Kids Actually Learned to Read Before $260k Jumbotrons

Brutus — I’m driving over potholed roads at the northernmost point of the Lower Peninsula. Farmland whips by in patchwork scraps. Sunflowers bow to the breeze. I go for miles without seeing another car.

You can find old one-room schoolhouses around here. And that’s what I’m searching for. If you know what to look for, they’re easy to spot. Small, square, symmetrical. Sometimes with a big slab of concrete out front where the bell was. Sometimes a little belfry on top.

Most have either been torn down or converted into houses or township halls. Only a few have been preserved. The last barely hang on, having been mostly consumed by nature.

As I drive, I imagine old timey kids walking along the side of the road. Books tied up in leather belts, kicking up dust, and laughing in the early morning hours of a new school day on the edge of fall.

Then I think about the brand-new gymnasium scoreboard they recently installed at Petoskey High School, not far from where I live. It’s one of those NBA-style ones that fits into the middle of the ceiling. The score can be seen from any angle. Cost? $260,790.

Imagine if the children of early 20th-century Michigan walked into that empty gymnasium. The scoreboard towers overhead. Suddenly, it blasts on and pixelated graphics light up on the screen. The students stand in awe. Finally, they realize what their education has been missing.

I keep driving. The GPS says turn right, but I hesitate at the dirt road. Any northerner knows a dirt road could be a dirt road, but it could also be an old two-track leading to a sand and gravel nightmare where you will get irreversibly stuck without cell service.

I start down. Soon it’s a two-track, now mostly sand. Narrower and narrower. Finally it opens up. I drive out onto pavement but quickly slow down again. I’m looking for an old school near Good Hart where M-119, the Tunnel of Trees, starts. It’s supposed to be barely visible from the road. I saw a picture online. I go too far and run into Lake Michigan. Back again. There, passed it. Turn back.

I get out and step into the weeds. The paint’s all gone. Windows broken. A “For Sale” sign out front. The toilet seat from the outhouse in back was yanked out and is now lying in the ferns next to some bricks and beer bottles. I try to peek in the windows, but they’re too dust covered.

These schoolhouses used to be all over so that no kid ever lived more than a few miles from one. We’d sneak into them in high school and take pictures of the weird things we found.

It was a simpler time.

Then: A blackboard, slates chalk.

Now: An 86-inch digital touchscreen at the front of the room and an iPad for every student.

Then: A grass field and some balls.

Now: A hardwood gymnasium and athletic fields for every sport.

Then: An end-of-year picnic.

Now: A spring break trip to Daytona Beach.

Today, it’s totally normal to throw millions at schools to turn them into spaceships. Toss a dart at a map of Michigan, and you’ll find a nearby community that “desperately needs” a brand-new school, even though the old one’s most pressing issues are raggedy carpet and buggy wiring.

So apparently, it makes sense to tear that 1950s filth down. Young Michiganders thrive in fancy schools! Finally, we’re churning out an energetic young population full of ideas and innovation.

Oh, but were it true. Actually, 60% of Michigan fourth graders can’t read.

Can’t even read.