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A Fortress Against Ignorance
Rev. Sharon K. Dittmar
April 27, 2003

When I first read our opening words in preparation for this sermon I didn't snicker, I didn't roll my eyes, I didn't think "Those old idealistic educators."  The truth is that a tear came to my eye and I smiled.  There was a day in this blighted city educational landscape when citizens believed in their schools, teachers, and children, and they built and paid for educational facilities like castles in order to preserve their children and society.

When the second Hughes High School at Clifton and McMillan (the first one was located downtown) opened in 1910 it cost $1,000,000 to build, and was the most expensive public works project in the Midwest, a public school.   Hughes High School teacher, Glenetta Blair, told me that Hughes was designed by an architect to look like a castle, so that it would stand as a fortress against ignorance.  As Glenetta described in her reading, it has a tower, various gargoyles that symbolize areas of study; history, mathematics, athletics, literature, and fine arts. 

Inside, the lobby is adorned Tennessee marble, the hallways with Rookwood fountains, the library with stained glass windows, and originally, the entire building with art, lots of art.  Hughes was built as a monument to the public education of children, to the city of Cincinnati, to the future.  We know that Dr. Withrow was sincere when he said Hughes would enable "thousands of our future citizens to be amplified and glorified with higher civic ideals and with more vigorous and efficient panoply for the battle of life" because he and his contemporaries paid for this vision, in cash.  What would they make of the defeat of last fall's $489 million bond issue for city public schools.  What would they hope for when it reappears on the ballot on May 6th?

Today Cincinnati Public School manages 79 school buildings, some of them built before the turn of the last century (before 1900).  Within the State of Ohio property tax revenues support our public schools, and these revenues cannot, by law, grow with the economy.  So as expenses and the economy expand, all public schools must continually ask the voters to pass new levies, usually every two years.  It's an un-endearing poor relative relationship that makes it appear like our public schools can't manage their money.   In reality, we haven't given our public schools the leeway to make any cost of living adjustments, from increases in pencils to raises in the cost of electricity.

When voters are asked to pay more for the operating expenses every two years, building upkeep is ignored, in all but the wealthiest communities.  It's like the situation we faced here at First Church, where for decades we deferred maintenance on the building.  One morning we woke up and the sanctuary roof, after 100 years of loyal service was unstable, and our friend, the pole had to move in to support it, which was when we began to think about a capital campaign to renovate and modernize.  On average, Ohio school buildings are the worst in the nation.[1]

This statistic embarrasses me every time I hear it.  "On average, Ohio school buildings are the worst in the nation."  The State of Ohio is wealthy.  We have infrastructure, resources, an educated population, and on average our school facilities are the worst in the nation?  What happened to the people who believed in opportunities for thousands of our future citizens, who wanted to arm and robe them for the battle of life and the prestige of Cincinnati?  What happened to us?

Last fall, a $489 million bond issue request for new construction, renovation, and modernization of Cincinnati Public Schools facilities was placed on the ballot.  Duane Holm, the Executive Director of MARCC, called this bond issue "the blue plate special.  It has a deal for everyone."  After extensive study, business and community input, and the creation of a facilities master plan that proposes the construction of 35 new school and the renovation of 31 buildings over the next 10 years, CPS needs $985 million to complete this project. 

Through stadium fees and other non-taxpayer funding, $295 million is available.  Through matching state funds, another $210 million is available if local citizens, like you and I, pass a bond issue.  Out of a total projected $985 million, last fall the citizens of Cincinnati were asked to pay less than half the price, $489 million. 

Last fall, by 611 votes, the citizens of Cincinnati defeated this bond issue.  Out of 90,000 cast votes, we lost by 611 votes.  If one voter in each precinct had voted "yes" instead of "no", the bond issue would have passed.  As Duane Holm said to me "Your vote really does count." 

There are people who will not vote for the passage of any school levy or bond issue because Cincinnati public schools struggle with academic performance.  Yet, this is backwards.  If our public schools don't have the money, they can't perform like their well-funded, suburban neighbors.  Lockers too small, poor acoustics, another ceiling water leak and math class is distracted for the day.  Do any of us seriously expect our children to learn well with so many distractions? 

Yet with all this, Cincinnati test scores are improving.  In the 2003 State Report Card, Cincinnati fourth and sixth grade test scores increased, in some areas between 4% - 20%.  The graduation rate has risen from 47% in 1999 to 60% in 2002.[2]  Academically we are still in trouble, but we are improving.

How many of you have recently been inside Hughes?  Obviously, it was built with faith in education and grand ideas for our children.   The lobby of Hughes, though old and cracked, is still impressive - Tennessee marble with two carved lunettes on either side of the entry way.  One lunette features a woman in the center who represents the intellectual power of the state.  The other figures within the lunette, a preacher, inventor, soldier and more, are bringing her gifts.  Across from this lunette is matching one, with a man at the center who represents the physical power of the state.  Gifts are also being brought to him, a farmer, a miner, even a family bringing its son.  The public education of our children as an expensive, well-funded and worthy gift to the state, not a burden, not a tax and spend issue, a gift, to the state.  What happened to our vision of public education in the city?

Perhaps the most painful and unnamed issue driving the debate over Cincinnati Public Schools and its academic failures, is that of race and class.  Our former Governor and Cincinnati School Board member, John Gilligan, is the person who first pointed this out to me.  Several years ago I asked him what he would like us to know about Cincinnati Public Schools.  He responded:

If we plot failing schools across the country we see that they are mostly in inner city areas.  It's a failure of the central city.  It's an issue of race and class.  Consider these statistics, in 1975 there were 90,000 students in Cincinnati Public Schools.  70% of them were white, and 80% were middle class.  Today, there are 46,000 children in Cincinnati Public Schools.  70% of them are black, and 85% are poor.  We can't expect Cincinnati Public Schools, who are with children six hours a day, 40 weeks a year, to fix things.  The bells ring and they go out and get an education, but it's not the one we want.

City schools are ground zero for all our most entrenched social problems of race and class, the ones we have carried with us since the founding of this country.  Let's be honest.  Hughes, with all its vision, was built during segregation for white children.  The disrepair of Hughes and other Cincinnati public schools began in the decades of white flight, when wealthier tax payers left the city with their money, and aging facilities, like Hughes, began to decline. 

In 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Topeka Kansas, legally over-ruled segregation in our public schools, but within two decades America unofficially re-segregated itself with poor minorities in the cities and wealthier whites in the suburbs.  The racial make-up of our city public schools may have changed, but the words of Dr. Withrow are still true, this school "will bring to this height and to all these opportunities thousands of our future citizens to be amplified and glorified with higher civic ideals."  Or rather Dr. Withrow's words can still be true, if we, the voters, act like citizens invested in the education and future of our city, and if we, understand that all children deserve equal educational opportunities.  Our children will care for us, only as well as we care for them.  Our children will learn about civic duty, only as well as we teach them.  How much do we love our children?

A recent publication of Sustainable Cincinnati lists 14 regional indicators for that account for economic prosperity, quality of life, and healthy ecosystems.[3]  The second, third, and fourth indicators all relate to public schools: "percent of workforce between 20 and 35 years of age", "cumulative percent of students who finish high school and are 'work ready' or prepared for higher education", and "the percent of the eligible workforce earning enough to be self-sufficient."  A healthy public school system, particularly city schools system which educates so many students, fuels our metropolitan economy and quality of life.

I'm still learning to live with Cincinnati's innate ability to shoot itself in the foot, so it was with shock and awe that I watched the bond issue go down by the slightest majority last fall.  What vision.  The state matching funds I mentioned were made available to the eight largest urban areas in the state.  Only Cincinnati and Akron defeated the bond issue. 

Cleveland, Toledo, Dayton, the other large cities, they are all getting money for school renovation.  Given recent changes in the state budget this money will not come around again.  We have one more opportunity to pass this bond issue on Tuesday, May 6 in order to earn $210 million in state matching funds.  One more opportunity before the matching state funds go to other Ohio cities. 

Several weeks ago I went to hear Alton Frailey, the new CPS Superintendent speak.  It was clear to me that he is baffled and frustrated, as am I, by the attitude of citizens in Cincinnati.  Like Dr. Withrow one hundred years earlier, he can't understand why we wouldn't put our children first, why we wouldn't vote "yes."  He said:

Years ago they built these gorgeous structures.  They served us well.  There is only so much you can do with a building built eighty years ago.  It's not set for air conditioning, plumbing, and wiring.  What message do we send to our children?  We need to do more to prepare them to enter society and the world . . . Educate them right the first time they become tax payers.  We can pay for them once or for the rest of their lives.

As a new resident of Cincinnati, with three young children, Superintendent Frailey is looking for a home.  There was almost a palpable sigh of relief in the crowd when he indicated that he was looking for a home in the city of Cincinnati.  As a homeowner this bond issue is crucial.  People who like to look at trees know that the passage of this bond issue will cost the owner of an $100,000 home, an extra $134.89 a year, which it will.  People who have a view of the trees and forest understand that for an extra $100-$300 a year, our homes and communities will increase their value and stability.  The potential construction alone for this bond issue will take place over ten years, bringing thousands of jobs and millions in income to the tri-state area. 

This is not just about Cincinnati property values and stability, because the entire metropolitan area, whether Ft. Wright, Lawrenceburg, or Loveland, is at this point dependent on a viable center city.  The center city goes, the jobs leave, and everyone's values and stability slides.  We stand and fall together, whether city or suburbs.

When I told my neighbor we were moving the first thing he asked was "You moving to Mason?"  I know that he sized up my color, he's probably wondering about his own kid's education, and he assumed we were moving to Mason, probably for good schools, because that is what most people do - and this is no insult to most people.  The education of our children is critical. 

His comment really stunned me, because we are not planning on moving to Mason.  It stunned me because it made me remember the many people who are, and that there would be a whole lot more of us living in the city if the schools were better. 

My husband and I are agonizing over where to live now and some of this, not all of it, but part of it has to do with schools.  We are so undecided that we may rent until we make up our minds.  I really began to take this question of schools seriously after a long-time city resident and veteran Cincinnati public school teacher said "I'd think three times about putting my kids in Cincinnati Public today."

With all this said, I love Cincinnati Public Schools, and I think it is the single issue here that I care most about.  I care about it because of the members of this congregation who are city teachers, like Bev Baker and Glenetta Blair, who have introduced me to our schools and children.  My love of Cincinnati Public Schools began the first time I entered Woodward High School and Bev sent one of her students, Ivory, to escort me to her class.  Ivory held all the doors open for me.

We hear a lot about test scores, academic emergency situations, parking lot to pay check teachers, but these are not the only people (or even the majority of people) I meet when I go to Cincinnati Public Schools.  This past week Miss Glenetta Blair took me on a tour of her high school, Hughes.

Glenetta said to me "I love this place.  When I walked in the front door for my interview with all that marble I knew I wanted to be a teacher here - this building was built by a city that loved its children and I knew that I wanted to be there because I love these children too."  Glenetta took me to the top of the castle roof, the alumni room, and the library.  We passed a display of former Hughes clubs, the 1917 Mandolin Club, 1919 Greek Club, 1930 Girl Kickball Team, 1942 Aeronautics Club, 1946 Modern Dancing Group, and our favorite, the 1973 Good Grooming Club - you have to see the photo.  A mandolin club, an aeronautics club, 1946 modern dance?  These aren't your basic clubs.  These are innovative, sometimes cutting-edge clubs supported by people who loved children.

We stopped by the theatre, in 1910 billed as a "fine large auditorium . . . [for] fifteen hundred."  It's beautiful and large, like some old town halls in Massachusetts.  I immediately asked Glenetta what plays they did this year.  She responded:

We mainly use it for pep rallies.  We have no drama department.  It was cut in 2001.  We have one art and one music teacher for 1600 students.  We have two gym teachers, mostly for the senior classes because there are less of them than the freshmen, even though fourteen year olds need to run off their energy.

That's right, Hughes offers athletic education to seniors, not freshmen (who need it more), because they can't afford it.  But the drama, music, and art cuts hurt me the most (although for others I know it would be the athletics).  In high school I spent all my extra time in drama and music - all of it, three plays a year of it, plus concert band, marching band, swing choir.  It was fundamental to my edgy self esteem and one of my only sources of high school joy.  My husband, growing up in a high school far from me, also credits his school's drama department with saving his lonely high school life and teaching him how to make friends.  How many Sharons and Peters go to Hughes, only they don't have a public school that can afford to help them like ours did.  Does this city love its children?

During a tour we entered a computer lab where students were working on reports.  Glenetta told me that every book report completed by a student must be accompanied by a power point presentation.  Now that might seems excessive to those of us who never had to complete a power point presentation in school.  But it is a necessity today if our students are going to be employable, if they are going to be those productive members of the work force needed to sustain our city.  And Hughes, built almost ninety years ago, with all that love, money, and modernization at the time, was not built for computers.  Today at Hughes there are problems with wiring, electricity - as Glenetta described it ranging from useless to dangerous, and computers.  How are our city children going to stay competitive if we do not give them the necessary panoply for the 21st century, including technology.

One of the last stops on our tour was to a restroom.  Glenetta says the children complain about these the most.  In the random restroom we entered the sinks leaked, and not all of the bathrooms stalls had doors.  Does this city still love its children?  In the last forty years we have told our city children in no uncertain terms that they are less lovable because of the color of their skin.  This is not just a failure of our city schools, this is a failure of our citizenry.  The Hebrew Scriptures tell us that "without a vision the people perish".  What is our vision for our children and our city?  Are we going to remain blind to the humanity of our children due to the color of their skin?  If so, our fortresses against ignorance will crumble, and everyone will suffer.  The metropolitan area cannot sustain itself with this kind of a vision. 

The bond issue will create and renovate Cincinnati schools to meet state codes.  All schools will be air-conditioned and adequately heated.  Classrooms will be technologically updated and flexible.  School size will be smaller, and historic details will remain.   And, the CPS maintenance budget will increase to adequately support facility repairs in the future.  Does this city love its children enough to educate them in safe facilities that meet state standards?  On May 6th go to the polls, please go to the polls, and vote "Yes" on Issue 3, for our children and for our neighborhoods.  Your vote may be the one that counts the most.

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