Education in Iowa's Communities

by Paul Deaton

How Iowans will educate our children has been a topic of contentious debate during Iowa's 84th General Assembly. The debate takes place in the state capitol, but also in communities across the state in homes, livestock barns, libraries, churches, Rotary Clubs, Chambers of Commerce, Knights of Columbus halls and grocery stores. Judging from the quantity of debate, education may be one of the top priorities Iowans have and rightly so. Our children are our future, and education is ingrained in our culture.

In Iowa's collective memory are John Zielinski's photographs of Amish children running down the road to avoid government mandates on schooling. Life Magazine published some of these photographs in the 1960s, making them famous outside of Iowa. We don't hear much about the Amish in this context any more, but the photographic images are emblematic of the conflict between the education of our children and the role of government.

Somewhere between the one room school house and today's multimillion dollar school district operations, we have gotten off the track and recently turned our attention to teachers and public employees as villains in the drama of debating “what's wrong with education.” The discussion of teacher performance spans almost every demographic but the arguments in the legislature for and against public employee union rights, including the teachers' union, fall short of addressing the issue.

The core of the debate over education returns to the one room school house. There is living memory of what it was like to attend these schools in Iowa, resting with some of the octogenarians with whom the author had lunch last Wednesday. Some of them graduated from the school in the photo. They had a few things to say about their school life.

Statements of a school life that will fade when people pass on. They point to an education that was supported more by the local community than by the government. An education process that added value to the community, and still does. Many Iowans want to get back to this notion of community involvement in education, if not to the school houses that are now turned into museums and barns. In the consolidation and growth of school districts, this sense of community involvement has gotten lost, or has been reduced to lip service.

People from every part of the political spectrum favor a return to more community involvement in education in the form of home schooling. The motivations differ from family to family. Some don't want their children to learn about society in a public school. They seek to control their children's learning about social issues, culinary practices, economics and entry into work life. Others feel the quality of education in public schools is lacking and would do better in home school. In a pluralistic society, there must be room for all of these positions. The movement towards home schooling points to another problem.

Instead of community involvement in education, what we seem to have is a bevy of special interests focused on the place where our children learn. After the debate over school consolidation, textbooks, curriculum, administrative salaries, collective bargaining, school lunch programs, vouchers, preschool, pensions and health insurance co-pays, it serves us to remember that what matters most may be something the state legislature will not be addressing. It is how each of us can be involved in the community that supports our schools.

Whether this means running for the school board and serving on its committees, becoming a band booster, or volunteering to help a teacher, there is room for each of us to contribute. Many do this now, but all of our talents are needed, because government should not take the lead in education.

Increased participation in a community effort to educate our children would pay dividends in society.  We tend to forget living memories of community involvement in education. They are being displaced by the din of the corporate media reporting the debate over education as an epic battle over workers' rights and good governance. Education should be more about what each of us contributes to community life. That will matter more than what the legislature does when the 84th General Assembly becomes the stuff of history books.

~Paul Deaton is a native Iowan living in rural Johnson County and weekend editor of Blog for Iowa. E-mail Paul Deaton