Page 16 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • April 14, 2010 thing I could consider an education, though my father picked up two foreign languages by osmosis and had served as a board of education member. His solution to the perceived failure of the schools where I grew up was to harp endlessly, getting his son into political trouble with various teachers, and do absolutely nothing – with one exception. He got me a subscription to “American Heritage” and I read those articles from the later 1950s through the 1960s enough to learn that what sports coaches posing as history teachers were promulgating was not exactly what happened. Let me say in his posthumous defense that he had one other virtue: He didn’t think that paying bad teachers more than they were already earning would improve their performance. We are all supposed to fondly remember that one great teacher who made a difference in our lives – usually when we’re asked to vote for the school budget. I had a couple of teachers like that. One was a former nun, and the other was a woman whom our parents sometimes whispered about as if she had some sort of terrible secret. It turned out that one of her eight grandparents was of African heritage. She was a very good teacher, though she was a little tough on a brother and sister who had Down syndrome and should not have been in a mainstream class. Some of the other kids were incredibly mean to them, as they were to a timid, oversized boy with a neurotically over-protective mother. All three ended up on heroin. Our generation of students was subjected to the delusion that “equality” meant “equal ability” and that rubbing the brilliant, the bright, the average and the intellectually challenged or defective against one another in the same classrooms was somehow Constitutional and Darwinian at the same time. It didn’t work. You have never experienced public education until you have been in a classroom with kids who have been left back three times, are biological adults, and spend their time punching much smaller kids who give the right answer. I have. Some kids are beyond academic help, and putting them in classes that cost five times what it costs to educate a bright or an ordinary student will not somehow turn them into college material. It’s a fantasy and kind, perhaps, to the parents. On the other hand, it’s sometimes cruel to the kids, who might be better off safe at home with no negative peer interaction. It is grotesquely unfair to those taxpayers who are childless, those who have mainstream kids, and those whose bright kids cannot really be accommodated by any school. Once upon a time, I learned that Richard Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelungs” was to be broadcast on PBS. My mother, who once sat through William Shakespeare’s “An Age of Kings” on PBS of an earlier generation (Sean Connery was a young actor then) because I told her it might help me with school, was horrified with the idea that my daughter would listen to anything that profound and complicated at the age of six. Cartoons where talking animals beat one another up, blew one another up, chucked one another into volcanoes – fine for little kids! But opera? My daughter loved the “Ring.” She spent the next three years being Brunnhilde, complete with a plastic helmet, while her brother got to be a dragon. How would the schools have handled this? A special course so that maybe three kids in the entire system could be academically credited for studying difficult, endlessly complicated, and controversial opera in a language most schools don’t teach funded by the money of taxpayers who don’t like or care about opera and have a right not to like or care about opera? Let’s not be ridiculous. This was a personal choice and could only be funded out of our own pocket. Back when the schools concentrated on teaching people who were often foreign-born or second-generation how to speak English and do the math they needed to run family businesses, they were capable and affordable. Using the schools to fulfill the expensive fantasizes of people who can’t say “no” to their kids because nobody ever said “no” to them is no longer an option. California, where my daughter now lives, may have to say “no.” My daughter tells me that the state where it all starts – or at least the town where she lives, a Yuppified former mainstream sort of place – is considering a surcharge on parenthood. People who want to send their kids to the excellent public schools there may have to plunk down $2,000 per kid per year just to get them into school. They have two other options: private school and home school. She also tells me that two of her friends, devout Catholics with six kids, are home-schooling all their children. The husband is a highly successful corporate lawyer and the wife stepped out of her own remunerative career to see the kids get the personal attention they need instead. “Home-schooled” turns up almost routinely in the biographies of top Ivy League students. That is the future of education – teach the kids yourself if you’re at all capable, and if you aren’t, don’t try to foist the burden of all sorts of exotic or extraneous programs off on people who aren’t involved and aren’t interested. Home-schooling my kids was one of the best things I ever did. I urge all other parents to do the same. I also urge them not to presume that voting blocks of frantic parents are going to keep throwing older people and working people and childless people out of the homes they paid for. This wakeup call should have happened a long time ago. My daughter and my son want me to teach their kids if they have any. I actually did something right for a change. People who filed for board of education elections this year are fewer and farther between, and with good reason. Trustees generally care about education and want the best for their children, and for other people’s children. The rest of us have been telling them they are spending too much money, and now they have heard it from New Jersey’s governor. The schools are in big trouble, and the silver lining of that particular cloud is that they may have to start saying “no” to their collective children the way a lot of us have been saying “no” to our individual children since they were old enough to understand what “no” means. It’s about time. I didn’t say “no” to my kids when they wanted to learn things the district didn’t teach. I taught them myself. If we all realize that this is the way to provide individual educational enrichment, we can save the kids from wallowing in ignorance and save our neighborhoods from losing the house to the Tax Man. My daughter was home-schooled until she was 10 and my son until he was 12 because I could see that the schools where I lived – actually one of the better districts in academic terms – just couldn’t cut it. Through “Sesame Street” and “The Electric Company” and the encouragement of her mother, my daughter entered kindergarten able to read at about the third grade level, not because she was an intimidating genius or because we were hyper-pushy parents, but simply because she loved to read. When she was four years old, she voluntarily proceeded to plow through the type of books usually read by third graders – sometimes finishing two books in one day. She also had an affinity for classical and operatic music and started to sing and dance to the music of Lehar and Johann Strauss and Jacques Offenbach – easy listening while I worked at home. Seeing a natural talent – most kids have some sort of natural talent – I set aside some time each day, usually when I was gasping for breath after a bout of work-from-home that goes with being a writer – I started to teach her the languages of Strauss and Offenbach. The schools cooperated as usual by dropping German from the curriculum before she was old enough to enroll, but French proved more durable. I don’t think she ever got less an A in French, either in high school or at Princeton. When she tested at Princeton, they skipped her ahead two-and-a-half years and after one grammar course she took only those French courses taught entirely in French by native speakers. She was able to use the German for art songs in the Princeton Glee Club and for serving as assistant manager on the tour of Eastern Europe. I also added Spanish and Italian to my daughter’s lessons because Spanish is an academic option and a hemispheric asset, and Italian because she loves great opera and great food. I was quite happy when I got an e-mail in which she described her satisfaction with a recent trip she and her husband took to Barcelona, because the Spanish there appeared to have some mild French influence, and she understood it perfectly. My wife was iffy about home schooling, though she was a tremendous help with side-by-side reading and with teaching ancillary skills and a love of classical music. My mother and father were strongly opposed: Neither of them had any- Time to save the children Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: I am writing in support of Dr. Lynn Budd for election to the Ramapo-Indian Hills Board of Education. I have known Lynn for over 33 years and worked closely with her during her employment at IBM. She is a longtime resident of Wyckoff. Her professionalism and dedication to the cause of educating our children make her extremely qualified for the position. Having raised two children in the Wyckoff school system, Lynn has always worked tirelessly on behalf of our students. Her time on the regional board since last July has shown her to be a very positive asset to that organization. Going forward, Lynn’s experience will be invaluable as the board deals with the very serious financial issues associated with cuts in state aid. It is important that our residents take the time to vote in the April 20 election. Electing Lynn Budd will give us the experience and dedication we need in this challenging environment. Jeffrey C. Phelps Wyckoff Dear Editor: I am running for reelection to the Ramapo Indian Hills Regional Board of Education and am asking for your vote. My passion has always been education, and I have significant experience in school administration and substantial private sector background. Our community and our schools are very strong, but especially in financially difficult times, we need experienced individuals to help us balance our commitment to the best possible education of our children and our commitment to fiscal responsibility. We need to control costs while moving forward to prepare our students to meet the new challenges they will face in colleges and careers. I’ve had the almost 10 years of experience in teaching and Support for Budd Budd seeks voters’ endorsement in university administration as assistant dean of students at Fordham. Having managed large student activities budgets and the significant venues they support (concerts, lectures, films, club sports, etc.) I worked with students, staff, security, the press, and parents to accomplish yearly goals. I also have an extensive business experience, working in corporate human resources, executive development, compensation, and strategic planning. All of these responsibilities have provided excellent background for my work as a board member. A township resident for many years, I’ve been a committed volunteer who believes in giving back. Not only do I understand how to make schools cost effective, but as a parent of a son and daughter who very recently graduated from college and are now in graduate school, I also know what students need in order to succeed once they leave high school. The job market promises to be difficult for many years, and strong skills are an essential requirement for success. Our students must be able to compete successfully, yet we must remain fiscally vigilant going forward. Together we can do it. Lynn L. Budd, Ph.D. Wyckoff Dear Editor: We enthusiastically support Tom Bunting as Wyckoff trustee on the Ramapo Indian Hills Board of Education. We have known Tom and Gina Bunting for many years through their involvement in the community including Saint Elizabeth’s Church, Washington and Eisenhower schools, and Ramapo High School. Tom Bunting is the only candidate with children in the school system and he has demonstrated his commitment to the youth of Wyckoff, coaching baseball, softball, football, (continued on page 23) Supports Bunting for school board