WESTMINSTER — Almost every day, I get a call from a parent, a therapist, or a teacher desperately looking for some hope to help a struggling adolescent.
The symptoms I hear about vary - poor academic performance, feelings of loneliness, victim of bullying by peers or adults, sadness, depression, persistent non-attendance at school, threats of personal harm.
Adolescence can be a tough time, and being in a setting that isn't working for the student, for whatever reason, can make this period of life even more challenging.
Although bullying in schools is the most recent headline grabber - with suicides being just one tragic effect - the inability of schools to help every child is nothing new.
There have always been kids who failed in school in even greater numbers than today's appalling nationwide non-graduation rate of more than 30 percent. There have always been kids left out, beaten down, given up on, or alienated from school.
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We hear ongoing debate about whether our public schools are doing a good job. The answer is an emphatic “yes and no.”
Yes, our schools do a great job serving ever-more-needy children with ever-increasing expectations. For a lot of kids, the existing public schools are quite good.
The problem is that for some individuals, the existing schools are absolutely not working. These may be the kids who end up most alienated and left out.
Speaking in generalities, our public schools serve children well. From the perspective of some individual children, the effectiveness of our schools is more problematic.
If even one child is ill-served by their local public school, we as a society need to figure out how to do what we can to help them find success. We cannot afford, either morally or economically, to let any child fall through the cracks and fail to get the education and opportunities each deserves.
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This problem for individual children is largely not the fault of a particular school but one inherent in the public-school system. It is simply unreasonable to expect any single institution to be all things to all people.
No restaurant tries to do this, nor does any cell-phone manufacturer or house builder. Individuals' needs and preferences are simply too diverse to be served well by any single institution.
Imagine only one restaurant for the whole town of Brattleboro. What would they serve to please everyone? Prime rib for all? (Horrors for vegetarians.) Localvore salad? (Where's the beef?) A little Thai food, some Chinese dishes, a few pizzas, a sampler of barbecue? (Who can cook all these with quality?)
For the same reason, it is unreasonable to ask any single school to serve every child in a geographic area.
Individual students differ too greatly in their interests and learning styles, parents hold different beliefs and orientations, various interests have different priorities that they wish to impose on all in school.
It is a tribute to the undying efforts of educators that our schools work for so many children. But, we also know that even the very best of our public schools don't work for some kids.
Our public schools do a terrific job serving a wide range of students. Many kids love their teachers, the school atmosphere, and the dynamics of peer culture.
But we only have to accept this inevitable failure of school for individual children if we remain wedded to the idea that the only option is the one public school in the child's district.
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We have a long history of noble but inevitably futile efforts to “reform” public schools by imposing uniform solutions to what are, at heart, individual problems.
A spate of recent editorials offer more examples of the well-intentioned, but ultimately unworkable, notion that we can somehow solve a school problem like bullying with a generic program applied to all students.
Some programs focus on trying to teach all kids in schools to be respectful and caring; others suggest stricter rules or punishments.
Whatever the plan, it is assured that this won't stop bullying for every kid, and individuals will continue to be victims of those who slip through the cracks, won't buy into the lessons of their teachers, or will be undeterred by harsher consequences.
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For a large number of students, the opportunity for a fresh start in a new and different setting will mean much more than any one-size-fits-all “reform” effort imposed on schools to end bad behavior, improve academic performance, or increase student motivation.
There are examples within Vermont of areas where students have real school choices that better allow every child to find success.
The state of Colorado allows choice for every child among any public school in the state - with charter and magnet schools offering unique opportunities to expand options. Minnesota offers publicly funded students a range of options including traditional schools, college options, teacher-developed charters, online classes, virtual high school, and independent competency-based learning units.
If we are serious about really leaving no child behind - giving every child the opportunity for academic, social, and emotional learning - we cannot continue to promote a system that confines every child in a school that, for whatever reason, is not working for him or her.
This isn't fair to kids and it isn't fair to educators. Ultimately, the costs to taxpayers of endless efforts to impose reforms that force uniform solutions on every school are unbearable.
More importantly, the cost to society of losing individual kids is even greater.