Sacrifice, faith pay off

In your Aug. 3 Faith in Memphis Panel comments, the Christian orator Maxie Dunnam wrote that he wanted “to make sure that no child’s ZIP code determines the kind of educational opportunity he/ she has.”

My wife and I felt that way more than 20 years ago when we moved to Germantown. We saw a school system that was excellent because it had incredibly heavy parental involvement, and we wanted to join in, because we believed in our children. Along with other Germantown parents, we sacrificed time, personal concerns and even sleep to support our own children and their teachers in achieving excellence. We paid a heavy price, but it was worth it.

Dunnam writes as if “educational opportunity” were some kind of limited commodity and that we in Germantown have somehow seized it and hoarded it. That is not the case: We created it. And I am not talking about money; we spent less per student than the city system.

We created it with faith in our children and sacrificial parental involvement. These parents were Caucasian, Asian and black. We all cared about our children. Teachers saw this parental commitment and wanted to come to our schools, where most students were well behaved and actually wanted to learn. We achieved a critical mass of parental concern, and it allowed our children to take giant steps.

Educational excellence should indeed not be a function of one’s ZIP code, and I would hope Dunnam’s church would launch a mission of “educational opportunity” to these low-achievement ZIP code areas, helping parents to understand the influence they have when they deeply involve themselves in their children’s lives.

Dedication, sacrifice, faith are spiritual values and one would think Dunnam would applaud us for holding them, instead of obliquely accusing us of denying benefits to others, and then advocating the dissolution of our school system.