Articles

Students get cheated by poverty

Opinion by Larry Schall
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
November 6, 2006

This past Monday, I was privileged to serve as Principal for a Day at Ed S. Cook Elementary School.

Sponsored by Atlanta Partners for Education, Principal for a Day is designed to mobilize hundreds of Atlanta business and civic leaders by allowing them to experience firsthand the accomplishments and challenges facing the Atlanta Public Schools.

Cook is the oldest elementary school in Atlanta, at 126 years, and it stands in the shadows of the state Capitol. Its history is unique - it began as a middle-class, all-white school to serve the children of the soldiers who fought in the Civil War. In the 1960s, Cook was integrated and lost more than half of its students. Just a few years ago, it once again lost more than half of its students when an adjacent public housing project was torn down, and those children scattered across the city.

Today, a new 900-unit mixed-income private residential development is rising in the place of that project. I wonder how many of the young children in this new development, especially from families of means, will attend Cook.

Ninety-five percent of the current students at Cook live in poverty.

In 1999, half of all students missed 10 or more days of school a year. Cook was failing in every conceivable way. Today, it has moved off the failing list and meets 93 percent of its targets. In 2005, Cook was named one of Georgia's "Distinguished Schools."

The principal at Cook is LaPaul Shelton. The first thing that strikes you about Shelton is how young he appears. The second is his determination. For LaPaul is a man on a mission.

He knows the name of every student in his school. Every week, he spends hours in the classroom, observing and supporting each one of his teachers and the children. I spent just four hours talking with kids from second to fifth grade, and I left exhausted.

The students asked me all sorts of questions: How did I get the title "Dr." in front of my name if I couldn't make anyone better? Was I looking forward to my afternoon? If I were principal at Cook, would I bring back recess? (Each student at Cook begins his or her day with two hours of reading - each day, every day. There's simply no time for the luxury of recess.)

I asked plenty of questions myself. My favorite answer of the day was 5:59. I had asked what time they got up in the morning to come to school, and one student said not 6:00 a.m., but 5:59. It struck me as deeply meaningful how precise he was about the time, and how clear he was in his focus.

Education is supposed to be the great equalizer in our society, and it certainly can be. And yet, the overwhelming feeling I had when I got back into my car to head back to Oglethorpe University was that this is not the way things are supposed to be in America.

The students at Cook don't stand an equal chance with those in the fine independent schools in the city or in the suburban public schools that encircle Atlanta. In fact, it's not even close.

More than half of the kids I visited won't finish high school, even with all the progress that's been made in APS since Superintendent Beverly Hall came to town. Of the half who graduate, not many will go to college; fewer still will earn a degree.

Doesn't every child born in America deserve an equal opportunity to be educated and to succeed?

The sad, uncomfortable fact is that as long as 95 percent of the children at Cook live in poverty, they will never have an equal chance. Even if they set their alarm at 5:59 every morning of their lives.

Larry Schall is president of Oglethorpe University.

Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. More information: www.ajc.com.

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