Despite a heated primary contest, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were able to agree on having the next Democratic debate in Flint, Michigan to heighten awareness of the city’s water crisis. The debate takes place on Sunday, March 6. To kick off the weekend, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced yesterday that a Democratic Congressional delegation will meet with Flint residents and community leaders tomorrow.
There are some striking parallels between the politics surrounding Flint’s contaminated water and those that drive the national debate on education reform. Earlier this week, Scientific American published a fascinating account by students and researchers at Virginia Tech who helped bring to light the toxic levels of lead in Flint, Michigan’s drinking water. It’s not hard for those seeking to improve U.S. public education to relate to their struggles. Both the Flint water crisis and current education reform efforts:
- Disproportionately affect poor and minority kids in economically distressed areas;
- Are driven by data that helps quantify the extent of the problem;
- Involve politicians trying to keep failures obscured from the public or, when problems are uncovered, questioning the validity of scientific analysis;
- Have federal, state, and local governments passing the buck on who’s responsible;
- Require both additional resources and political reform to fix.
From the Virginia Tech team via Scientific American:
“Citizens in Flint could smell, taste and see that their water was contaminated almost immediately following the switch. But when they tried to bring their concerns to public officials’ attention, they were ignored, dismissed and ridiculed.”
“We have learned that as well-trained scientists and engineers, we can be agents for positive change. However, we have also learned that many obstacles make it hard to do good science—not only in crisis situations, but every day.”
“Our results clearly showed a widespread lead-in-water problem. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) questioned whether our testing was reliable. In response, Flint citizens organizing the sampling developed quality control procedures, such as taping the kits closed once samples had been collected and signing their names across the tape, to make it clear that no samples had been tampered with.”
“We went to Flint several times to confirm and expand these findings by taking and analyzing more water samples. Again MDEQ tried to discredit our results, calling us lead “magicians” who could “pull that rabbit out of that hat anywhere they go.”
Sound familiar?
In education reform, as in environmental safety and public health, we need to:
- Measure the right things: e.g., are all students progressing and graduating on time? Are they gaining the skills and knowledge they need to successfully transition to college or a career?
- Protect the most vulnerable: e.g., students of color, students from low-income families, English Language Learners, and students with disabilities, who are often abandoned by state government;
- Insist on clear and transparent public monitoring;
- Demand immediate and aggressive action when dangerous levels of non-performance are uncovered.
What’s worse is Flint isn’t the only community where residents are exposed to toxic substances. The truth of the matter is that we have what many would describe as “third world problems” – unsafe drinking water and kids that can’t read – all across the country.
Let the crisis in Flint remind us that vigilant oversight is vital to hold public officials’ feet to the fire and to protect vulnerable populations. We can no longer afford to dilute problems, deflect responsibility, or stand by and let those without power be ignored.