April 21, 2010

Trenton, NJ - Dismal. Failing. Deplorable. Sad. These are the adjectives mayoral candidates have used to describe the Trenton Public Schools during the recent debates. While it isn’t the first time I have heard our city’s public schools characterized as such, the timing seems all too common. That is, people seeking our votes and using whatever strategy they can to get the voter’s ear and attention. In this case, it’s using harsh words to shine light on a problem of which most parents of school age children are already aware.

In the most recent debates, the men and women who want to become the next mayor of New Jersey’s capital have offered methods they plan to employ if elected. The two of the most noteworthy and, possibly, controversial ideas came from John Harmon, Tony Mack and Keith Hamilton.

Harmon would like to change the way we build our School Board. He would allow the city council to appoint three members, then allow the voters to elect three more, with the mayor making the final call on the District’s superintendent.

Mack wants to bring back the vocational education within city limits, specifically to Trenton High’s main campus, where it was housed originally. Many older Trentonians can remember when the high school was a place where students honed their auto mechanic, carpentry, and electrical skills, before making those vocations their careers.

Why was it taken away, and why has there been no exploration into re-establishing that part of school curriculum? Mack, and many voters wonder why, especially when we see the results when a city takes away, almost all at once, any opportunities for young people to pursue sports or develop a skill: a town rife with violence perpetrated by uneducated and undereducated young people.

Hamilton wants to simply clean house and make changes, from top to bottom, in the way the school district is run. What those changes are, he did not elaborate. It sounded good, though.

Readers, please have your mayoral or council candidates weigh in right here with their thoughts on the direction our public school leadership should take now. We always talk about how a quick fix isn’t always the best remedy. Right now, in Trenton, it is the only remedy, since the next group of leaders we elect May 11th will have an almost penniless school district, with poor performing students in crowded classrooms staring them in the face as soon as they are sworn in.

Skip Harrison is an educator, freelance journalist, and parent, residing in Trenton, New Jersey.