The word “hero” is thrown around too easily these days. It has come to mean “someone famous.” In this country we have had more than our share of real heroes, probably more per capita than any nation in history.
Today I’ve been watching Simple Justice, a made-for-television movie detailing the efforts of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP to break the back of segregated education. As the prime player in the film, Marshall is portrayed as the hero. But he isn’t.
The heroes are those parents who risked everything, including their lives and the lives of their children, to play a role in the lawsuits filed in this issue.
What strikes me is how things have changed in the last 50 years. Here we have parents doing all they can to get their children the best education possible. Where is that determination today. And I’m not talking about a white/black/asian/hispanic issue. It affects all groups, all races, all colors, all religions. People who can afford to do so put their children in private schools. People who cannot have no choice but to abandon their children to something inferior. Yet even though the tax base remains constant with fewer students, school districts look for money as the answer. One needs only to look at the spending per student in the District of Columbia to see that isn’t the answer.
So where is the outrage that drove these parents in 1950? Everyone claims to understand that an education is the primary separator between those who succeed, and those who don’t. Yet there are few parents willing to work to make things better. They must simply assume their political representatives are taking care of things.
Apparently, they aren’t.
The focus of primary education must be the Three R’s, with anything else being relegated to a very small portion of the curriculum. Secondary education must continue this focus with the broadening opportunity of extracurricular activities and vocational skills training.
It will take parents’ involvement to make it happen. And it won’t be a popular stance to take when your children are in the hands of the very people you will upset. The question to all parents is, Do you have the courage of those black families in the 1950s who made change happen?