As a longtime subscriber to Wednesday Journal, I faithfully read the letters to the editor as one means of taking the “pulse” of the community. On Nov. 15 in the LifeLines section, Bobbie Raymond issued a call to Oak Park to get serious about the achievement gap. I waited for the flurry of responses in the form of letters to the editor. There was one informational response from District 97, a small spattering of other letters-but not much else.
Shortly thereafter, Wednesday Journal published a highly inflammatory letter falsely accusing a student of making a gang sign. There was a huge outcry from students, teachers, school administrators, and citizens at large-as well there should be.
But putting these two events side by side, I wonder what they tell us about the pulse of our community? We know overt racism when we see it, and we don’t like it. But are we really ready to move beyond obvious racism-and this is not to negate the pain of the obvious-to turn our attention to the issue in a broader, more subtle context?
Across the nation, students of color, those who do not speak English as a first language, those requiring special education, or those who have less economic security, do not do as well academically as other students-and aren’t these the very students that most need to succeed?
While I do not believe academic success should ever be the only measure of a good education or of achievement, learning as early as first grade that you can’t compete with your peers quickly leads to lower self esteem, acting-out behavior (even a first-grader knows that it is better to be the class clown than look like you don’t know the answers in front of your peers), and diminished efforts.
The reasons for the achievement gap are complex. Therefore, the solutions must be multi-faceted, include a wide group of stakeholders, begin with pre-school and continue through high school, and be coordinated across home, school and community.
Oak Park in the 1970s built its reputation by resisting white flight and living out a commitment to integration-at some potential personal and financial cost to all involved. Is Oak Park ready to stop building its reputation in 2007 as the place that fights change, doesn’t want development, and hates tall buildings? Or can our reputation rest on a concerted, communitywide commitment to address the achievement gap and show a real investment in the future of our children and our community-at some potential personal and financial cost.
We have been issued a call to action. Are we going to respond?
Colette Lueck is chair of the Oak Park Plan Commission.