Happy Fourth of July! A wreath-laying ceremony Tuesday in Tanzania, paying tribute to victims of a 1998 Al Qaeda bombing and attended by both Presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush, made me appreciate being an American a little more this Independence Day.
President Bush was there as part of his—and his family’s—continuing efforts to promote better lives for people in poor areas of the African continent mainly through health initiatives, and President Obama was there to do the same, mainly through steps to bolster the economy in and bring better electricity to regions of Africa that are suffering right now.
The work for Mr Bush started during his presidency, but it was overshadowed, for the most part, by much bigger issues, like the war and the economy. But the New York Times reported that he has returned to Africa three times since his presidency, renovating health clinics and expanding screening and treatment programs to fight cervical cancer. The work of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which he started, has also saved many lives on the continent.
Secretary of State John Kerry declared a few weeks ago that the one-millionth baby since the program began would be born AIDS-free in June. He said:
Everybody knows that as you look at Congress today, not every day produces the kind of exceptional bipartisan cooperation that created the celebration we’re here to enjoy today. This is one issue where I can happily say that partisanship has really almost always taken a backseat. And in fact, the success of this effort shows what can happen when you reach across the aisle and you do wind up working together.
Now back to the whole pride in America thing. We may fight tooth-and-nail against policies pushed by our presidents when they’re in office, but as past presidents go, I think we have a pretty good bunch.
Jimmy Carter put a driving energy behind Habitat for Humanity. Bill Clinton’s continuing work in Africa and Haiti have been instrumental in those areas. In Haiti, he sat next to his successor, George W Bush, in a TV commercial to tell us about the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund to help the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere after a devastating earthquake.
Finally, we come to the Bush family’s efforts in Africa, where Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Bush, Laura and George W’s daughters, founded the Global Health Corps, which tries to improve access to health care in places like Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia. See an interview on Huff Post Live from the Aspen Ideas Festival, which details the organization’s ongoing work to encourage young people to serve their communities, here.
But in Africa on Tuesday, Mr Bush simply noted his ongoing commitment. “I’m here to serve,” he told CNN during a stop in Zambia, “and I believe strongly that with power and wealth comes a duty to serve the least.” Mr Obama was quoted in the Times as saying about his predecessor, “I think this is one of his crowning achievements. Because of the commitment of the Bush administration and the American people, millions of people’s lives have been saved.”
In Schools
President Bush’s “duty to serve the least,” as it applies to our schools, directs my eyes to the schools in Philadelphia and Chicago. Those who have money and power, by which I mean not only elected officials and their appointed secretaries and commissions but also wealthy corporations and foundations, have turned their backs on these schools and the students who attend them.
Mr Bush is right. Leaders and wealthy people ignore their duty to the least among us when they strip schools of, essentially, everything that makes them a school. They are neglectful when they all but escort residents out of communities they have called home for generations. Sure, there are problems with the system, but you can’t fix a problem in the public schools by discouraging students from attending those schools and forcing their families out of neighborhoods.
From our civic leaders’ mouths, the duty falls on our school leaders, such as Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, Superintendent William Hite of Philadelphia, and others, to invest in the public schools, by which I mean to invest in programs that actually touch kids’ lives and their classrooms, not in executive salaries, fancy offices, charter schools, or schedules awash with testing.
Consolidate massively if you must, enlarge class sizes a little if the budget won’t allow them to be smaller, which is preferred, but do not take educational programs away from our students. And don’t make classes so boring and schools so unsupportive that no kid will want to become a lifelong learner—not if it’s going to be like this their whole life, which is the message we send when we strip programs out of schools.
Don’t, for one minute, think there’s a better way than the public schools, because there’s not. Charter schools have proven themselves to be inconsistent and flaky, and private schools are sometimes better but always more expensive, which “the least” among us can’t afford and which won’t help the budget anyway.
We can do this, folks. One million babies have been born in Africa without the threat of AIDS, thanks to the good work of the American people and two great presidents. Former presidents are greeted in Africa with cheering crowds, a dozen deep along a 10-mile motorcade route. Let’s try a little harder here and invest in our public schools so the same patriotism can be appreciated between our own shores.
