While you're reading this, students
at Glenview Elementary School in Oakland are fanning out through the Glenview
neighborhood and knocking on doors.
The kids are vowing to read 30
minutes a day, over and above their regular homework, for the next two weeks
and asking the neighbors to sponsor them by donating to the Glenview PTA.
And the money is badly needed.
There once was a time, back in the 1950s, when California's schools were the
envy of the nation.
Then came Prop. 13, and people
started thinking, "Who cares? They're not my kids." State and
municipal governments slashed funding for public schools, and the voters
routinely turned down tax hikes for education.
Today, California
students score 47th in the nation in both math and reading. And it's even
scarier in other subjects.
So each
school is left to scramble for itself to make up the gap. At Glenview, the money raised by this annual
fund-raiser – dubbed the Read-A-Thon – will be used to fund science,
technology, music, drama and arts programs.
When I was
these kids' age, such programs were deemed essential. But they wouldn't exist
at Glenview nowadays without the Read-A-Thon.
I really
admire the parents in the Glenview PTA who put so much effort into this
fund-raiser every year, but I can't help asking: Why should they have to? Why
are these enrichment programs not a matter of right for every kid, without
their having to go out and beg for them?
And what
about schools that are poorer than Glenview, where the parents are already
working two jobs and don't have the time to raise money for their PTA?
But for now
it is what it is, and the parents at Glenview should be commended for making
the best of a bad situation.
They spare
no pains to make the fund-raising fun and safe for the kids, who are only
allowed to knock on doors of people they know personally. And they must be
accompanied by an adult they know personally.
At the end
of the two weeks, on March 6, they'll be rewarded by a all-day party at school,
when they will be allowed to do nothing but read, read, read for pleasure to
their little hearts' content.
As added
incentive, principal Chelsea Toller has promised to let them watch while she
kisses a snake – Eeee-uwww! – if they
raise $65,000.
And teacher
John Miller has promised his third-graders that if 100 percent of
them log a half-hour of reading every night, he'll let them watch while he gets
his head shaved.
If you'd like to support the Read-A-Thon, you can do it online at glenviewelementary.org or by sending a
check made out to "Glenview PTA" to Glenview Elementary School, 4215
La Cresta Ave., Oakland CA 94602.
Some Oakland firefighters, student athletes from Cal, and local writers
(including me) will be on hand to read to the kids; and we get to choose what
we read.
I'm going to reprise my triumph from 2014, when I read a book by
children's author/illustrator David Macauley, whose specialty is explaining the
way things work. Some of his best-known works are "Castle,"
"Cathedral," "Pyramid" and "Ship."
So last year I announced that I was going to read them his latest book:
"Toilet."
The kids went wild.
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