Dan Rather, superstar broadcast journalist, recently made a trip home to Houston to visit his elementary school, Love Elementary School.
He was deeply moved and reminded why he loves public schools.
Please leave a comment.
He writes:
I am a product of public schools, and proudly so. Even in the midst of so many crises in our national moment, I hope that the plight of public education is not overlooked. Our classrooms can serve, must serve, as incubators: for our common decency, for our sense of fairness, for our bonds of citizenship and for the foundation of a more just nation.
I was reminded of all this in an emotional return last week to Love Elementary in Houston, where I first set foot more than 80 years ago (to write the sentence is to catch my breath in wonder at this span of time). The neighborhood has changed greatly since my youth. It is much more ethnically diverse, much like the larger city around it and the United States itself. But as I walked the hallways and met the children, I found so much in common with when I went there. There were the committed teachers and an inspiring principal – Melba Heredia Johnson. There was the spirit of optimism and the strong sense of community from the students and their families, many of which, as in my time, is positioned at the lower rungs of the ladder of the American Dream.
I knew I had come to Love to plant a tree, alongside trees I planted with my classmates so many decades ago. But this visit turned out to be so much more. I spent time in the classrooms, where the eager young faces filled me with hope. God bless them, but these children apparently had spent some class time learning about this ancient alumnus, and their questions and work on the bulletin boards touched my heart with humility and thankfulness. Over the course of my career, I have been fortunate to receive some tributes and acknowledgments, many more than I deserve. But this one was one of the most special.
I just wish this was where we as Americans were training our focus. If people could just come to places like Love, learn about its bilingual education, meet the inspiring staff, hear from the engaged parents, and appreciate how schools like this are so vital to building a better America. This is about community, and fairness, and justice, and hope. It’s about the belief that public education must be part of the great national spirit of equal opportunity. Educating our children – all of our children – must be part of what unites us!
As I left, my eyes a bit more misty than I would like to admit, I couldn’t help thinking that this world would be doing a lot better if there was a bit more Love.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A little bit misty myself… Thanks for sharing this. We need hundreds of these ‘Thanks, public school!’ messages, across the nation.
This is a great idea. I would love to see a “Thank a public school” campaign all across America. Our public schools helped to build our nation, and too many of us take them for granted.
A beautiful and well deserved tribute to public schools, their staff, their students, their parents and their communities who work together to try to build a better America. Thank you Dan Rather.
Dan Rather’s praise showcases the foundation for American goodness and for the productivity of the citizens who built the nation and who grow its GDP.
On the other hand, conservatives from the Koch’s Heritage Foundation were exposed this week for their secretive, judge clerkship training academy that required loyalty oaths in return for backing from “generous donors”.
The 7 most conservative law school faculty in the nation have been identified as Northwestern (private), Harvard (private), George Washington (private), University of Virginia (public), George Mason (public), University of New Orleans (public), and University of San Diego (Catholic).
Citizens sacrificed to create public universities for middle class and poor students as an alternative to legacy admission schools. It is a despicable slap to the public’s face for those schools to align with promoters of privilege and destroyers of common goods. If the schools’ law faculty were involved in steering students into loyalty oaths for the right wing, it should be cause for employment termination.
Journalist David Johnson, at Baffler (9-5-2017), exposed hypocrisy at religious universities in his article, “Academe on the Auction Block”.
What a wonderful tribute to my neighborhood school, Love Elementary. I live just a few blocks down the street and have seen such a renaissance in the 30 years I have lived in the Houston Heights neighborhood. Thank you, Mr. Rather, for all the “trees” you have planted in your long and storied career.
I’m so glad Dan Rather can go back to visit is old school. His account is very moving. So many schools here in NYC are sadly gone…closed or taken over. My first elementary school was sold to a local religious group. My second was invaded by SA. my JHS is bbearly hanging in having been invaded by several charters and my beloved HS was closed, the building taken over by other schools including SA. But I have great memories of supportive teachers and a wonderful education. Yes, our city and our country would be better if we had more LOVE.
brooklyn teacher, the epidemic of school closings was launched by Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein, who were wild about the idea of DISRUPTION. They decided schools would get better if they were closed, if everyone was forced out and required to find a new position. They celebrated school closings. They knew nothing about tradition, sentiment, community, or love. Old-fashioned ideas. Out of style. The new style is no-attachments, no sense of connection.
Very true Duane. My husband and I have been on the frontlines with several activist groups fighting this agenda. There have been a few battles won but it has been an uphill fight. Too much big money going into privately run schools that also drain money from the public system, but we must continue to advocate and fight for truly public education.
I had never considered how the concept of disruption had been applied to children until I read your work. It’s an important concept for advocates to grasp and translate. Hedge fund managers, and all those in business who aspire to be as wealthy as them, have disruption as a core concept of their approach to everything they touch. Under this view, there will always be winners and losers; one takes advantage of the rules in ways not intended or foreseen to outmaneuver others. As everyone knows, it’s about creating profit from whatever source it comes from, public education included. I have no problem with it in the business world. It has given us many of the material things we take for granted.
But they don’t see education as being different from business. What they fail to understand is that disruption is not a tactic, it is a consequence or result. The best types of disruption happen because they are based on good ideas. In the deformers’ approach to education, this never happens. Ideas are relegated to processes.
In reality, the disruptive idea of public education is that it exists at all. And if they were serious about disruption in education, they’d redefine it on a foundation of teacher autonomy (how’s that for disruption?), caring for each child’s needs, and small class sizes. Imagine that.
GregB Incisive note on many grounds, but particularly, I too have always been a “capitalist” and understand the place of business in human living. But also, and coupled with the problem of just-plain-greed among so many, there is the totalizing effect of capitalism on the minds of business-people cum oligarchs. The United States has become a good example of, far beyond “democratic capitalism” as a monetary system, but also as a way-of-thought that dominates EVERYTHING–a mental disease of “silo-thinking.” A symptom of this mental disease is that our sense of value is governed by this shallow principle: EVERYTHING is transactional under the principle of MONEY-MAKING, even our children and their education. Under that principle, if you cannot sell it, it has no real value; and those who have money and power are the only ones who sparkle with attractiveness and so who deserve worship.
It’s only left to wonder whether the purveyors of the disease are self-aware or not–of how capitalism has crept in to now-permeate their psychic order to rid it of anything truly self-transcendent. CBK
SADDEST truth ignored through year after year of “accountabilty” invasions: “Hedge fund managers, and all those in business who aspire to be as wealthy as them, have disruption as a core concept of their approach to everything they touch. Under this view, there will always be winners and losers…” The entire setup is willing to let certain kids LOSE.
CBK, so agree about how everything has become transactional. Some things—education, health care, public safety, transportation, and now free access to the internet—just aren’t. I have three “go to” questions I have to (usually win or end) political arguments. I ask one, two or three depending on the situation. Try one of them sometime. It’s fun to see the looks on their faces when they say “No” to the first two when you explain how to get there.
Do you think some children in public education should just be considered failures? Do you think people or families should go bankrupt due to a disease, disability or accident? Do supply and demand curves have a place in making decisions about education or health care?
GregB How about: How much would you sell your, or someone else’s, child for? CBK
Greg,
You remind me of a story that Karen Lewis told me and told many others. She said that when she first met Rahm Emanuel, he told her that 25% of the kids in the public schools weren’t worth educating; they were throwaways. Rahm denies it, but Karen insisted he said it.
Bumper Sticker: I ❤️ Public Schools & Public School Teachers.
Thank you, Dan Rather for your heartfelt words.
Thank you, Diane, for posting Rather’s words. I needed his message this morning.
Thank you for posting! It is so important to recognize the great work being done in our public schools across America. Hopefully, Mr. Rather will bring attention to the vital work the schools are doing!
It’s getting harder to read and write through misty eyes.
Dan Rather is so wonderfully able to express his deep and surprising feelings after visiting his childhood neighborhood school. Public schools, all around the country, belong to children, young and old. Neighborhoods may change, children look different, but what happens in classrooms with caring teachers is recognizable by all, no matter when they return.
What Mr. Rather described, as his “heart runneth over”, cannot be measured by standardized tests, nor should we try. His visit reminds me of a news story I saw featuring Justice Sotomayor’s visit to her neighborhood school – same heartfelt experiences.
I agree, it would be a great idea for famous, and not so famous folks, to visit their favorite public school of their youth. Guarateed, they will get back in touch with their memories and their understanding of how important neighborhood public schools are, to us and our society. They are at the center of our families.
So glad to read Mr. Rather’s homecoming to Love ES.
In addition to visits by celebrities, condemnation of the richest 0.1% who are driving the destruction of America’s most important common good is warranted. Ellen Degeneres should stop calling charter schools “public” and she should stop humanizing and selling Bill Gates as a good person. He lives in the state with the most regressive tax system in the nation. He and Z-berg are investors in the largest for-profit seller of schools-in-a-box. His goal for charters, “brands on a large scale”. He and his Microsoft co-founder spent $1/2 million to defeat the reelection of Washington state judges who made decisions favorable to public schools.
Linda, agree that the BILLIONAIRE vultures are constantly circling above the heads of our children and a massive army of great teachers.
It did my heart some good, when out of nowhere, someone like Dan Rather describes his school visit in the most human ways, and allows us to see the sunshine, once again, which is often darkened by the wingspan of the Gates & Co.
Thanks to Dan Rather. ☀️☀️☀️
Dear Dan Rather,
I worked with you at CBS News in DC during Watergate. One of my fondest memories of those days was you – your kindness and caring for ALL people. That character trait has obviously stayed with you over the years.
Thank you for staying in the fight for equity and equality. Your voice is needed now more than ever. I am not sure how you maintain your optimism. May we all survive your national nightmare.
Jeannie Slavin Kaplan
I think you meant to say “our national nightmare.”
Of course I did. Autocorrect and no proofreading. Thanks for catching.
I am 71. Some people seem to have been around since day-1, providing a unifying thread to my particular mixed-up life in the United States, in their “being there,” when “there,” in his case, is all over the world, and as a constant example of courageous truth-telling. Dan Rather is one of those people. What a wonderful tribute to Love, and to his public education, from someone who is one of its best examples. CBK
Dan Rather is an amazing and talented writer. His down to earth personality resonates with me and many others. Thank you Dan Rather for your enlightened words and your desire to inform!
Reblogged this on It's Not Easy to Have Faith and commented:
Supporting public education benefits us all!
Thank you, Dan Rather, for this tribute to public schools, which more often than not are the object of scorn rather than love. I only wish some of the people who fail to respect public education could visit effective public schools and see all they do for kids and our future as a nation. Instead of criticizing, marginalizing, and bypassing public education, perhaps investing more resources with fewer strings attached and a lot more love for and faith in teachers, school leaders, and students could restore support for the mission of public education which we can trace to the earliest Common Schools established when our nation was young. I am a retired teacher and teacher educator, the product of our public school system. I have no regrets.
Diane, what a disgusting comment by Rahm Emanuel: “25% of children in public schools are not worth educating – throwaway kids”.
Only a lousy human being like him would say that.
There are no throwaway kids. It’s reprehensible.
A lousy human would also seek to eliminiate the “bottom 25%” of “underperforming” teachers, based on the oh so dubious test scores.
If humans are like machines, then there are throwaway people.
But humans are not like machines
(they are worthwhile for their own sake, and for ours, regardless of what they can “do.”)
Therefore, there are no throwaway people. CBK
Thank you for your support, Mr. Rather, of the schools that do the hard work, day in and day out, accepting all comers where they are and moving them to become their best selves. Your words are a balm to so many who are often publicly diminished but seldom acknowledged or praised.
“This is about community, and fairness, and justice, and hope. It’s about the belief that public education must be part of the great national spirit of equal opportunity.”
Cannot be quoted too many times.
A wonderful statement. Especially liked the emphasis that public schools are about community, fairness, justice, and hope.
Thank you, Mr. Rather. This is my 39th year teaching, of which the past 33 years are happily invested in public education. An essential ingredient of our great national spirit of equal opportunity for all children is our public school system. Thank you for your support.
How Ironic, for me. I met Dan when my student Phillipe Danellides, who was 13 years old, interviewed him when he was the anchor at CBS. I was present, ad Phillipe, who had researched and read Dan’s book, conducted a professional interview, and Dan turned to me, realizing that I had much to do with the way he had learned. He began them to tap about his own teachers.
We remember those teachers who imparted important skills, who are talented and who loved to show kids what they knew.
The irony, for me is that I was hounded out of that position when the ‘reform’ movement could not tolerate teachers who had their own curriculum to meet learning objectives… Gates and Pearson were filling the warehouses. Authentic teacher-practioners had to GO!
I have tried ,over the years, to get in touch with Dan, to tell him the truth about what happened to me, and tens of thousands of other genuine practitioners who knew what learning looked like, but either he never saw my request for a vis-vis, or he did not think I had much to offer.
I could tell him a thing or two, about the ploy in the plot to end our democracy, by creating an ignorant citizenry, by removing the professional from the practice… the teachers that he so remembered would not be allowed the authority in that room to teach the way kids learn.
Dan if you rereading this, a few years after we met, this was MY fate. Love to tell you the whole story; you are familiar with the kind of behaviors that ends careers.
I am an elementary school teacher and a board of education member ( in two different districts). I truly appreciate the words of Dan Rather on so many levels. I am not afraid to stand up and fight for what is right for kids, and I believe,with every ounce of my being, in our public schools. I wish more people could hear and read his message.
Such an important perspective regarding the life-long impact of public education. Thank you Dan Rather for penning these words and thank you Diane Ravitch for sharing the message widely.
Such an important perspective regarding the life-long impact of public education. Thank you Dan Rather for penning these words and thank you Diane Ravitch for sharing the message widely.
8/20/23 Did Mr Rather’s children attend public schools?
Judith,
The issue is not where you or your children go to school but where public money goes.