West Oaklane Leader - Fattah Keeps It Real In Class

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West Oaklane Leader - Fattah Keeps It Real In Class

Second District Congressman Chaka Fattah spent time educating college students about the political process recently. At two classrooms at Saint Joseph's University in West Philadelphia, he spoke about funding for public education and touched on the economy as possible social justice topics for the freshmen's English research papers on Wednesday morning. At the Delaware County Community College in Media, he was part of a panel discussing the upcoming presidential race midday on Thursday.Fattah, whose district includes Northwest Philadelphia, drew attention to the fact that there is an economic disparity in public education. He pointed out that schools in urban and rural areas receive less money per student than their counterparts in wealthier suburban school districts. This, he attributed to, the fact that in states like Pennsylvania the amount allocated to each school per pupil is tied to property taxes.

"This is a critical issue for our K-12 students," said Fattah to the 8 a.m. "Craft of Language" class at Saint Joseph's University. "A student at the Gompers Elementary School does not have the same educational opportunities as students in Lower Merion Elementary. At Gompers the school gets about $10,000 for a first grade student while at Lower Merion the school gets about $22,000 a student in first grade. That's a disparity that will continue until each of those students graduates high school."

Fattah then illustrated what could happen if a student from the Philadelphia School District and one from Philadelphia's Main Line each applied to a higher educational institution like St. Joseph's. He said that the student who started at a school like Gompers and graduated from Overbrook High School may not have had access to all the resources of his counterpart across the city line. He may not have had as many textbooks, teachers that were not certified in the subject they are teaching, less textbooks during his K-12 experience, and less active in computer technology.

The federal lawmaker gave an example of a new teacher in the Philadelphia School District who had an art history degree. When she arrived at a local comprehensive high school she was assigned to teach algebra. The teacher initially refused the assignment pointing out that she had not taken a mathematics course since high school. The principal informed her that that was the subject area where they needed a teacher. Since it was a frustrating experience teaching a subject she was not adept in the teacher soon quit, according to Fattah.
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"It's only logical that if you allocate more resources you can do things differently," said Fattah. "You may be able to cut classroom sizes in half. In this way, each student would get more individualized attention. You may be able to attract more qualified teachers who are teaching subjects in which they are trained. This is a social justice issue."

As far as the economic crisis, Fattah pointed out that the government is in a great deal of debt. He also stressed that many families in this country are also in debt. Yet the national debt is over $11 trillion. Fattah predicted that not only the 18-year-old students in the freshman English class will have to repay this debt over the course of their life times, but their children and grandchildren will have to pay off the current debt as well.

Fattah took the classroom back eight years when President Bill Clinton was leaving office. "At that time this country did not have this type of debt," he said. "In fact we had a surplus." The legislator then urged the students to Google, "Greenspan" and learn what happened after the Bush administration came into office eight years ago until 2008. He attributed the escalation of the national debt, in part, to the two wars the United States is engaged in.

"I am proud to say that I voted against the war," said Fattah. "It was one of the best votes I ever made in Congress."

Fattah also said that for the first time in American history that the government was bailing out a major insurance company. He also pointed out that the government is also bailing out the banking industry. He said that this was all an effort to keep the economy stable and not have history repeat itself with the aftermath of the Stock Market Crash in 1929.

During the question and answer period in the 9 a.m. class students wanted to know why Fattah went into politics. He readily shared a personal anecdote going back to 1971 when he was in ninth grade in junior high school. At that time Hardy Williams represented his West Philadelphia community. Fattah decided to volunteer for his campaign.

"He had a daughter that was gorgeous," admitted Fattah, which drew spontaneous laughter from the students. "It was there I learned about politics. So, I kept volunteering in campaigns and I began running for public office. By the time I was 21 I was the youngest person elected to the state house."

As students asked questions about public education, Fattah shared the story of Roy King. The Arkansas school teacher, he said, was the only mathematics teacher for his school district. King was not certified to teach math. He was responsible for teaching algebra, geometry and trigonometry to 400 students. There was a severe shortage of textbooks so "the kids had to have a lottery to see who got to take the books home," according to Fattah. He challenged the students to look up the case in which King sued the school district over these conditions.

When asked whether he favored standardized testing of students, Fattah gave two perspectives. On one hand, he said, that tests were necessary to "analyze how students were doing in relation to other students." Conversely, Fattah noted that students should not be merely taught to pass examinations or given tests prematurely before they have been taught the information. He said that the latter is often the case under the No Child Left Behind.

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