Schools' continuing need for 'care by committee'

Certain childhood memories stand out for me as the youngest of eight children. My dad died shortly after my third birthday, so I think I can accurately say my care came by committee.

I vividly recall my older sisters reading — and helping me read — Dr. Seuss books and other fine stories. My sister Margie and I frequently tagged along with them on shopping mall trips. My brothers tossed baseballs with me out front and helped me heave a basketball up into the hoop on our garage.

During most of my grade school years at Kate Starr Kellogg, a public school in Chicago's Beverly neighborhood, I didn't go home for lunch. I'd cross the street to eat with the six Reynolds kids, who were like my second family. I was even lucky enough to join them on lake vacations in Michigan, riding in the way-back of their brown woody station wagon.

Those images popped up this week as I read the Daily Herald's significant school series “Our Promise to Our Kids.” I wasn't raised in poverty, but I'm sure my mom struggled to give us all we needed as she went back to school herself while working a job to become recertified to teach in Chicago Public Schools.

She would be the first to say she got a lot of help from the tremendous community around us.

As much as life for kids has changed in the ensuing decades, it struck me as I read the series how much, at its core, it really hasn't. Kids need all the love and support and modeling and discipline and structure they can get, now as then.

The series proved dramatically a concrete point we all are compelled to solve: Money matters. Kids who come from poverty plainly do not perform as well as those who are born to better circumstance. The Poverty-Achievement Index, looking at 10 years of data from Illinois schools, shows no disparity. If you come from a higher income, you perform higher. If you come from a lower income, you perform lower.

If you come from poverty, if you go to school hungry or dirty or in worn-out clothes, it definitely will show itself in your work, in your expectations of yourself, in your sense of self-worth.

Some who read this series may be tempted to say, “So what? Not my problem. I raised my kids.” But it is our challenge. These are our kids and they will be our future. We pay attention to them now or we pay dearly later.

Illinois is failing right now. For many reasons, we have struggled to rebound from the Great Recession and 51.5 percent of all Illinois children live in poverty, up from 39 percent a decade ago. We aren't creating jobs to lift their parents out of that abyss. We must find a way to do that, because all of our lives are entwined. If we don't create more and better jobs, then we have fewer taxpayers who, in turn, contribute to our communities and to our debt-laden governments, including our schools.

If we don't improve jobs and our economy, then opportunities shrink for the children and fewer adults will carry the burden for the rest.

We can wait and complain or we can commit, dig in and determine to help those around us while we also demand better from the politicians who claim to want to lead.

The Daily Herald showcased several schools that are carving a path toward success for their low-income children. They are doing it, it seems, without millions more dollars, but with committed, resourceful and disciplined teachers, administrators, parents and children. They are doing it now with before- and after-school programs, with weekend meal help and English classes for eager parents. They are doing it with structure, discipline, accountability for all.

They are doing it with the care of a whole community. Like the teacher who brought work home and checked on me and my mom when I was out sick for several days in fifth grade. Or the one who gave me one-on-one algebra tutoring in eighth grade. Like Pat and Frank Reynolds, who fed an extra mouth every day. Or like my brothers and sisters who were my extra parents when my own mom was the teacher at parent-teacher conferences.

It can be done. It still just takes the determined care of a whole committee of community.

Madeleine Doubek is chief operating officer of Reboot Illinois, rebootillinois.org, an organization dedicated to reform in Illinois government, with education as a key issue of interest.