The recent flap over a proposed name change of the MOSI Partnership school has reinforced, once again, the dicey task of school naming. In the good name of wanting to honor the honorable — for example, Mayor Pam Iorio’s late father, the beloved John Iorio — we perpetuate a ritual too subjective to be consistently appropriate and uncontroversial.
Except for that limited, elite American pantheon of heroes and high achievers, we’re much better off going geographical or, as in the case of MOSI, making allowances for a school’s special designation. This would avoid needless controversy and would help instill some sense of community in schools too often lacking in identity.
Unlike a rose, a school by any other name wouldn’t be the same. To be sure, we all know that what goes on in a school matters much more than what name it goes by. But that doesn’t mean the name is incidental – especially to those who go there or send their children there. Marcus Garvey or Steve Garvey Elementary? Harry or Truman Capote Middle School? Stonewall or Jackson Pollock High School? Jim Davis or Miles Davis Magnet? You bet it matters.
Reality dictates that image and connotation count, along with old-fashioned politics, new-fashioned political correctness and even raw snob appeal. Would Tommy Franks Voc Tech be as attractive — or acceptable — today as it was six years ago? Would it matter if your diploma read: “Sharpton,” “Schwarzkopf” or “Shabazz” High School? You bet it would.
The fundamental problem is two-fold when we name schools after people. For openers, we have many more schools than we have consensus American icons. And the disparity only widens. No problem with the Washingtons, Franklins, Jeffersons, Carvers, Lincolns, Edisons and Roosevelts. But all too quickly we run out of such first-tier names. That gives us a Newsome, a Sickles or a Wharton. Good people who did yeoman work becomes the criteria.
Inherently problematic are scenarios for naming schools after the living: typically local politicians, school board members and business leaders. Not only are they not likely of iconic quality, but the unwritten chapters of their lives can prove awkward for posterity. Sort of the pedagogic equivalent of the Houston Astros’ erstwhile Enron Field. Joe Kotvas Alternative School would have been embarrassing. A Brian Blair Junior High could still happen.
Remember why J. Crockett Farnell High School became Freedom High? Because too many parents took umbrage at having their kids’ school named for the late superintendent who was forced to resign in the 1960s after being convicted of stealing school district property.
Eventually Farnell’s backers re-petitioned and requested a lower-profile middle school in Nine Eagles be named in his honor. The school district acquiesced when it was noted that Farnell’s conviction was eventually overturned on appeal. Now there’s a standard.
To avoid ugly controversies or just awkward, competing petition drives on behalf of good people, we should look to geography wherever we can. Hillsborough High, Turkey Creek Middle School and Ballast Point Elementary work just fine, thank you.
And at a time when the quaint concept of “neighborhood schools” is re-rooting – despite protests from the usual suspects that this is “resegregation” – why not max out on a local community’s identity?