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489•5862
Educating Beyond
Her Own Children
LESLEY PEARL STAFF WRITER
or most parents, high-
school graduation marks a
time to leave PTA meetings
and room-mother respon-
sibilities to memory. But for Zel-
da Robinson, it was the
beginning of her career in edu-
cation politics.
It was 1976 when Ms. Robin-
son began considering what she
might like to do when her
youngest daughter completed
high school the following year.
Looking back on her experience
of teaching in the public schools,
and volunteering in her children's
classrooms, Ms. Robinson decid-
ed she was as qualified as anyone
to sit on the Southfield Public
Schools Board of Education.
She displaced an incumbent
and created a niche for herself on
what had been almost exclusively
a "boys' only" club.
This year, Ms. Robinson is the
first Jewish woman to be elected
to the Michigan Education Hall
of Fame.
Founded the same year Ms.
Robinson began her school-board
career, the Education Hall of
Fame is a coalition of Michigan's
eight leading education groups.
Its members nominate individu-
als for the award.
"What gratifies me is that so
much of what I've initiated is still
going on," Ms. Robinson said. "Of-
ten, when you start a project,
when you're gone, it's gone. But
these ideas were picked up on
and they've grown."
In addition to sitting on the
school board for 16 years, Ms.
Robinson served twice as presi-
dent of the Southfield Board of Ed-
ucation, as officer and president
of the Michigan Association of
School Boards and as an adviser
to the National Board for Profes-
sional Teaching Standards.
But when speaking of her
achievements, Ms. Robinson
doesn't list titles. Instead, she
talks of initiating a tax shift so
the district would no longer be-
gin the school year in debt, of pro-
ducing a six-part documentary
series on how Southfield schools
are fulfilling former President
George Bush's six educational
goals, of helping to create the
Holocaust curriculum "Life Un-
worthy of Life."
Ms. Robinson sat on the Jew-
ish Community Council com-
mittee which created the
Holocaust-education concept.
Of the television series, which
aired on Southfield's public ac-
cess cable channel, Ms. Robinson
said, "Part of my job is commu-
nicating with the community. I
wanted to let people know there's
F
Zelda Robinson: Honored.
still a lot of positive going on in
the schools. The goals of the pres-
ident were so nebulous. There
was no national funding. It was
something to shout from the hill-
top. It was up to the local folks to
implement. That's something we
were already doing in South-
field."
President Bush's aspirations
for students by the year 2000 in-
cluded higher literacy and better
math scores.
Ms. Robinson retired from
school-board politics in 1992 but
continues to act as a resource. Her
head, if not her hands, remains
filled with opinions and theories
on the future of education.
She remains outspoken in her
support of Southfield's curricu-
lum but worries about the recent
millage upset and attempted en-
trance into politics by the radical
right.
Less than 20 percent of South-
field residents have children in
the schools now, and 39 percent
of those parents are registered to
vote. Stealth candidates — sup-
ported and funded from sources
outside the district with a reli-
gion-in-the-schools agenda —
have run in recent elections.
During the May millage vote,
Ms. Robinson worked with ab-
sentee voters. And while she
tried to distance herself from
campaigns, when Ms. Robinson
recognized stealth candidates in
the last school-board election, she
quickly supported others.
"The school is like the place of
last resort. If a family is falling
apart and social services are fail-
ing, the school has always taken
care of the children," Ms. Robin-
son said. "Cuts in funding make
that less realistic. We need a
holistic approach. We need to
form school-city-business part-
nerships.
"School-board members can be
creative in looking for new op-
portunities and solutions. It's an
exciting time for them." ID