If, as some experts assert, an educated populace is the backbone of a free and productive society, then American’s future may be in jeopardy! Despite endless studies by self-professed experts, soaring increases in per pupil expenditures and a continued growth in the percentage of students completing high school, there is little argument that our nation’s educational industry is turning out less well-educated graduates . . . witness the appalling survey results recently released by the National Endowment for the Humanities on knowledge of history and literature by college seniors.
President Bush and the nation’s governors met recently at the University of Virginia where they restated the obvious and then agreed to “restructuring” of the educational system”, developing “national performance standards” by sometime next year, and producing annual reports on progress made toward achieving those goals. President Bush concurrently pledged to help cut federal red tape associated with federally funded education programs and to support
increased aid for the very successful HeadStart program. And, while some attendees described the meeting as “exciting”, “invigorating”, “emotional”, and “historic” . . . others expressed candid opinions that any real changes in the system will probably take a decade or longer!
Unfortunately for America’s youth, as well as for the rest of us who will watch them become our nation’s leaders of the next century, the pessimists are probably right. If the results of the nation’s war on poverty provides any model, we will witness gobs of money will be squandered on yet another bloated bureaucracy while only limited, mostly token, progress will be made toward substantive improvements in education. Ten years form now, the preface the governors’ annual report on the state of education in the United States will lament over the same core of problems discussed at the University of Virginia in 1989
But, it doesn’t have to be that way!
Teachers, administrators, school boards and even politicians (including the governors) who presumably have the responsibility to provide for the education of the nation’s young must be held fully accountable for the success or failure of their efforts. If the results aren’t there, those teachers and/or administrators who haven’t delivered should be terminated and replaced. School board members and politicians who oversee such failures should resign or be tossed out of office at the end of their terms.
This level of accountability flies in the face of one of the educational establishment’s most cherished perks . . . tenure, which must go! In no other line of work are employees guaranteed such near-absolute jobs security regardless of their competence and performance.
We must also stop pampering students! They to must be held accountable for their own achievement of higher standards.
Finally, parents must drag themselves away from the television and assume a primary measure of accountability for ensuring their children are attending school, behaving in the classroom, studying and learning. If not, they must take the lead in correcting the reasons for those things not happening.
Moreover, parents, teachers, administrators, and politicians must make some firm and long-term commitments to improve the education provided and its measurement.
They (we) can no longer permit the use of high school text books geared to placate the grammar or middle school readers. Nor can we any longer tolerate the use of textbooks which are sanitized and watered down for fear of exposing students to new and controversy ideas. The teaching of the theories of evolution; the use of the metric system; and readings form such books as the Bible, the Koran, Huckleberry Finn, Of Men and Mice, The Diary of Anne Frank, Mien Kampf, and/or The Communist Manifesto can not be censored by small and vocal pressure groups and thus excluded from a broad liberal education. We cannot as a nation afford to raise a generation afraid of, and insulated from to new, and possibly disturbing, ideas.
No longer can We afford to allow history teachers to ignore spelling, or science teachers to discount incorrect mathematical computations simply because the errors are not in their discipline. All teachers must insist students learn to communicate orally, without every third utterance being “ya know” or “like”, using “I go” for “I said”, or endlessly separating thoughts and ideas with “and” or some other unintelligible grunt.
All tests and research requirements must be challenging and graded against tougher standards. When students graduate from school, they enter a multi-disciplinary society where they are expected to speak coherently, read and understand what they’ve read, compute accurately, and correctly utilize the knowledge and skills they’ve learned from a variety of different disciplines in an integrated and intelligent manner.
We can not afford to permit students to graduate from high school without a far greater exposure to, and understanding of mathematics (through at least second level algebra); the sciences (including intensive courses in biology, chemistry and physics); United States and world (European, Asian, African) history; the practical use of computers (which is at odds with teaching elementary programming, which today passes as computer literacy courses); world geography; free market and other economic systems; classical, traditional and contemporary literature; oral fluency and reading ability in at least one foreign language; a thorough knowledge about major health issues, nutrition, drugs and alcohol abuse, STDs, and human sexuality; and finally an exposure to the fine arts, including those artists, paintings sculptures and works of music which have endured. This will require in-depth studies in all these disciplines must begin at the elementary levels.
If this more aggressive curriculum dictates vastly far more reading and writing, more daily homework and perhaps a longer in-school day, we must commit to supporting such changes. Moreover, WE may have to rethink our image of the traditional “school year”. Our current system where schools are closed from mid-June to early September which hails back to a time when American was primarily an agrarian society and their school-aged children were an essential part of the family’s work force. Twelve month school years are now practical and would provide the additional days in which to enlighten and educate children.
In addition, a twelve month school year would provide a more equitable basis for setting teacher compensation, basing it on a full year’s work, as is the case with the rest of society. It would also provide for better utilization of some of each communities most costly assets, its school buildings. And, as an ancillary benefit, a year-round school calendar might lessen the need for day care facilities and/or the number of latch key children of two-worker families during the summer months.
While there remains a constant need to develop new and more effective educational programs, caution must be taken before introducing programs like the “new math” and “look-say reading” on a broad of nationwide scale. They must be first proven to produce the advertised results.
Meanwhile, several of President Bush’s proposals should be given a chance. Magnet schools have produced learning environments where students are receiving a far more intense and comprehensive education than they could have obtained in surrounding schools. Business, both large and small, can and should play a larger roll in helping both education “professionals” and students understand the demands of the “real world”, beyond the classroom.
National minimum standards in all disciplines as a prerequisite for graduation are both desirable and necessary. Challenging tests can be structured so as to reduce the “teaching just for the test” mentality while encouraging students to apply themselves, study hard and learn.
Certification requirements for teachers must also be changed. Too many of the requirements teachers must pass for certification deal with matters other than knowledge of the subject matter, which should be the primary requisite for any teacher certification.
There are thousands of “mid-career” individuals who have extensive knowledge, the proven ability to communicate that knowledge and who would gladly move into the teaching profession on a full or part-time basis were it not for the barriers to entry which the educational establishment has erected. Many of those individuals are more than “qualified” despite a resume void of formal, and in some cases meaningless, classes in education.
Disruptive students must be summarily expelled (after a fair hearing) until they can demonstrate their ability to behave within acceptable norms. Those caught carrying weapons, using and/or selling drugs or alcohol, or involved in any form of violence against other people or personal/school property on school grounds or during school activities must similarly be swiftly removed from the educational environment. Those who ultimately choose to retain their anti-social ways may simply have to be left behind. However cruel, we do society and the vast majority of students who want to learn a far greater injustice when we prostitute the educational system to cater to the those who are unwilling or unable to respect the right to learn of others.
Will some students voluntarily drop out? Of course. But the answer isn’t watering down programs to induce these students to remain. They, too, must recognize they must live and compete in the same environment as the students who remain in school. If they can’t be convinced to continue their formal education then alternative programs can be established, a job the private sector has done reasonable well over the years and would likely participate in further expanding and developing, as needed.
Ultimately, the question of monies to fund these efforts will surface. Teachers and other educational “professionals” have clamored for years that if there was more money available (a.k.a. larger salary and benefit packages), then things would be better.
Unfortunately, increases in per pupil expenditures, better school facilities, lower teacher-student ratios, hiring teachers with more advanced degrees, and increased teacher salaries can be traced to only the most marginal improvements in school performance. Simply throwing more money at an already flawed system will do little that
to make its ultimate bankruptcy more costly.
The world is changing at a rapid pace. By the turn of the century, it is quite conceivable that the United States will be competing for not only foreign, but also its own domestic markets . . . with not only the Japanese, but also the new European Economic Community, an increasing number of Pacific rim counties, and a number of recently democratized Eastern European nations, including perhaps even the Soviet Union. It has been fascinating to note how many Chinese, East German, Hungarian and Soviet youth interviewed during their respective demonstrations for more democracy in their countries seem to be reasonably fluent in English.
While the youth of these nations are being pushed more aggressively, American children and teenagers are being allowed to get by with decreasing standards of excellence. Mediocrity has become our national standard of acceptability. Rather than working creatively on ways to get our school-aged youth excited over reading and understanding Shakespeare, gaining insights into the philosophies of Thomas Jefferson, or seeking an understanding the origin of the Cosmos we have permitted, if not encouraged People Magazine, cartoons, M(indless)-TV, PeeWee Herman and Freddie to become the pabulum on which our youth are nurtured.
If our leaders of the 1990s and beyond are not prepared to compete, the United States will see its relative standard of living in decline. Without a minimal working knowledge of science, history, and the other disciplines now being ignored, the country’s next generation of adults will not have the tools to evaluate the critical political, social and economic issues facing them. Instead of rational debates over the merits of these issues, emotional rhetoric, fanned by those with the deepest pockets or loudest voices will carry the day . . . and our free market economic and democratic political systems will find themselves in great jeopardy.
A set of national educational standards and programs must be forthcoming.
However, if such standards and programs are to have any chance of producing the changes everyone is so glib about demanding when facing a microphone or a news camera they must be bold and be tied to an aggressive time schedule.
The President and the nation’s governors must show courage and commit themselves to providing active and visible leadership, demanding performance and accountability of not only teachers and educational administrators, but more importantly of themselves!
Challenging the current state of education should not be confused with being anti-education . . . nor should it call to task those dedicated educators who are currently doing a excellent job in teaching America’s youth. Still, blind faith in education has approached the status of a state religion. Thousands of people rush to the microphone at town meetings each year to implore their neighbors to vote for the school budget because we can’t overspend on our children’s education.
Such rhetoric is rubbish. Education, which directly involves over 25% of our total population and consumes almost as many total (federal, state and local) tax dollars as the pentagon can overspend and is often wasteful. If the American public doesn’t demand challenging academic standards nor insist on accountability from those appointed, hired and/or elected to achieve those goals, the our educational industry can, and most likely will continue its extravagant ways and ultimately spend its constituency into fiscal bankruptcy.
The bottom line is commitment to real change . . . one in which the sacrifice might be more than money.
