LETTER: Public education in United States does a great job

This letter is in response to Mr. Robert Seymour’s letter on public education in the Inter Lake on Sunday.

Let me remind Mr. Seymour and all who read this letter that the public schools in Montana and the U.S. are no more or less than a reflection of the community around them. I am proud to have been a teacher and school administrator in the public school system.

Public schools must take all the students that darken our doors and do their very best to give them a quality education. They come to us with a huge range of ability and background. Send them to school every day, well rested, well fed, properly dressed and ready to learn and you will see a remarkable product.

It is unfortunate that Mr. Seymour has a totally negative view of our public schools. He states as fact many statistics regarding our students and public schools without identifying the source. He rants on with many insulting remarks about our public schools and educators in Montana and the U.S. His closed-minded thinking does not permit him to view the many successes of our schools today. He prefers name calling (“socialist minders of our defunct education system for producing decades of academic failure, stupid is as stupid does, we force our kids a steady diet of toxic socialist blather”) to positive and constructive support.

He touts Japan and other Asian schools as far superior to our public schools. I have some knowledge about the schools in Japan. They have relative ethnic purity and, in general, communities that have a high regard for education. I was the principal of a large high school in a wonderful supportive community. We offered five vocational courses  — electronics, cabinet making, auto mechanics, graphic arts and welding — along with four foreign languages, math through calculus, all of the science subjects, English literature, creative writing, critical thinking and much, much more.

We also had a foreign exchange program with a high school in Japan. Ota First High School in Hitachi Ota, Japan, exchanged students with us. Teachers and administrators from Ota First visited our school and I visited Ota First. I found the ability and educational level of our students to be about equal. They sent us outstanding students and we sent them the same.

Mr. Seymour touts his children as an academic success in non public education and I salute him for that. In contrast I offer my experience with my grandchildren in the public schools. Beginning in Montana, I have two granddaughters that graduated from Libby High School and both are finding great success in graduate school. One in the master’s program at the University of Minnesota and the other on a full three-year scholarship at Cambridge University in Great Britain. In one more year she will receive her Ph.D. in archaeology. I have three grandchildren who attended the public schools in Minnesota. The oldest has a Ph.D. and is a professor at Akron University in Ohio; next is a sixth-grade teacher and at present is a stay-at-home mom. My grandson is a computer engineer with Google Corp. and his degree is in computer science, math and physics.

I write all this not to boast about my family but to credit public education for preparing them exceedingly well for their future in Montana and throughout the United States. Mr. Seymour, you are part of the problem with your incredulous ranting. We must improve and move forward and it will take the entire village. Join us. —Jerry Reckin, Kalispell