Our children must have free quality education

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12 SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 1988 Sylvia Weinstein is the Socialist Action candidate for San Francisco's Board of Education. She has been a leading activist in the fight to obtain expanded public childcare and educational facilities. She served on the San Francisco school district's Children's Center Expansion Committee and on the Health and Childcare Committee of the Commission on the Status of Women.

The following article is taken from a forthcoming pamphlet by Sylvia Weinstein on education in America today.

Public education is a heritage handed down to today's children. Public education was fought for and won by Black and white workers many years ago. All of the improvements within the public educational system have been the result of struggle by working-class parents to give their children opportunities they themselves never had.

Today that heritage, limited though it is, is on the verge of being totally destroyed. Throughout the country, in one city after another, the public-school system has suffered severe cutbacks and lowering of quality. Graduation from high school with a third-grade or fourth-grade reading level is quite common. Overcrowded and segregated classrooms are the rule. Student dropouts are rising.

It is quite common for older people to deride today's education by comparing it to education in their day. "When I went to school," this argument goes, "we didn't have all the fancy trappings that today's schools have. But we still got a good education. We learned to read and write."

Of course, that's a fantasy—most dropped out of high school before they graduated. They did not exactly learn to read in school, they often had a lot of help at home.

In the larger family of 40 years ago, many younger children, not yet in school, were taught to read and write by an older sibling who was in school. In today's smaller family, many children do not even get a chance to play regularly with other children until they go to kindergarten.

As late as 35 years ago, one out of every five households had an older relative living with them-someone who would be there to see to it that the children got home from school on time, changed into their play clothes and did their homework. That is not the case today.

The majority of today's children come home from school to an empty house. Their parents, who work, usually do not get home until 6 p.m. or later. This is the case for the majority of today's urban children.

This drastically changed situation requires that the public-school system play an even greater role in meeting the educational and social needs of our children.

Black parents' contribution

Not so many years ago, if a child did not make good grades in school, the blame was placed on the child—not the educational system. For example, in the 1950s, Black children in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn were graduating from high school with an average third-grade reading level. That was viewed by the school authorities as a natural condition.

In fact, it was Black parents from Bedford-Stuyvesant who first fought for and won remedial programs to make up for the segregated, low-quality education their children had been receiving for years. Their victory came about when the Black parents took advantage of the 1954 Supreme Court decision against segregated schools.

White parents and their children shared in this victory. They had mistakenly assumed that it was just Black children who could not read. After a series of tests on white students, it was determined that the average white student in Brooklyn was graduating from high school with fourth-grade and fifth-grade reading levels. This shock brought a demand for remedial programs for all children.

Other contributions by Black parents in Brooklyn were: open enrollment, teachers' aides in the classroom, upgrading of teachers, and participation by parents in the classroom. Other educational improvements such as smaller class sizes, expanded kindergarten programs, and improved social services were also won through community and teachers' struggles in those years.

More recently, however, these programs have been gutted by Democratic and Republican politicians. It's as if this country were just too poor to provide a quality education for all of our children.

City governments around the country claim that "budget crises" are forcing them to close down schools and lay off teachers. Meanwhile, billions of dollars in interest on tax-free municipal bonds continue to flow to the banks and the wealthy.

Democratic and Republican members of Congress are just as ready to provide billions for war budgets that grow ever larger. It is no wonder that one of the popular slogans of teachers and parents has become, O KE May May Gong/Socialist Action "It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need, and the Navy has to hold a bake sale to buy a ship".

We need more childcare In order to ensure every child a truly quality education, we must fight the cutbacks—and more. We must begin the fight to expand educational opportunities for our children. Public schools can become the support system to provide children with educational and social needs that their parents, who must work all day, cannot provide.

With more parents in the workforce, we must expand children's centers. Our children's centers must have early-childhood developmental programs and credentialed teachers. The school-entrance age must be lowered to the age of three.

Not many years ago, it was thought that children were not ready for school before the age of six. Studies have proven that very young children must have educational stimuli if they are to develop toward their greatest potential. One of their most necessary educational needs is interaction with other children.

We must begin to view children's centers as we do kindergartens, and make them available to all parents and children who are ready for them. Children's centers should be free and as available as public schools. All parents who need this service should have it available to them, whether they are working or not and regardless of their income.

These centers should be available as often as parents feel is necessary—for a full day, part of the day, a few days a week, and even on weekends for parents who are compelled to work on those days.

Children's centers and our public schools should be open, at least, from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. with all meals provided-including supper. Seventeen percent of public-school students begin their day with a bottle of soda pop. Healthy food, served in the schools and centers, is a major need in this rich country.

Students shouldn't have to be from AFDC or low-income families to qualify for good, healthy school meals. School meals should be free and available to all students, just as water is available at the water fountains.

All schools should contain after-school centers for older students, with full recreational and educational programs. Bilingual programs should be made a regular part of the school curriculum and not relegated to the children of nonEnglish-speaking parents.

Infantcare centers

Infantcare centers with parent-education programs should be placed in every high school. These centers could provide care for infants from birth to three years of age. They should be open to all junior-high and high-school parents who have not yet finished their schooling.

Parent-education programs would help older students, as well as teen-age parents (teenage pregnancies are at rising levels) learn how to care for younger children. Most of today's young parents have not held an infant in their arms until they carry their own infant out of the hospital maternity ward.

Child abuse, an increasing crime under modern capitalism, would be reduced and eventually eliminated as ignorance and poverty are eliminated. Young parents, especially, need help if they are to become good parents. Infantcare centers, with parent educational programs, can alleviate the hardships caused by the constant care needed by infants and siblings.

With infantcare centers, teenage mothers would not have to face the tragic problem of being forced to give up their child for adoption. Even if infantcare centers were used only a few hours a week, it would help young parents relate to their children in a healthier way.

Lower the size of classes How can teachers be expected to do their job with class sizes of 30 to 40 students? It's like handing a brain surgeon a pickax to do a brain operation.

The class size should be reduced to no more than 12 pupils per teacher. This would enable the teacher to give needed individual instruction to each student as well as to develop an individual relationship with each one.

Improvements in the school site should be made to convert each school into a pleasant and clean place to learn and to teach in. Children's creativity can be considerably enhanced by having a good environment to work and play in.

Our schools should be open at night for adult education and other community uses. The whole population must be encouraged to participate in the public-school system. Young and old alike will develop a protective pride in their public schools when they realize that the system is there to genuinely provide the educational and cultural services they need.

Each school should have healthcare (continued on page 11)

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the Fourth International Over 300 people gathered at the Aug. 6 Socialist Action rally to commemorate 50 years of the Fourth Interational.

Fifty years ago, Leon Trotsky and a group of supporters founded the Fourth International, a revolutionar party committed to the establishmen of an international socialist society.

On Aug. 6, 1988, over 300 people gathered at the First Unitarian Church in San Francisco to hear leaders of the Fourth International and representatives from revolution. ary movements throughout the world salute the 50 years of the Fourth International.

In this special 8-page supplement we are reprinting excerpts from all the speeches and greetings presentt at this Socialist Action rally. In sol cases, for reasons of space, the speeches and greetings have been considerably abridged.

This supplement also includes excerpts from an international report adopted by the Third National Convention of Socialist Action, which took place Aug. 4-7—The Editors Jeff Mackler:

Moscum ideas are embodied in the program of the Fourth International, and they are alive today on every continent of the globe.

Long 50TH regime in a second.

No, it wasn't the masses who were at fault in Iran, it was their leaders. It has not CALE Joseph Ryan/Socialist Action ism, national oppression, and oppression of gay people.

That's the program of the Fourth

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MONEY FOR MY SCHOOL

TH INTE