It's unusual that I hit random blogs and run across information about my old school district, but it happened yesterday.

Clear Creek alum Miriam gave me all kinds of updates on how the new school construction - or lack thereof - is going. As you may be able to surmise by the 'lack thereof,' it is reportedly not going well:

For the last 15 years, the city government and the Clear Creek ISD school board have been fighting with the city residents to build a high school on land that is already owned by the school district. Indeed, the city’s residents are so opposed to building a new high school that each time it’s voted upon, the vote against is almost 90%. We’ve built over a dozen elementary schools in the last 15 years, two or three junior high schools, and absolutely zero high schools. However, the three high schools that are currently used to house the area’s 50-some-odd-thousand high school students are literally overflowing. Three of the local junior high schools that were adjacent to each of the three high schools were turned into Ninth Grade centers for freshman, while three new Junior high schools were built somewhere else.

She puts forth a pretty seering indictment of Texas being anti-education, but I'm not sure that's the case. But this sort of thing is certainly indicative of something wrong. The high schools are approaching 5,000 students in schools originally built for half that. But only recently did a bond pass to actually get the fourth high school built that they've been talking about since I was about to enter high school, twelve years ago.

I think there are two related problems. The first problem is an assumption that education is automatic. As long as you sit the kids in school for a certain number of hours a week, they'll do just as good as the parents did or better. It doesn't matter so much what kind of facilities the school has or teachers as much as they go to a school with a solid state rating. No effort required on their part. And if anything goes wrong, it can't be their fault or the kids' fault, so they'll duke it out with a teacher. They rely on the school to educate their kids, but then often treat the system as though it is an obstacle to their kids education.

I exaggerate, but a lot of the country does seem to be drinking this kool-aid that convinces us that education is something that someone else takes care of. Part of the reason that there is such a rat-race to get into the posh suburbs is so that they can get into the best schools. It never even occurs to them that a student with more involved parents at run-down Galveston Ball High School has as good a chance or better at getting a good education as a student at posh Deer Park High School. Besides, they're so busy working to pay down the inflated mortgages and property taxes that they don't have time to get involved. Working so hard, ironically, so that their kids can get a better education.

They're surprised when their kid's C average won't get them in to the University of Texas, even though that's where mommy and daddy went.

The second issue is an obnoxious Not-In-My-Back-Yard mentality. They want more access to the city and other parts of town, but everyone's an environmentalist when it comes to expanding roads near where they are. More schools is good, just as long as it doesn't inconvenience them. A better education shouldn't require more schools that require building that inconvenience their lives.

This isn't a Clear Creek ISD thing and it's not a Texas thing, it's a suburban thing. It's one of the main things that I really don't like about suburbanites and even much of the upper middle class in general.

A couple things worth noting that might account from my slightly different perspective from Miriam's:

1. She went to Clear Creek and I went to Clear Lake. While my upper middle class tag would apply to Clear Lake, it may not to Clear Creek. I do think that by-and-large the economic differences between the two are exaggerated (even by myself, at times). Seabrook, where I'm from, is demographically more similar to Clear Creek towns than other Clear Lake ones. But Seabrook and League City are more similar to Clear Lake than they are to the urban Third Ward or rural Texas City. People on the Clear Lake divide are more likely to commute to the city, though most people who live out there also work out there.
2. From what I gather she's moved around more than I have, so she has more compare-and-contrast opportunities than I do. Other than the part of Idaho where I'm living now, I have little experience outside of Texas. But the similarities and differences between Idaho locales and Texas ones suggest that it's dangerous to paint all of either with a single brush.
3. My views on all this neatly dovetail with my more general views on class. Too neatly, really. One should acknowledge one's biases as openly as possible.
4. I lived in the Clear Lake area for sixteen years prior to jetting off to UH, various parts of Houston, and Jersey Village. I probably have more loyalty, disdain, and overall stronger feelings for the old neighborhood than do most. Then again, I don't live there now so this entire subject is more academic to me than it is to a traveller like Miriam.

More on the subject:
Hometown Friends 2004 (2/5/2004)
The New School (2/10/2004)
The Suburbs & Education Stratification (2/15/2005)