  Engagement and diversity are tangential to and distractions from education; they give teachers and students excuses to do something besides teaching and learning something.  The idea of promoting excellence in an education regime which has no standards other than accepting as good enough whatever the student does is risible.  For student-centered learning dilutes, filters out, or limits learning subject matter.  The main purpose of public education is the transmission of knowledge and skills from teacher to students; once students acquire them, they have enhanced capabilities to pursue their interests, without guidance, direction, or indoctrination by the schools.

 

Third, its “Core Values: Our expectation is that our schools are diverse, equitable and provide [sic] opportunities for the development of critical thinking and democratic ideals and that our schools will uphold these core values:

• Be accountable for every child.

• Foster growth and innovation, grounded in research and evidence.

• Guide all decisions through the lens of equity, sustainability, and respect.

• Commit to the inclusion and success of every student.

• Maintain a safe, healthy, and caring environment.

• Cultivate and maintain partnerships with parents, students, staff, and community members.

• Embrace the power of collaboration.”

 

I note that this statement is devoid of any reference to the schools’ obligation to foster educational achievement in terms of knowledge and skills except for a reference to “critical thinking.”  I doubt that, at the moment of reading this blog, any member of the School Board or the Superintendent can give a cogent definition of critical thinking.  Moreover, they apparently assume that critical thinking can occur in the absence of knowledge or skills.  For nothing in these core values suggests that they believe in the importance of the acquisition of knowledge and skills in academic subjects, whether in the various trades, the various arts, history, literature, mathematics, or science.  Finally, their idea of “excellence” allows an anything-goes standard and accepts annual average proficiency scores in reading and math much below fifty percent.

 

The bankruptcy of the Vision Statement, the Mission Statement, and the statement of Core Values goes a long way to explaining the abysmal education provided by the Las Cruces Public School District.  So long as its leaders maintain their bovine indifference to an education focused on knowledge and skills, they will continue to support and defend teachers who are incompetent and unmotivated—in a word, not committed to teaching their subjects for the good of their students.  But it will celebrate the many LCPS graduates who will continue to lack the education to achieve personal enrichment, constructive civic participation, and professional satisfaction, and tout the teachers who make their educational deficiencies possible.