If life has taught me anything it’s to look and listen carefully, and remember when I see someone acting against their own self-interest, against their own inner disposition. It happened about ten years ago when I witnessed a young lady, at one of America’s elite universities, choose to enter a boxing competition. She stood at around five-foot tall, weighed maybe 110 pounds, her countenance was one of a gentle and contrite spirit, and it was clear she had not a mean bone in her body. So why would such a bright young lady, with no discernable physical prowess, press into something so antithetical to her self-interest and disposition?
The groundwork for her choice began in 1931 when the University of Notre Dame’s boxing program was transformed from training young people in toughness and endurance into a means by which students could raise funds to support the Holy Cross Mission in Bangladesh. The Mission ministers to those living in extreme poverty and helps lift the trajectory of peoples’ lives by building schools and healthcare facilities. The boxing competition is called Bengal Bouts and its motto is “Strong bodies fight, that weak bodies may be nourished”.
As I consider these students, chock full of exceptional talent and potential, training to fight their hearts out, I’m called to wonder if in them, and their motto, lies an example that could, and perhaps should, shape our public policy choices and who to represent us.
One such public policy choice, I submit a foundational one, relates to the level of support we extend to educating our young people. Beyond the love of family, public education is the primary means by which we cultivate the potential within children. Quality public education brings out the best in our young people and gives them a life trajectory full of potential, while an ineffective education often leaves them discouraged, lacking confidence, and with a life that’s often weighed down with more senseless challenges than I have a heart to count.
Given that reading is the gateway to nearly all other learning, if we look at just reading, it’s painfully clear that our children, as a group, are far behind where they ought to be. According to the 2022 National Report Card, only 32% of 4th graders were reading at or above proficiency. The percentage of 8th graders at or above reading proficiency was just 29%. We can shake our head at these facts, and quickly think of the many causes for low academic achievement, but we all know that will likely bear little fruit. What can bear fruit is to consider the need to set our nation on a war footing toward improving public education.
Setting our nation on a war footing to improve public education means being willing to support candidates for public office that have the courage to lead us in making the education of children a top priority. It means being willing to support local school levies, knowing that while a tiny portion of that extra funding may not be spent perfectly, the vast majority of it will help children achieve academic proficiency and gain confidence in themselves and their future.
It also means supporting candidates for national office that will support increased funding for K-12 public education. To make sure those vying for our support for office will indeed make public education a priority we have to set aside their rhetoric and look at their record. For example, during all four years of Trump’s presidency, he and other fellow Republicans in his administration chose to submit budgets for K-12 education that were 10% below the prior year. That’s not being ProLife, it’s the height of hypocrisy, and it damages the lives of children.
As we consider the challenges our young people are facing perhaps it would be worthwhile to weigh the courage of letting go of our self-interest, some of our own short-term comforts and wants, and remember not only the courage of students willing to fight their hearts out in a boxing ring, but countless soldiers that charged into battle on our behalf, and the wealthy gentlemen on the Titanic that chose to give up their seats on lifeboats for women and children. If the wealthy on the Titanic could give their lives to rescue the weak, maybe the wealthy today, as well as the rest of us can give more of ourselves to rescue the next generation.