FARAI CHIDEYA, host:
From NPR News, this is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya. Ed Gordon is away.
Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele is a rising star in the Republican Party. He's also a possible opponent to Kweisi Mfume, the former NAACP chair and Democratic congressman in the race for Maryland's open Senate seat. But while political observers play a game of `Will he or won't he?,' Steele is staying focused on his current job. That includes running a state Task Force on Education, which held a recent hearing in Baltimore City. Here's what parents, teachers and students at the hearing had to say.
(Soundbite of hearing)
Ms. JULIA VANHOOK (Teacher): When I hear the term accountability with teachers, I am concerned.
CHIDEYA: Julia Vanhook testified about her experiences teaching in Baltimore County. She also has two children in the Baltimore City public schools and a firm belief in what would improve those schools.
Ms. VANHOOK: Because there's so many things that I believe that they need--parental support--because I know that if the parents are in the classrooms, if the parents are in the schools, then a lot of the things that are happening with the kids would not be happening.
CHIDEYA: But how do you get parents who aren't engaged in their kids' education to the table?
Ms. VANHOOK: Then I would say money, because if you can make it easier for the parents to come in, whether that is, `Let's have breakfast,' you know, and feed them breakfast, opening up the buildings a little later, many of the buildings are closed 4:00, you know, and I don't get off till 6, so I can't get there, so make it so that the parent can get there.
CHIDEYA: Tracy Hamlet(ph) has two young daughters in the Baltimore County schools. She also hopes the schools reach out to parents.
Ms. TRACY HAMLET (Parent): I think that there should be more workshops available for parents who don't understand or know what the true importance is in being involved in their child's education, and I think having workshops or utilizing the workshops that are existing would help them understand how successful children are when their parents or families are involved in their education.
CHIDEYA: LaShore Brown is a 29-year-old teacher in Baltimore County. She says one of the biggest challenges is parents with their own bias against the school system.
Ms. LaSHORE BROWN (Teacher): They, themselves, tend to have had negative interactions with the education system, and they don't respect it themselves, and so then that's transferred to the students.
CHIDEYA: And then there's the student perspective. Sixteen-year-old Christopher Goodman(ph) is a peer tutor with the Baltimore Algebra Project. He's tracking a court case in which a judge ruled that Maryland state owes Baltimore City public schools four to $800 million. An appeal is pending in the state's highest court.
CHRISTOPHER GOODMAN (Student): We really need the money, and the teachers need to be paid more, and without the money that the state owe us by court order, it's hard to succeed.
CHIDEYA: Helping Maryland students succeed is the point of the Education Task Force, but as those attending the Baltimore session indicate, it won't be easy. Maryland lieutenant governor has more than a passing relationship with education. After college, he became a Catholic monk, joining the Augustinian order, whose members taught him in high school. In turn, he taught Catholic high school students. But after three years, Michael Steele left the order and followed another calling: politics. As lieutenant governor, Steele started the task force to see if schools were wisely spending their money, but when we spoke with him, Steele admitted the issues were much larger.
Steele has been holding a series of public hearings on education across the state. We caught up with him in Baltimore. Thanks for joining us.
Lieutenant Governor MICHAEL STEELE (Maryland): It's good to be with you again.
CHIDEYA: Yeah.
Lt. Gov. STEELE: Yeah.
CHIDEYA: So let's talk about this initiative. It's the Commission on Quality Education...
Lt. Gov. STEELE: Right.
CHIDEYA: ...in Maryland. What does that mean?
Lt. Gov. STEELE: The governor decided, shortly after our transition, that we should take a closer look at what we're doing in education, mostly revolving around the dollars. There were a lot of controversy here in the state about how much we were spending, and they put in some formulas and all these other little mechanisms to make sure dollars were being spent. Well, we have a slightly different view of that, and that is, OK, great, spend the dollars, but let's see what we're spending them on. And this commission is designed to look at where the dollars are going, who's being impacted, who's not being impacted; everyone from the teacher in the classroom to, you know, programs and books and things like that. And it's been an experience.
CHIDEYA: Yeah. Tell me more about that. What kinds of things do you hear from parents, students?
Lt. Gov. STEELE: Well, from parents who are involved, I hear support for teachers, which was really contrasting with--contrast it with the--I think it was Newsweek or Time cover that said, `What teachers hate about parents.' And what I'm finding is that that's a false animosity there, that parents really want to be involved, and teachers want parents involved, and they're both trying to figure out ways to do that.
From students, I--students have a very clear understanding of why they're there and what their goals are, and they see down the road that there's going to be competition and opportunity, and they're asking, `Well, am I prepared?' And in some cases, the answer is no, they don't feel they're prepared. In other cases, they think they are, and in between, you have a mix of, well, too much testing, not enough testing, and all those things have to get worked out with curriculum and programs. But they have an opinion, and it's important to ask them what their opinion is, and that's what we're trying to do.
With teachers, again, you know, they're walking into classrooms where, you know, 10, 20, 30 percent of their class are special ed. students. How are they being prepared at the university level, to step into that classroom and deal with that environment, which is not what teachers 20 years ago had to deal with? So there's sort of this comprehensive look around involving everyone who touches on the life of a student.
CHIDEYA: Well, just take us back in time for a moment when you were a boy, and you realized that education was important to you.
Lt. Gov. STEELE: It came a little bit later in life after much resistance, as most students tend to resist parents who push them. But my mom had a fifth grade education. She was a sharecropper's daughter who got pulled out of class and put in the fields of South Carolina to work tobacco. Well, OK, flash-forward, she has a kid. Circumstances are kind of tough in DC at the time, growing up, but she realized the opportunity for me, if I had the foundation she didn't have, and while her education stopped at fifth grade, I could almost pinpoint it was in my fifth grade that she kicked into overdrive and really pushed and really made a point that, `You're going to go beyond where I did, and you're going to achieve something. I don't know what it is, but it's going to be more than what I've got.'
And that stuck with me. It really stuck with me, and it left a very powerful impact. So when I go around and I talk to people, particularly some parents, and I tell them--I said, `You know what? You're an active parent, but what about the parent who's sitting at home who drops that kid off in the morning and doesn't touch base with that school for the rest of the school year? What about that parent? What do we do to get that parent?'
The reality of parent involvement hit me full square during my tours around the state, visiting schools, and I start off conversations by saying, `Some parents--not all parents, but those parents who just are disconnected, they're selfish and they're lazy.' Parents--you know, their eyes get big, because these are activists. You know, they recoil. `No, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about the parents you're trying to reach.' They've given up. They had a problem when they were a kid when they were in school, you know. `My teacher flunked me in math; therefore, I hate school.' And they pass that on to their kid. Well, you know, we can't help the fact that you didn't make it out of math without struggle. Why are you imposing an unnecessary burden on your child? You should be doing everything you can to heighten the opportunity for that kid to learn.
CHIDEYA: There are--let me just jump in here--many, many parents who do a terrible job of interacting with the school system. But if you had to assign some responsibility to the school system, to the kids, to the parents, how much...
Lt. Gov. STEELE: Ooh.
CHIDEYA: ...responsibility do the parents have?
Lt. Gov. STEELE: That's a good question. No one's asked me to look at it from that perspective. If I'm going to do it, I'll tell you very honestly--and again, I can only base it off of my own personal experience. Fifty percent of it is the parent; 50 percent of what happens to that child's education starts in the home and ends in the home. Let me tell you why, because over the life of that child's education, from pre-K through 12th grade, do you know how much time is actually spent in the classroom? Nine percent. Ninety-one percent is spent in the home, out on the street, in the neighborhood, in the community, in an environment where parents have more sway, OK. So you, as a parent, I think have to step up and be a little bit more engaged because that kid is only going to have 9 percent of that academic life touched by a teacher.
CHIDEYA: Well, what about the kids who are not blessed with good parents?
Lt. Gov. STEELE: Well--and that's where the wrap-around of the system should come into play. That's where good community linkage is, where the community steps in and says, `We know that some parents just don't get it. They've got issues. Some of them legitimate, some of them not, but whatever. We can't afford for this child to fail.' So after-school programs become very important. Reading programs that happen through the church and through community groups become very important.
I've been stressing sort of the faith-based component of education where churches and non-profit organizations that are already beginning to recognize that, you know, we can play a role in shaping an environment of learning for kids. We're encouraging them to do that, and how can we, as state, step in and assist them in a legitimate way that doesn't cross any constitutional bounds, etc., but in a legitimate way that empowers them to further that child's education?
CHIDEYA: So you mentioned faith-based initiatives.
Lt. Gov. STEELE: Yeah.
CHIDEYA: And you have a very interesting faith background, very committed faith background. How do the people of Maryland react when you say that you want to bring faith into education?
Lt. Gov. STEELE: Well, so far, it's been a positive response, because what I do is I try to help them understand I'm not trying to take a dogma or a teaching or theology of any faith--my own or anyone else's--and impose it on a classroom or a kid. All I'm saying is that we have to wake up and recognize that there are people in our community who are empowered and are empowering themselves to go out and help these kids, so why are we going to turn a blind eye to it just because they have a cross hanging on the wall or they say prayers at 5:00? As long as they have the desire to help, we should at least tap into that.
Now what we're saying is, you, Bethel, you know, Yeshiva Temple, whomever, are doing some things in the community that are positive. We have some additional resources that we could pass to you to help you further that. These are organizations that can take a dollar and get a dollar-50 worth of value out of it, so I think that's a wise investment; whereas it's going to take government to spend $2 to figure out how to make that one dollar work.
CHIDEYA: And I have one final question for you. I think you probably know what it is.
Lt. Gov. STEELE: What's that?
CHIDEYA: Are you going to run for Senate?
Lt. Gov. STEELE: I'm getting closer to a decision. This has been a very blessed process for me, because I really get a sense of what people think about this opportunity. It is unique, and you don't look a gift horse in the mouth for the Senate seat. It doesn't come along very often. So I'm looking at it very carefully and trying to weigh it, and I'm still waiting for permission from my wife, and as soon as I get that, one way or the other, I'll know what I'm doing.
CHIDEYA: Well, you keep us informed.
Lt. Gov. STEELE: Absolutely. Absolutely.
CHIDEYA: All right. Maryland's Lieutenant Governor Michael S. Steele, thank you for joining us.
Lt. Gov. STEELE: Thank you.
CHIDEYA: This is NPR News.
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