Public Education

This post is dedicated to my friend, Marion Brady, whose commentary on public education is below.  Marion, who just turned 97, wrote this a few months ago, reflecting on 73 years in and around public education.  Were my wish to come true, you’d pass this along to every person you know who has an interest in public education, present and future.

Ross ND Public School, photo ca 1984 by Hank Maher

I have been retired for 24 years, and before my retirement my career was either as a public school teacher (9 years) then full-time union representative affiliated with the National Education Association (27 years).  Before that, I was the child of two career public school teachers; several aunts and uncles were educators.  At present my family includes a school principal and a full-time teacher.

I’ve thus been immersed for most of my life in public education, an entity enrolling nearly 60 million students in every locale in America, reflecting the diversity of this diverse nation of ours.  Most Americans have or will spend 13 years as students in public schools.

The 2023-2024 school year is nearing an end, and as this year concludes I wish to share two items which may be of interest public educators.  Their message is in the content.

MARION BRADY:  Marion is a good friend of many years, now 97 years young, and a career educator going back over 70 years.  He is a passionate and articulate and credentialed expert in education of youngsters.  We met as participants in an on-line NEA Quality Education discussion group in the 1990s, back when “high tech” was e-mail!  It worked.  Marion was a highly respected member of the conversation group.

In March, 2024, Marion sent me a 7 page paper entitled “Beyond the “Core curriculum”.  Here is the paper in its entirety. Marion Brady 2024  It speaks profoundly for itself and deserves serious attention. It deserves a large audience, and I urge you to share it broadly.  At the end of the paper is the link to Marion’s chock-full website, including his personal history.

Marion has long  lived in coastal Florida, within sight of the launch pads at Cape Canaveral.

DICK BERNARD:  A month ago, the school district with which I most identify personally ended up as front page news in the local Minneapolis Star Tribune Anoka-Hennepin SD in Mpls Star Tribune Apr 24 2024.  The issue was a near miss on a potential crisis around school policy relating to DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion).  The threat was to shut down the schools by refusing to approve a budget.  At this writing, the crisis seems to have been resolved, but uncertain about the future.

I decided to weigh in on the issue, and my three page thoughts are here: Dick Bernard to Anoka-Hennepin May 4, 2024.  It, too, speaks for itself.  I did not expect and have not received a response since I’m long retired, and I’m years removed from the school district (the largest enrollment in Minnesota) but that makes no difference.  Public Education is all of us, and if we have an opinion we should express it.  I included a link to a portion of the 1966 Roosevelt Jr. HS annual, which gives a look at public education at that time in history.  You can see it here.

Here is a commentary by a professor who attended Anoka-Hennepin Schools: Abbey Payeur to Mpls Star Tribune Apr 27-28 2024.

POSTNOTE, STORIES May 30, 2024:

My walking route each day is its own community.  We’re mostly elder, and as time goes on become acquainted.

A couple of days ago, Harley was resting and called me over “you’re from Grafton ND”,  he’d heard.  Well, my Dad is from Grafton, but my first 25 years were in mostly tiny towns around North Dakota.  He grew up in North Dakota, so he had common ground.

We got to reminiscing.  He was a farm kid, graduated in a class of 17 (mine was 8).  Started at UofNorth Dakota, couldn’t afford it…a not uncommon story – my Dad was similarly afflicted in 1927 at the same school.  Harley ultimately became a chemical engineer with a long career with two major corporations.

Boatloads of us from the prairie can share similar stories: our schools were so small that we barely got the basics and colleges had us all in “bonehead” classes to learn the rudiments of Algebra, chemistry, etc.  The country schools did the best they could with hardly any resources.  I told Harley I once went to a high school that graduated two seniors, yes, TWO….

As we conversed, Harley recalled a summer job in the late 1960s, doing grunt labor at the under-construction Nekoma Pyramid, a still standing relic of the Cold War at Nekoma, not far from Langdon, North Dakota.

Nekoma ND Pyramid July 14, 2009, photo Dick Bernard

As generations of youngsters have learned, “commencement” often means hard labor at the bottom of the pile.  For Harley, it was common labor, including after-hours clean up 90 feet underground at the pyramid construction site.  There were, of course, protests involving other kids at the site – another story – but this pyramid was Harley’s chain-gang experience.

I haven’t shared with him, yet, something else I wrote for the Anoka-Hennepin School Board (above) about 8th grade in tiny Ross North Dakota (photo which leads this post.).  It is here: Dick Bernard remembers 8th grade 1953-540001 another small town kid story.

Marion Brady has his own life story at his website.  Also a country kid.  “Don;’t get me started…!”.  There are many miles between birth and death for most of us, and many stories, some you can only learn by experience.

Do give Marion’s article a complete read, and pass it on.