WILLIAMSVILLE — Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of Washington, D.C.'s public schools, recently remarked, “There are many nations who have figured out what works in education. Look at Singapore.”
Rhee, the CEO of StudentsFirst, a group working for educational reform, said that last summer, she heard the prime minister give a speech “in which he outlined the plan for making Singapore No. 1 in the world, financially. His economic plan was rooted in education. He knows that if the country can make its education system the best in the world, economic success will follow.
“That's the opposite of what we do here in America. We see education as a social issue, not an economic one. And what happens to social issues in times of economic hardship? They get swept under the rug.”
It reminded me of a story in Dorothy Canfield Fisher's collection of Memories of Arlington, Vermont, her home town, which was published in 1957, the year before she died. It's about a particular town meeting that was memorable, she says, “because in it a crisis was reached and passed.”
It was the year that Arlington voted to build a new school.
As Fisher relates the story, Arlington had inadequate district schools located among the town's scattered settlements. These one-room affairs had served well during the nineteenth century, when children learned the necessary basics to enter the workforce and participate in civic life, all of which took place at a horse-and-buggy pace, without electricity or plumbing.
Times changed. Trains and automobiles arrived. Before long, citizens could no longer remember how they managed without electricity, refrigeration, or telephones.
According to Fisher, the people of Arlington understood that the education they provided their children had to keep pace with the increasing complexity of modern life.
A group of citizens worked diligently to promote the building of a new school that would provide the kind of education that would give the children in their town a fair chance at becoming useful, productive citizens.
But the cost of such a school was breathtaking, higher even than the cost of keeping the roads and bridges in good repair. According to Fisher, the proposition was voted down every year.
* * *
Fisher describes the two kinds of opinion that exist at Town Meeting.
There are those who think that what was good enough in the past is good enough for the future, writes Fisher, adding that this opinion is bolstered by the human love for the past and the human dislike for taxes.
Those who hold the opposing opinion view the future as an opportunity to improve upon the past. They're the ones who put forth plans with budgets for a new school, plans that engendered spirited debate at Town Meeting and that were repeatedly defeated when brought to a vote.
As Fisher explains, everyone was in favor of education - in theory. But theory can't compete with the physical reality of roads that need resurfacing and bridges that need to be replaced, or the price tag for these wants.
This same debate went on year after year, as Fisher tells it, with the material needs of the body speaking louder than “the need for human development and growth.”
But one year, when the debate was particularly hot, and those supporting the idea of a new school grew dispirited and silent, the town grocer stood up.
Fisher describes him as usually wearing “a white apron standing behind the counter ... selling sugar and tea.” But he dressed in civilian clothes that day - just another member of the community who had something to say. What he said was this:
“We are being told that our town cannot afford to keep its bridges safe and also make a decent provision for its children's education. . . Not one of us here really believes it. We just can't think of anything to say back ... [But] what kind of town would we rather have fifty years from now – a place where nit-wit folks go back and forth over good bridges? Or a town which ... prepares [their children] to hold their own in modern life? If they've had a fair chance, they can build their own bridges. . . If we have to choose, let the bridges fall down!”
Fisher says the grocer's speech was met with silence and marked the turning point in the life of the town. The vote for a new school passed that day - by an overwhelming majority.
Fisher also says that the story has since been translated and published in magazines across the world. Nearly 50 years later, it is evident that it's been translated into Chinese.
Vermonters should take note.