First let me say, I am not one that believes that we should shutdown all public schools and have only private schools. I truly believe that the public has an interest in providing education to the children in this country. I just do not believe that should be the role or within the domain of the Federal government. I also, do believe that over time and as “progressive education” has taken over the education system we have lost our way when it comes to public education. This problem of losing our way is compounded by the top down control and involvement of the Federal government. Because of this I will be taken a look at some of the major areas where I think that progressive thought has lead us astray and how we can get back on track. Before I do that lets take a quick time line look at education in this country.
Before the 1840, public education was a system that was able to only the well to do in this country, and also only to those who were lucky enough to have a school in their local area. The movement to change this was started by Horace Mann and Henry Barnard both who believe that schooling could help in prevent crime and poverty, and in the process create better citizens. Their actions along with others, over time created the public education system we have today.
That model was further moved forward in the 1940′s when the states started taking a more active role in education, both by defining the school districts and by increase funding. They were followed in the 1950′s by the Federal government, which had been involved in education since the formation of the Department of Education in 1867 as and advisory board, as they increased funding also. This chart from the department of education shows that since the 1991-92 school year federal spend as a percent of dollars has increased from 6% to 8% and state spending has increased from 43% to 46%. Both of these have resulted in the percent paid by localities dropping from 41% to 37%, and this drop also means a lost of control as the state and federal money have strings attached. It is these strings that have been put in place by progressives that I believe are causing the problem we have in our education system today. This top down approach to education results in policies that actually hurt the student and make it near impossible to implement policies that help students learn to their full potential. These ideas come from both sides of the aisle and have all had results that have hurt our students.
On one side you have programs like “No Child Left Behind”, promoted by the progressives on the right. The concept of testing the students to determine the effectiveness of the teachers and schools on the surface is good. But because the accreditation awarded is tied to the money the school receives, it leads itself to things such as teaching to the test, and out and out cheating by teachers and school administrators to raise their schools scores. All of this is done to get federal dollars from a bureaucracy too large to effectively monitor the system. In the process the students’ eduction is short sighted, because only those areas that are known to be on the test are taught.
The left progressives promote a misguide notion where we are suppose to protect and build the student’s self-esteem. This lead to ideas such as not issuing grades, not using certain colors to mark papers, and not failing students that have not learned the material. You can also add to this bi-lingual learning which actual makes it harder for immigrants to learn English and become part of the US society. All of these things do not prepare the student for the real world or teach them how to deal with failure. Instead they teach them to be self-centered and egotistical, both of which can lead to increase criminal activity and other harmful behaviors. Not to mention that these students are no where ready to deal with the real world, instead they have expectation that include high paying jobs, low work ethic, and not wanting to take responsibility for their actions.
You add into this mix the NEA, which while they promote that their mission is education children, seem to be more interested in protecting the teachers by opposing things like merit pay, taking away tenure, and insisting on complex procedures to fire a teacher. All of these things draw funds and resources away from the student in order to protect the teacher, and leads to situation like you have in some cities where teachers are paid just to come in and sit, because they can not be fired, but cannot be put back with the students. You can add to this the NEA opposition to school vouchers, the one thing that would allow our children to escape this circus.
This circus has been created because our education system is controlled from the top down. This control promoted by progressives, because they know best, has left localities and parents with very few ways to escape this trap, and all of those require money. Of course most of those that promote these ideas and create this problem, have the money to keep their children out of this circus, and place them in private schools. This leaves those in the middle class and poor to deal with the mess that these policies promote. Of course the middle class having the time and energy to work with their children and get involved in school have it a little better. So really these policies hurt the poor, who are already down trodden and loosing hope, to suffer in these poor conditions.
Because everybody believes they know best, and are willing to fight for it. Our children are caught between various parties in their power struggle for not only the resources that come with the children, but more and more these progressives are trying to control their minds. Taking our adult conflicts into the classroom, for example issues about the environment, and religions. Our children do not need to be pawns in the fight to save the polar bear or in the arguments over religion verses science. Both of these are issues have become battleground issues in our science classrooms, which should be teaching our children basic of science, so they can discover the answers for themselves. Instead we insist on using them for our political gain, by proselytising to them one view point or another.
So now that I have basically said what I see wrong with public education in this country, and taken everybody to task, what do I believe the solution is. I think we need to go back to our roots and make our schools more local in nature once more. I believe that we should stop all funding to schools from the federal level, and in the process remove any control they have of the K-12 education system in our country. I also believe that state funding should be severally limited and the strings attached to that should be removed. To transition to this new system, we need to first dismantle the current structure of the Department of Education. Also all funding from the federal and most funding from the state level should be turned into block grants of a set amount per a student. This money should have no strings attached, and should go to the schools either public or private that teaches the student. I do not see a problem with religious schools getting this money if no strings are attached because the government is not promoting any one religion, instead it is only supporting the choices that the parent makes in that area. This will mean also that public schools will have to work to improve themselves to attract new students.
I also believe that schools should focus less to on promoting the issues of today in the classroom and the new fads in how to teach a student. Instead they should focus more on teaching students how to learn and not so much on what to learn. This means going back more to the basics such as reading, writing, and arithmetic. Later we need to include the subjects of history, science, government, logic, debating, and philosophy, and teach the ability to search for answers in these areas. I also believe that we do need to measure how our schools preform on this, firstly by withdrawing our students if a school does not perform, but more importantly testing our students not on facts and figures, but on the ability to reason and solve problems.
We also need to keep in mind that a child’s self-esteem is not truly built by protecting them from failure, instead it is built up by helping them learn how to deal with failure. In order to do that they need to fail in the first place, and once they do we need to show them how to get up, dust themselves off and work to learn from the experience. This means that some students will be held back, and others will not get trophies for only participating. What we need to do in those cases is teach them how to deal with that disappointment, and how to make choices so that it does not happen again. By not doing that, we are setting them up to fail in the future.
The next posting will be on higher education and the problems our fixation on college education has caused.
Independence Caucus
Very insightful, I share your opinions about the state of education. I try to explain my thoughts to my mom, a teacher, and she gets angry. “Education can’t have a profit motive!” She claims. I think a lot of problems, too, come from progressive teachers and I have noticed that many teachers are quite progressive. Any comments on why that is?
I believe that it is the same reason you see it in other areas, such as politics. They are exposed to one side to the equation and do not see the other. Think about it, the future teacher comes out of high school, goes into college and then back into school with other teachers. Very rarely do the interact on a personal level with those that do not fit in that mold. So they only hear the progressive solutions, and people being people they want to belong to the group, so they go along with them. Also keep in mind that the progressive solutions tend to appeal to people on an emotional level, teachers tend to get into the business because they emotionally feel a need to help those around them. That is not bad, but you do need to step back and take a look at things objectively once and a while. Just like those who see everything objectively, need to immerse themselves in the emotions that exist around them and their actions.
Tell you mom that vouchers do not have to create a profit motive in education. You could have for-profit schools and not-for-profit schools, keep in mind not-for-profit is not the same as non-profit. Not-for-profit means that they would operate like a business, but the goal is to break even, and if a profit is made reinvest it in the company or return it to the share holders (ie the parents), non-profit are geared just to spend the money given to them, they have no desire to even act like a business. Both for-profits and not-for-profit can compete in the market place fairly, for example Credit Unions(not-for-profit) and Bank(for-profit) compete everyday for peoples’ business.
Thanks for the point. I’ve also noticed that many of these ‘progressives’ seem to enter careers with a high level of influence. Jobs like teachers or journalists or politicians, careers that can get their words out publicly. I had this conversation with a friend of mine recently, he laughed and said it had something to do with their highly inflated sense of importance.
Nice post. I agree, education should be pushed to a local level. Really, as a general rule, the same goes for almost everything. Those things that can’t really be pushed to the local level — for instance, defense and interstate commerce — are explicitly spelled out as federal responsibilities in the Constitution.
Funny how it’s always the knee-jerk response of progressives to whinge about the profit motives of capitalism and totally ignore the reasons why capitalism works: it forces producers to maximize quality and minimize costs, in order to satisfy consumers. The fact that profit was the motive to make that happen only reflects human nature, which capitalism can’t be blamed for.
Thank you, I hope my further post on this topic will be just as interesting.