In the wake of the recent Supreme Cout decision that limits race-based solutions for desegregation efforts in schools, the Democratic presidential candidates have reacted as though the Roberts court threw out the 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision that ended state-imposed segregation. However, the problem no longer is the state imposition of segregation, nor is it a lack of funds to the schools. Rather, it is the strange mix of incompetence and lack of accountability that keeps our largest school districts from educating our students, as Richard Cohen notes:
The eight Democratic presidential candidates assembled in Washington last week for another of their debates and talked, among other things, about public education. They all essentially agreed that it was underfunded — one system “for the wealthy, one for everybody else,” as John Edwards put it. Then they all got into cars and drove through a city where teachers are relatively well paid, per-pupil spending is through the roof and — pay attention here — the schools are among the very worst in the nation. When it comes to education, Democrats are ineducable.
One candidate after another lambasted George W. Bush, the Republican Party and, of course, the evil justices of the Supreme Court. But not a one of them even whispered a word of outrage about a public school system that spends $13,000 per child — third-highest among big-city school systems — and produces pupils who score among the lowest in just about any category you can name. The only area in which the Washington school system is No. 1 is in money spent on administration. Chests should not swell with pride.
The litany of more and more when it comes to money often has little to do with what, in the military, are called facts on the ground: kids and parents. It does have a lot to do with teachers unions, which are strong supporters of the Democratic Party. Not a single candidate offered anything close to a call for real reform. Instead, a member of the audience could reasonably conclude that if only more money were allocated to these woe-is-me school systems, things would right themselves overnight.
The decision last week to end racial quotas in “balancing” schools has little effect on districts like Washington DC, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, where whites make up a small percentage of the students in any of their schools. The problem, unlike in Brown, does not arise from a disparity in investment between “separate but equal” schools. As Cohen points out, these districts get more funding per student than anywhere else in the nation — and continue to fail.
Juan Williams made the same point last week, when he took his turn scolding critics of the Supreme Court decision. He argued that Brown has become irrelevant, and so had the games in engendered:
In a series of cases in Atlanta, Oklahoma City and Kansas City, Mo., frustrated parents, black and white, appealed to federal judges to stop shifting children from school to school like pieces on a game board. The parents wanted better neighborhood schools and a better education for their children, no matter the racial make-up of the school. In their rulings ending court mandates for school integration, the judges, too, spoke of the futility of using schoolchildren to address social ills caused by adults holding fast to patterns of residential segregation by both class and race. …
Racial malice is no longer the primary motive in shaping inferior schools for minority children. Many failing big city schools today are operated by black superintendents and mostly black school boards.
And today the argument that school reform should provide equal opportunity for children, or prepare them to live in a pluralistic society, is spent. The winning argument is that better schools are needed for all children — black, white, brown and every other hue — in order to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy.
We need better schools, and we have been willing to pay for them — but pouring money into the schools doesn’t work. In fact, the problems grow worse as federal spending increases Between 2001 and 2006, federal spending on education has risen 129%, a statistic that doesn’t often make it into media reports. We spent over $93 billion on education from the federal government alone in 2006. Yet the schools that receive this money do not show a 129% improvement in performace, nor even a 10% improvement Why?
Accountability has suffered in the same way it does in government. Any movement of power away from the governed makes accountability more difficult and less likely. Local school districts and superintendents now routinely shift blame for their failures to Washington, which really has no business involving itself in education at all. Instead of holding their local officials accountable, parents direct their ire to Congress and the President, who then dump even more federal dollars on what is a local problem, only making results marginally and temporarily better.
We need to call a halt to this cycle of incompetence. The federal government should get out of the education business and force local and state governments to take responsibility for educating children. It would allow communities to control their own funding and force accountability for performance where it belongs — on the school boards, administration, and teachers, as well as the parents themselves.
This leads us directly to the idea of school vouchers. Let people decide which school to send their kids to, let the bums in the bad schools (and school boards) freeze hungry in the dark.
The affirmative action cases of the 50’s, 60’s, and 80’s were about making colleges and school districts do something they did NOT want to do. Today it is the other way around. They DO want to; man, do they ever want to!
The country has moved on, and the Supremes are just bringing up the rear – as they are supposed to – in trimming off the worst excesses committed in the other direction.
Further, please note that the “educationist” establishment has used the bussing mandates, etc. as a cover for other things they want, such as 3-5,000 pupil school complexes with “resources” and “facilities” that could not be supported by neighborhood schools. It is a hell of an environment to send our children to, but heaven for the administrators!
The parents wanted better neighborhood schools and a better education for their children, no matter the racial make-up of the school.
What remarkable news! It sounds like Juan is advocating vouchers.
How encouraging and refreshing it is to have the progressives focusing on achievement and individual development rather than ineffective token systems that merely shuffle misery around based on the pigment in ones skin or the quality of a sex chromosome.
If you know anything about how the city of DC operates, you’d know that you could spend double the money per pupil and you’d have the same atrocious results. Anything the DC govt touches is a complete fiasco (just ask the NY Times about their EMS services – one of their reporters died last year because of their incompetence/neglect).
This is a city which continues to re-elect crackhead Marion Berry to the city government. You get elected in DC by giving well-paid, do nothing city jobs to voters and that’s where much of the DC school budget goes to, not to teachers and to students.
Even the Democrats the NEA b bought and paid for, know this. That’s why Democrats DON”T send their precious offspring to DC public schools (but they’re just fine for YOUR kids, peon).
Besides dead wood goldbricking featherbedders, the biggest problem DC schools face is a lack of discipline. Far left, liberal activists have made it impossible to discipline kids who disrupt classrooms and make it impossible for learning to take place.
All of which is why vouchers are essential. Parents who don’t wish to fund political graft masquerading as education, can send their children to schools where the money actually goes to teachers and to children, not to useless bureaucrats.
Secondly, they can send their children to schools where classroom discipline is enforced.
Ed,
Why again must the government run education? Your argument is that the schools would be better if handled at the state and local level. I blame the leaders in Philadelphia more than those in the Capitol for the awful education system here. Did you know that kids don’t have to pass a single class all year, and this city will move them along to the next grade as long as they attend summer school. They never have to learn, and in 12 years they’ll get their degree! All for the sake of keeping class sizes constant, and of course so the kids don’t think they’re failing (although they obviously are).
The only way to generate accountability in public schools is through a voucher program. Right now, they have to stink so badly that someone is willing to pay at least double for a child’s education. Imagine if people only had to pay 10% more. I think they only spend $10k per kid in Philadelphia. But how many people would jump at the chance to take back $9k in vouchers, maybe pay $1-2k more, and put their kid in a different school that actually educates the kids.
And to go back to the great book Capitalism and Freedom, I can’t believe that Milton Friedman pushed for a voucher program in the ’60s and it’s only now becoming a respected option.
The primary purpose of the public school system in the US is to launder money from the taxpayer to the Democratic party via the teachers union. Nothing changes because the principles ( the Dem politicians and the teachers) are happy. The poor kids who are forced to go to these schools are not a consideration. Every parent should get a voucher and that should be the only gov involvement in schools.
Sadly even vouchers may not help. There is an aspect to the problems of DC and elsewhere that most do not wish to talk about – the concept of diminishing returns. As parents who do care make sacrifices and move out of the worst school districts and go where they can get jobs for themselves and education for their children, they diminish the number of caring adults.
This is not to say that there are not those stuck that cannot make choices, there are. But as caring parents flee, they create a diminishing population of like minded folks. Vouchers enable those stuck to flee and then who will be left?
In a perfect world, the administrators and teachers will see the loss of revenue and react to improve. In the real world, hand wringing and projection will displace blame and reform will be elusive.
For vouchers to trigger the reform required, there must be a methodology that includes the removal of all administration in the failing schools. Until the bosses are actually at risk, nothing productive will ever be done.
The Public Schools are in a permanent decline for one reason. That reason is the strict separation between decision-making authority and responsibility. The classroom teacher does not have authority in his/her classroom. That authority is jointly held by attorneys for the parents, attorneys for the politicians, and attorneys for the administrators.
A teacher may not state (as a professional observation) that a student is not progressing in a particular classroom. Such a statement is typically regarded as either evidence of bias or racism or an admission of incompetence.
A teacher may not remove a student from a classroom because of disruption. Such removal is regarded as teacher incompetence rather than a need for intervention and perhaps alternative placement.
The teacher does not have the authority to equip the classroom with the requisite materials which, in the teacher’s professional opinion, are needed by the students. All such decisions are made by administrators, since teachers cannot be trusted.
The teacher does not have the authority to demand the attendance of the parent of the child for resolution of educational difficulties. That authority, too, is restricted to administrators.
The teacher does not have the authority to assign accurate grades for work actually done. Instead passing rates are mandated by law, and a failure to pass 90% of the students results in termination.
In fact it might be fairly said that any decision made by a teacher in a classroom is really not the teacher’s to make, but must always be cleared with higher authority.
I could go on for many more paragraphs.
Suffice it to say that the teacher is responsible for all academic success and learning, while lacking any decision-making power involved in that academic success.
I know. I was there for 13 years.
Armies learned better 3000 years ago. Any army which fights according to these standards always loses!
About two years ago the Wash Times had a commentary piece on the DC school system.
Think we only spend $13,000 per pupil per year? Think again because, like many school districts in the nation, this figure does not include a pro rated expense for the capital costs. When we pass a bond issue, that is paid off by property taxes, that annual tax bill is not included in the per pupil cost. The cost of the buildings could easily add $1,000 to that annual cost figure.
But the DC cost story is even worse. Nobody does the simple mind-math, like saying it costs $13,000 x 12 = $156,000 to educate a single child to graduation. What could we be getting if we spent $156,000 more wisely? A whole lot more, to be sure.
But consider that less than 10% of the DC students who graduate are proficient at their grade level in science. So, it costs roughly $156,000/0.10 = $1.5 MILLION (!!) to graduate a single student from the DC system who is proficient in science. This is yet more outage, especially since the answer from whose who supporter big and Bigger government think the answer is to spend yet more.
At this cost, it might be better to just buy every student a single-payment annunity and tell them to stay home. They might earn more from that than from what they’ll earn in the jobs their pitiful public educatation prepares them for.
“That authority is jointly held by attorneys for the parents, attorneys for the politicians, and attorneys for the administrators.”
And here is the crux of the problem – attorneys/politicians running schools, instead of actual educators.
Until that changes, additional funds will do no good.
I am a teacher of high school science and mathematics. Some of the reasons that I left the public education system to teach in a private school were:
(1) Classroom overcrowding, even in the “best” school districts. Having 40 or more kids in a classroom designed for half that number is not the norm – yet. But it will be someday. This is not education – it is crowd control.
(2) Weak, incompetent administration that emphasizes multiculturalism, diversity, tolerance, compatibility, modern curriculum, modern teaching methods, modern equipment – in short, everything except discipline and hard work.
(3) The tendency (as a cost-cutting measure) to herd students into gigantic schools with many thousands of students. Fewer schools mean less overhead for a school district. My high school alma mater – once one of the top academic schools in the state of Texas – is drifting towards the bottom as the student population swells. Even the most liberal of my education colleagues admit that the children of illegal immigrants are causing most of the explosive growth. Education would be really tough under such circumstances even if the kids were well-behaved and wanting to learn. Many of them are not willing to do either. At least in the private schools (where the pay is microscopic) class sizes are small and some real learning can take place.
The problem will never be solved, for two reasons.
1. The democratic party’s chokehold on teachers’ unions and professional organizations. They are dedicated to keeping student performance low, as this justifies the demands for ever increasing spending. The more they fail, the more money they can soak from taxpayers.
2. The democratic party will never give up the votes it gets from playing racial bingo with school kids. Who cares about what the kids learn, when what is really important is the opporunity for demagoguery that poor performance creates?
Why vouchers? Cut all local, state and federal funding, and PRIVATIZE all schools. Cut taxes paid too, and pay for what you use. The market can and will do the job. Meanwhile, end school benefits, loans and so on, guaranteed by the the gov. Why should I subsidize others children? I’ll pay for my own, how about you pay for yours? It will kill the teacher’s unions, end the multicultural insanity and parents and kids will get the education they want. If you are poor, too bad, maybe you can get a scholarship, maybe not.
I too, believe that privatization is the ultimate solution – it is just one that is a “Bridge to Far”.
$93B? I think that the number, like the numbers in most areas of education, is just a fraction of what the Federal Gov’t. spends on schools.
How many K-12 kids are there? 100M? More – less? If ALL of the funds at the Fed level were converted to vouchers, and then doubled, we would be talking about perhaps $2K / student (min). On a nation-wide basis, that could have a significant impact on the real-world policies of the EduCrat establishment.
If the states’ followed suit, parents could regain control of their local districts once again.
I’m not holding my breath, unless the NEA and its’ friends are cited by the courts as an on-going RICO-style enterprise (which we know they are).
well it’s not a reason why schools fail, but I would much rather see our government fund civics classes instead of worring about the teaching of evolution or church matters.
maybe this government would run better down the road and schools would be in better shape if we had better citizens in place to learn how and what government is supposed to do for its citizens.
Ed,
You properly note that federal edcucation spending has gone up some 129% in recent years. However, only in the District of Columbia does the federal segment of education spending top 10% of total spending. In most places, the federal share of education spending is between 7 and 9 percent, most of that in poorly allocated Title I funds.
NoDonkey noted that politicians and lawyers running schools systems instead of educators is what is ruining education. However, there have been long time educators running the DC schools and they still suck.
From a practical point, the only thing that is going to save DC schools and schools in general is to focus on what should be their core competency–teaching kids reading, math, science, social studies, writing. Stop with the social justice/engineering and focus on the basics.
My guess is that when Michelle Rhee takes over in DC, you are going to see just that–basics.
“My guess is that when Michelle Rhee takes over in DC, you are going to see just that–basics.”
I hope so for the sake of the kids, but the Washington Times reported that her claims on her resume that she instituted dramatic improvements in achievement, really don’t wash. There’s no evidence.
And, she comes from Baltimore city schools, which are a disaster on par with DC public schools.
While 37 isn’t a baby, I don’t see exactly why she was chosen over others. DC govt doesn’t always exercise the best judgement or ethics, so I have my suspicions.
And you’re right, “educators” probably wasn’t the best word to use, as “educators” are often part of the education school process that puts trendy theories and politics over the basic education needs of children.
Ditto Matt Johnston. The fundamental problem with our school system is that there is no solid consensus about what the schools are FOR. Some people think the mission of the schools is to provide a basic education so that the kids will grow up to become productive and informed citizens. Others see the mission of the schools as “social engineering”. The really worthless among us view the schools as a publicly-funded babysitting service to keep their ignorant and badly behaved brats off the streets during the day.
Personally, I think that the days of “public” schools are over. No more taxes should be collected to fund a failed system that shows no signs of recovery. If parents place any value on the education of their children, let them tend to this themselves, either through homeschooling or sending the kids to the private school of their choice. Conservatives can send their children to schools that teach readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic; libs can send their kids to schools where they’ll learn to love Mother Gaia and smoke dope; and those who don’t care at all about their kids’ education can pick them up at the county jail.
Labamigo:
I don’t understand how you can say the democrat party has a chokehold on teacher unions – it is obviously the other way around….
My entire adult life I’ve heard more moaning about the crisis in public education than just about any other issue.
Maybe instead of spending so much time wailing about what’s wrong with the public schools, the various government officials and other interested parties could try and identify what is right about these schools. What are they doing well?
As much as we’re told that the schools are failing, they keep turning out graduates who for the most part seem at least moderately educated. I base this on the young men and women I come to know in various ways, through work, etc. So exactly what standard are we striving for here anyway? What is considered a good result?
Ed,
I believe that no amount of money will end the travesty happening in all but a handful of schools, now including many private and parochial schools. In studies done at Cal Tech it was found that a child can be forced to learn to read too soon, before the non-speech center side of the brain is ready to read. (This readiness happens anywhere between 3 and 8….first identified in 1890’s by Piaget, results repeatedly confirmed in tests over the years). The tragedy is that if the child learns to read from the wrong side of the brain, the wrong neural networks are created and the child never learns to read from the correct side of the brain. Among the horrors of this is that the maximum level apparently reached reading this way is a third grade level. Indeed, one of the things I noticed in my years teaching( I retired in 1996) was a steady increase in the number of children who were horribly slow readers. Several of the neuroscientists who did the research presented their results at a faculty meeting of one of the top private schools in the Los Angeles area, Polytechnic School. One of the teachers present told me about it. The scientists begged the teachers., especially primary teachers, to stop teaching the reading and math the way it was being taught, that they were “destroying the children’s brains.” As we force the reading earlier and earlier, more and more children are taught to read too soon, dooming them to dyslexia, slow, limited reading, and thus a profound dislike of school. Unfortunately, trying to get this information out is difficult. So many teachers just ignore the real information long available about how the brain works. I believe Dr. Sperry who received the Nobel Prize for his work with the right and left brain headed these studies. It will take some work, but the actual studies showing this can be found. In addition, the critical hands on, playing with things foundational learning which is critical also is not being done. So much of what is taught now is like building a multi-storey building with no foundation. Thus, this emphasis on reading in pre-school and kindergarten is hurting learning. The best way for most children to become successful readers, when they are ready to read, is to have books, many books, read to them from birth (or earlier) on, continuing well into elementary school.
The fact is that most public schools work quite well and the parents and students who attend them are satisfied (keeping in mind that any human endeavor can be improved at any moment in time). Accountability is built in to each and every local school district in America and beings with the voters who elect schools boards, the school boards who hire administrators and the administrators who hire teachers. When voters don’t pay attention or hold the school board member’s feet to the fire, things break down. When school boards become more interested in race or gender politics, politics in general, greed, or are just plainly stupid, things break down. When administrators are more interested in diversity, political correctness, self esteem, and the latest educational fad instead of the maintenance of order, proper staff supervision and good teaching, things break down.
You notice I haven’t mentioned teachers much? Well, most of us aren’t represented by unions, and even union teachers can be fired. Any administrator who tells you it’s impossible to fire a bad teacher is only revealing their own incompetence. Keep in mind, however, that teachers really have little or no control over anything in education. They can’t hire or fire, and really have little decision making power over any facet of education. Ultimately, all they can do when then bell rings is to close the classroom door and do their best.
Reform American education? Sure, but only where and when it’s necessary. And the mechanisms are there. Federal intervention surely won’t make parents who don’t give a rat’s pattootie whether their offspring learn anything, or whether their local school board is populated by morons, suddenly function as responsible citizens. Nor will surrendering that responsibility to the feds help solve anything.
Bennett,
With all due respect, you sound a bit like a senior executive for the Big Three back in the ’70s:
“I don’t know why the American people are bitching about our cars. Most of them are pretty good.”
This ties in with Mike‘s comment (July 3, 2007 7:15 PM). You both assert that the system really isn’t all that bad, or at least want a definition of success.
How do American kids rank in mathematics compared to kids from other industrialized countries? In the sciences? How many American kids graduate from high school prepared to tackle college curricula like the sciences or engineering? How many American kids graduate from high school unable to read on a 12th grade level? A 6th grade level? How many are functionally illiterate? How many of them can’t even begin to recite basic facts about American history? How many of them haven’t got a clue about the structure of our government? How many of them can write a cogent paragraph about anything more complicated than “What I Did for Vacation”?
From the National Institute for Literacy, National Assessment of Education Progress:
Incredible. A whopping 1% of black 17 year olds can read and understand something more complicated than “Dick and Jane”. Yep, plenty of cause for complacency if not self-congratulation.
From the Washington Post, December 7 2004 by Michael Dobbs:
24th out of 29. Wow.
When I was in graduate school, the professors lamented that teaching Ideal Gas Law in freshman chemistry was taking longer every year. Why? Because a large fraction of the students had such poor (nonexistent) algebra skills that the profs had to give quick remedial math lessons to teach them to solve the equation. I had students who couldn’t solve modestly complicated arithmetic problems even with the aid of a calculator. Don’t even get me started on their writing skills… or LACK thereof. My niece, currently in 6th grade, has to print everything because the schools don’t even bother to teach cursive anymore.
Parents and students are “satisfied” with the public schools because they don’t know any better. Little Bobby and Little Susie are bringing home stacks of homework, they’re getting A’s and B’s, and so naturally the parents think that all is well. Yet when one looks at the graduate students in university science and engineering departments, there seem to be a tremendous number of non-American students. We are neither encouraging our kids to get into such fields nor are we preparing them for such a rigorous and difficult academic environment.
My answer, as I indicated above, is NOT to hand the problem over to the bureaucrats in the Department of Education. Rather, I say that the entire public education system should be scrapped as an irremediable failure.
———
(1) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41278-2004Dec6.html
(2) http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/facts/NAEP.html
Docjim505: funny post. Along the lines of “we must destroy this village in order to save it.” Because once we scrap the whole system, what then?
I concede that I don’t find public education in the USA as the “irremediable failure” you do. But then I’m a product of that system. And while I’m never going to win any Nobel prizes, I’ve managed to muddle my way through life so far. As most Americans seem to do.
The point I was attempting to make is that the so-called crisis in public education has been going on my entire adult life. And yet, the schools do produce some successes since not every graduate is as hopelessly uneducated as you portray. Perhaps the schools should focus on those successes, to figure out what to do about the students who fail.
Extraordinary, but not surprising. Simple logic would tell us that anyone suggesting that American education is a complete failure cannot possibly be correct or we would have seen the consequences of that failure long before now. The overwhelming majority of Americans are educated in the public schools, yet America continues to lead the world in virtually every way, despite all public school educated Americans–according to the critics of public education–being essentially drooling morons (OK, in the case of Congress, Mark Twain and I agree you might have a point).
It’s wise to remember that test scores tell us only one irrefutable fact: How a given student did on that test that day. We might also remember that public education through the 12th grade serves a great many social as well as educational functions and to ignore that reality paints a very incomplete picture. Not all students can or should go to college, yet over the past 30 years, we’ve focused our attention and money on making it possible for people who would have never set foot on a college campus in the past to go to college, financially, if not in terms of ability or preparation.
It’s also wise to remember that private schools can accept or reject any student they wish, so it’s hardly surprising that their test scores (remember, not necessarily a good way to make systemic judgements) might–might–be higher in some places and some schools upon occasion. If we obliterate public schools, by the way, from where will come the private school facilities? Old warehouses? Church basements? Abandoned factories? Or do the grand schemers think they’ll be able to buy public facilities for pennies on the dollar? And if a private school goes out of business in the middle of a school year, or no private firms feel like opening schools in rural, low-profit areas, what becomes of those students? There are good reasons, you see, why our public schools have evolved to their present state: No private firm can provide the level of educational opportunity afforded by public funds and make a profit. Private schools that have existed for a long time tend to be financially supported by the wealthy and have substantial endowments and portfolios. Even though a great many of their students come from very wealthy families, they could not possibly charge enough in tuition to keep their doors open.
Keep in mind too, please, that the job of any school is to provide the best educational opportunity possible. No school or teacher can gaurantee student learning, only the opportunity to learn. If students are lazy, or if they simply prefer to text-message or do little or no school work, and their parents allow them to get away with it, the greatest teacher in the world cannot break open their little skulls and download information into them. Learning is hard work, it takes time, and it takes dedication from all involved. For whatever failure exists in a given school district, one needs to clearly understand to what degree the school is providing the best possible opportunity and to what degree students are taking advantage of it.
It’s just not as simple as some folks seem to think. Sound bites work in politics, not in education. That’s one of the biggest problems with wonder legislation like No Child Left Behind. It solves political problems very well, but it does not and cannot solve educational problems, particularly since many of the problems it seeks to solve don’t exist at all in much of the country, and exist only partially in other regions. That’s why we require that highly educated professionals serve as our teachers, and why we require they continue to learn to periodically recertify. I wonder why we don’t listen to teachers much? Oh, that’s right. We’re not looking for educational solutions, are we? We want political solutions.
Bennett wrote (July 3, 2007 10:39 PM):
And yet, the schools do produce some successes since not every graduate is as hopelessly uneducated as you portray. Perhaps the schools should focus on those successes, to figure out what to do about the students who fail.
I agree with you. The problem is that the schools seem to spend their time trying to think of how best to:
1. Preserve their funding
2. Preserve the morons’ self esteem
3. Avoid lawsuits
4. Keep the maximum number of parents happy (i.e. through grade inflation)
The schools are absolutely not interested in fostering academic success. Look at the school systems that have done things such as banning honor rolls and valedictorians. Instead of encouraging excellence, they are punishing it.
I’m a product of that system. And while I’m never going to win any Nobel prizes, I’ve managed to muddle my way through life so far. As most Americans seem to do.
Ummm… Most Americans managed to “muddle through” life BEFORE there was a public education system. People in third world countries manage to muddle through without any education at all. My grandfather muddled through with only a sixth grade education.
I’m not interested in people muddling through, however: I want them to have the best education that their brains can cope with.
Mike wrote (July 4, 2007 1:16 AM):
Simple logic would tell us that anyone suggesting that American education is a complete failure cannot possibly be correct or we would have seen the consequences of that failure long before now. The overwhelming majority of Americans are educated in the public schools, yet America continues to lead the world in virtually every way, despite all public school educated Americans–according to the critics of public education–being essentially drooling morons…
Depends on how one defines failure. Given that public education is compulsory, that we spend a huge amount of money on it, and that it lasts for twelve years, I would expect virtually every child to AT LEAST be able to read, write and do arithmetic. Yet, how many graduates CAN’T read? How many schools are “failing” by their own soft, easy metrics?
I don’t have the numbers handy, but the schools in this part of North Carolina recently released their graduation rates. My county, which is fairly affluent, was happy because the graduation rate in our schools was 70%! In some of neighboring counties, it was as low as 50%. It would be interesting (depressing) to know how many of the graduates can actually read and write.
Any business run as inefficiently as the public schools would have gone bankrupt years ago. The only reason the public schools haven’t collapsed is because we, the taxpayers, keep propping them up. I think that a growing number of taxpayers are starting to get tired of that, as witnessed by the widespread calls for school vouchers and the growing number of kids in private schools or homeschool.
It’s wise to remember that test scores tell us only one irrefutable fact: How a given student did on that test that day.
Based on data I’ve seen, children in other countries seem not to have this problem to the extent that American children do.
(rolls eyes)
I will agree that standardized test scores don’t give a complete picture of a child’s academic achievement, but what other system is available?
We might also remember that public education through the 12th grade serves a great many social as well as educational functions and to ignore that reality paints a very incomplete picture.
This is part of the problem! The schools are places of LEARNING, not social engineering. They are not publicly-funded babysitting centers. I don’t judge school performance on how many free lunches they serve, or how well their sports teams do, or whether they are handing out Ritalin on schedule during the day.
If we obliterate public schools, by the way, from where will come the private school facilities?
Along one road in the city north of here where my brother lives, there are three private schools within a mile of each other. Turn north at the next intersection and there’s another. Space doesn’t seem to be a problem.
… if a private school goes out of business in the middle of a school year, or no private firms feel like opening schools in rural, low-profit areas, what becomes of those students?
I have a bit more faith in the market. If a “rural, low-profit” area can support things like restaurants and supermarkets, then it can support a school especially if the residents aren’t throwing away their money in the form of taxes to support an overfunded and inefficient public school system.
No school or teacher can gaurantee student learning, only the opportunity to learn. If students are lazy, or if they simply prefer to text-message or do little or no school work, and their parents allow them to get away with it, the greatest teacher in the world cannot break open their little skulls and download information into them. Learning is hard work, it takes time, and it takes dedication from all involved.
I agree with you. But for those students who are willing to put in the effort, I think the schools should do better than they are.
That’s why we require that highly educated professionals serve as our teachers, and why we require they continue to learn to periodically recertify. I wonder why we don’t listen to teachers much?
As it happens, two of my good friends are teachers, and they tell me horror stories about the public school systems where they work. Many of the kids have absolutely no interest in education, and their parents do nothing to encourage them. Why, then, should the taxpayers be forced to pay for what amounts to a babysitting service?
I think our argument is basically one of “glass half-empty / glass half-full”. Obviously the public schools are doing SOME good as evidenced by the fact that a large number of Americans can read and write with a modest level of proficiency. If that’s all we want, then leave the schools as they are. However, I want more. I don’t want US students to come in twentieth or tenth or fifth or even second when scored against students from other countries. We live in a high-tech world, and we must have citizens who have the educational background that will allow them to compete in such a world… unless we want to continue to outsource high-tech jobs to India and China.
Dr J brings up good points.
Especially about the similarity some of you guys have with the Big 3.
Although I started out in Catholic schools, I was mostly “educated by public schools” just outside Detroit. Sometimes it seemed that I got educated in spite of the schools not because of them. In order to avoid using my own “anecdotal evidence”, I won’t bore you with stories of how in science class one day, I witness a brick fly across the room and shatter the 75 gallon fish aquarium. Another day that year, in algebra, the feature was a Pick them up — knock–em down fight between Frank B. and the teacher. When the 200+ lb teacher finally got behind him and knelt on his back, the kid gave up. But not before the six foot long table was knocked into the lap of myself and my snickering friend.
That was in the ’70s. My nephew said it’s worse now. The school was almost burned down a couple years ago…
What Bennet and Mike above seem to think that if not for the public system we’d have nothing. That kids would not only not get educated…they’d not be “socialized” either. So, if we didn’t have a government controlled monopoly over the schools — where the taxman holds a gun to your head to extort money from you…then force you to go to whichever government school HE deems appropriate — none of the kids will get educated? Public schools are a money pit with no bottom. No accountability.
Just as band aids don’t work well on squirting arterial injuries…they won’t work on the public schools. Shitcan the whole system…parents and teachers should “own” the process…not administrators and bureaucrats. Especially bureaucrats in Washington.
Dr J,
I agree with you, but those boys never will. Waste of time.
Minor issue with this: ” If that’s all we want, then leave the schools as they are”
I’d submit that “if that’s all we want” we could slash the spending in half (or more) and still get students “smart” enough to muddle through…
There’s no doubt schools are in trouble, but one thing facinates me. Around here just about every other car (or SUV or minivan) has a sticker that says “My child is an honor student at Such and Such School”.
When I was in school back in the 50’s and 60’s, getting on the honor roll required lots of hard work and it seems the same small number of people made it every time. So, have kids gotten that much smarter or have standards been lowered that much?
I’ve talked to kids about people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and they know nothing. But ask about global warming and be prepared to spend the afternoon listening to a discourse on it.
swabjockey,
Oh, I don’t know. I think we all have the same goal in mind, which is good schools for the kids. I think that there is less difference between you, me, Bennett and Mike than might appear. They have more faith in the current system than you or I; I don’t think that’s an indefensible or utterly ridiculous position. I do think that it highlights a problem with improving / reforming ANY system: when you’re so accustomed to “the way we’ve always done it”, it’s very easy to start thinking that it’s not only the best way, but the only way.
Your horror stories about school in Detroit, I’m sorry to say, must be familiar to many people in many cities across the country. At the high school just a few blocks from my house, there was a riot last year. A riot. It was racially motivated, of course; seems that two generations of bussing and other social engineering crap hasn’t solved the race problem in America. And, of course, the county’s response is to just add a few more cops to patrol the school… and keep sending kids there whether their parents want it or not.
I definitely agree with you that, if all we want is for the kids to have some rudimentary reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic skills, we could make public education only K – 6 and save a ton of money by eliminating junior high and high school, both of which seem to be a waste of time and money.
Artie,
I prefer the bumper stickers I’ve seen:
My Shetland Sheepdog is smarter than your honor student!
But the plethora of feel-good bumper stickers, I think, offers indirect evidence of rampant grade inflation, which in turn lulls parents into a false sense of complacency. “Little Johnny’s on the honor roll. He must be learning lots of things in school!”
No, Little Johnny shows up, behaves himself, and puts in the minimal amount of effort required to do well in his dumbed down classes. His teachers, grateful for the fact that he hasn’t knifed anybody this quarter as well as mindful that they have to reinforce his self-esteem, put him on the honor roll along with half the other kids in the school. O’ course, that won’t last long because Little Tommy will feel bad that HE isn’t on the honor roll. His parents, rather than make him work harder or simply accept the fact that he’s a lazy dumbass, will complain to the school. The school administrators will nod wisely, “harumph” a few times, and then eliminate the honor roll entirely to keep from damaging Little Tommy’s self esteem.
It’s a great system, isn’t it?
I was being facetious when I made reference to many of us just “muddling through”. Although I would point out that one of the richest men in America (if not the richest) and the one who has had, at least arguably, the greatest effect on all our lives in the last 25 years dropped out of college in his junior year. But then there’s always been a difference between being smart and being educated. (And yes, I am aware that this might not be the best example since dropping out of Harvard and failing to get past the 10th grade aren’t really the same thing.)
Given all the horror stories recounted here about the state of our public schools, perhaps returning to an emphasis on the “three Rs” wouldn’t be such a bad thing. If we’re going to tear it down and start over, that might be a place to begin.
My own diagnosis of the problem is this: our popular culture doesn’t celebrate academic excellence. Ask any kid whether he’d rather be the star of his high school football team or valedictorian, I’m pretty sure I know what his answer would be. And probably many parents would answer the same way.
Just consider the situation here in the deep South where most of the public school teachers are “affirmative action” college graduates who could not pass a sixth grade test. In addition to the $7,000. per pupil in this district (in an area of low-cost living) do not forget the millions of dollars these schools receive in grants. They make instant millionaires of many of the administrators.