“SPOTLIGHT ON”
By LUZ URBAEZ WEINBERG
Concerned Citizens Get Educated on Education
With MDC Superintendent Dr. Rudy Crew

Miami-Dade County Superintendent Rudy Crew gave Concerned Citizens of Sunny Isles Beach a lesson on education at the March 2005 luncheon, led by Concerned Citizens President Irving Diamond.

Regular luncheon invocator and City Historian, Richard Schulman’s invocation asked for the safety of our troops overseas who continue to fight for freedom. A moment of silence was observed for City of Sunny Isles Beach friend Jeff Mell. Diamond then recognized city and county officials in the audience, and special guests from Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

The Sunny Isles Police Department’s ‘Officer of the Month’ presentation was deferred to the April 18th luncheon.

Before addressing the concerned group, Superintendent Crew was presented with the ‘Key to the City’ from Mayor Norman Edelcup, in appreciation for his and his staff’s assistance in creating the upcoming K-8 public school facility to serve area children.

With Crew’s extensive educational background, you could easily name him the “cleaner”, for he is known to have gone into troubled districts and brought them up to code.

Crew began his address asking how many people in the room were from New York. Needless to say, many hands went up in the heavily ‘Snowbird ‘populated city, and Crew reported how he feels so much at home in South Florida, having come to Miami-Dade from New York City Schools just last summer.

What should be happening at all our schools? To answer that question, Crew reported that our students need to develop a sense of their own personal self before attempting to know the subject matter. Both parents and schools are responsible for our children’s development of those personal selves: their inside character, how they think about themselves, how they talk to other people, what kind of manners they have, what ways they interchange with their families and their communities.

“I have met so many children who are warm, wonderful and talented, and yet when you really talk to them you realize they don’t even know how to shake a hand…I then realize no one has really talked to them about the rules of engagement and the rules of belonging to a community.

We happen to believe in this administration that it is important that children know the rules of the road. There’s nothing wrong with their brainpower. But if they aren’t taught the rules of the road, you see a big difference between those who have social skills and those who do not.

A big part of our agenda this year will be helping students to develop what we think of as a sense of Personal Civic Literacy. The kind of literacy that helps people as they grow up to know how to belong to a community, how to participate as a member of that community, how to say thank you, how to say good morning, good afternoon and how to shake your hand.

Now that may sound like insignificant things, but I’ll be honest with you, in this market, in today’s market, this is an important contribution.

The second biggest thing that we think is important, and this is not to be overshadow about the idea of testing, is this whole question about how children learn to read, how kids actually are in this country, in my judgment, way behind the international community in the skills of reading and writing and doing mathematics. Now for a lot of people that just doesn’t matter. They say, ‘Well all they have to do is study hard’. But it is not just what they have to do, it’s what we have to do.

We have to raise the standard in our schools.

To those people who may say our kids can’t do all that. It will be too much for them. It’ll be daunting. Well, I will tell you there’s nothing more daunting than a child who is in 8th, 9th or 10th grade who fundamentally is illiterate. That is a daunting child. So, the opposition to the idea of high standards in my mind loses the argument.

We have to have a rising question of our own expectations, so that by the time children are actually in the school, whether it is elementary, middle or high school, they walk in knowing that this is a school that is going to demand of them a certain degree of behavior, a certain kind of academic vigor, a certain kind of mind.

While I’m at it, let me tell you what I think of the minds of the children of Miami-Dade. These are incredibly bright and talented children. These are not just ‘smart kids’. These are not just kids who some will go to college and some of them can’t. The state-of-the-art school system, which Miami-Dade will be, is a school system that works off the premise that any child that wants to go to college should be able to when they finish our program.

We also agree that college may not necessarily be for everybody. There are some students who may not want to go right then. Some may want to do something different. Whatever their choice, what we’re saying is they still need to have the skills to be able to go to college. Their ability to have taken the necessary courses and our ability to provide those subjects will not be compromised.

School is all about the ability to work because we all meet again in the workplace, whether it’s class of ‘65, ‘75 or ’95, we all meet in the workplace.”

Crew also emphasized the need for internships within the school system to achieve Civic Literacy.

“Every internship should be meaningful. Somebody should notice when they’re on time, and when they are late. Someone should notice if they can stand up and speak and enunciate their words, and those who cannot, should be given the opportunity to learn that before their senior year. Our children are incredibly intelligent. Let’s teach them how to become our future workers of our society.”

Next Concerned Citizens Luncheon will take place on Monday, April 18th with special guest speaker Jim Defede.

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