TCAPs’ Sinking Ship

March 11, 2016

For the second time in ten years, Traverse City Area Public Schools are closing facilities. In 2007 they shuttered Oak Park, Norris, and Sabin Elementary schools. When they made that move, TCAPS lost students to Elk Rapids Schools and to charter, private, and religious schools. Last fall, TCAPS cast three more communities into turmoil threatening to close Bertha Vos, Interlochen Elementary, and Old Mission Elementary — a school they recently spent millions renovating. The deliberation was a charade; Bertha Vos and Interlochen were already gone.

It appears Old Mission might be able to buy off TCAPS with an $800,000 “donation” to keep the school open.

Administration claims there are fewer students, but the region’s charter, private and religious school enrollments are growing. There are waiting lists at TCAPS alternatives. When the administration should be asking how to bring students back, they seem satisfied to manage TCAPS’ decline. It’s not acceptable; public education is too important and too valuable to allow it to shrink away.

Anyone with kids in TCAPS will tell you we have outstanding educators on the front lines. I could devote my column space to great things provided by our teachers and not even scratch the surface; every one of you has your own list.

Instead, I’m going to offer a few ideas to help build enrollment, rather than to fill the holes while the ship sinks.

Idea #1: Teach basics — real arithmetic, reading, and writing. It’s admirable that we have teachers striving to innovate. It’s great that some of our math teachers worked with Michigan State University to find creative ways to teach math. But their experiment failed and it’s time to let it go. At TCAPS days are spent learning a system with its own unique jargon and methods, leaving little time for teaching actual content. TCAPS students can draw diagrams and take several steps to guess that eight monkeys, each with seven fleas, will have about 50 of the pests among them. They aren’t taught to see the equation 8x7 and instinctively and instantly know the answer is 56. Students aren’t expected to know the times tables. In fact, those students who know from memory — 8x7=56 and write that as an answer — will get marked down because they didn’t estimate and draw the picture. Every time a teacher tells an adult that they don’t understand the method their children must use to express a simple math fact, they drive parents to charter and religious schools.

In TCAPS English classes, the students read books together, out loud, in class, and not in 3rd or 4th grade, but in high school. In lieu of writing papers, middle school kids make a cereal box after they read a book. The curriculum planners are proud of this innovation.

Many TCAPS students write more texting their friends than in class.

Idea #2: Steer clear of politics and religion. You can win an election with 51 percent of the vote, but you can’t maintain a school district that’s hostile to the other 49. It’s tricky when your employees are all members of unions and those unions are key players in one political party. Many of the teachers do their best to hide any bias, but it’s difficult when the curriculum itself is loaded with it. Every time the district gets away from facts and skills and gets into social engineering, it will alienate someone. Neutrality is tricky business, but less so when facts rule the day. For example, TCAPS teaches “social geography.” Unlike geography about boundaries and land mass, countries are described with subjective evaluation of fairness and wealth distribution rather than by objective descriptions of their political systems like communist, socialist, or dictatorship. The World History curriculum discusses prehistoric cultures, of which we know little, with imagined discussions of oppression and social inclusion. Read the AP World History text; it’s in there.

Similarly, applying a current political antireligious view to everything doesn’t work.

TCAPS isn’t fooling anyone with the designation “Holiday Recess.” It isn’t establishing a religion to call it what it is: Christmas Break. Many years, Hanukkah doesn’t fall in the “Holiday Recess.” In 2017 school will be closed on April 14. The calendar says, “holiday.” It’s Good Friday. There is no other holiday going on in the middle of April.

If the district is going to take the day off, they shouldn’t be embarrassed to say why. By straining to appease a few loud people who might complain about reality, the administration alienates many religious people who just quietly take their children out of the district.

Idea #3: Stop begging all the time. TCAPS isn’t a charity. They certainly have enough money to provide education everywhere in the district. Everyone in this district has paid taxes for school improvements. TCAPS encourages using the free lunch program so they can get federal dollars. Every school, every club, every child will have one or more fundraising project every year. The state allocates a set amount of money for every student enrolled, more money than most private and religious schools spend per student.

But they are constantly in a financial crisis. When TCAPS always positions itself in financial trouble, eventually the community understands the administration are pilots that can’t steer the ship.

It’s time for TCAPS to get its collective head out of the sand. People want community schools; they only look for alternatives when there is something missing in the default choice. When TCAPS sees a family driving their children 10 miles to a charter school or voluntarily paying tuition at a private school, it’s time to ask, “what have we done to lose this customer?” Then it’s time to address it.

Thomas Kachadurian is a photographer, designer and author. He lives on Old Mission with his wife and two children. He is a member and past president of the Traverse Area District Library Board of Trustees.