While contemplating how we might go about solving our nation’s education problems, it was tempting to begin by getting rid of the union. But employees should have the right to organize and use their collective power as leverage to negotiate with employers. Perhaps even more so when the employer is as powerful as the state. And the problem isn’t really with the union, anyway. If it weren’t so politicized, it likely would be a great asset to American education.
So I’d like to say that the problem is with the politicization of education. Get rid of the money. Get rid of the education lobby. Get rid of the federal government’s involvement all together. Return to local control and the idea that the people best qualified to make decisions about a child’s education are the parents and his teachers. But that isn’t really the problem with education, either.
Unfortunately, most of the “problems” we see in education are really only symptoms. The first real problem with American education is its efficacy, or “production to the effect intended.” I went into this a little more some time ago, but essentially the goals of the education system and the goals of most parents do not match. The system is designed for socialization, to make all children the same, to decrease competition, to create “global citizens.” Most parents want their children prepared for the workforce. Since the purposes do not match, the outcomes are not going to be appreciated. Before we go anywhere with the discussion on improving our education system, we have to decide what its purpose is.
The other part of the problem runs a little deeper. And the more I think about it, the more I think the only viable solution is to realize that there is none. We cannot fix American education because we want that education system to do what it cannot do. We want it to give all Americans an equal chance at the “American dream.” We want it to provide a basic education for all our children. We want it to solve our social ills. We want it to create better citizens. We want it to be the great equalizer.
We want our education system to take the responsibility for the failure of individuals.
If Johnny cannot read, we want it to be because the school district is using the wrong methodology. Because his teacher isn’t paid enough. Because he doesn’t have access to a computer. Because the text books are out of date. Because the school’s nutrition program isn’t extensive enough. Because the state’s welfare program isn’t large enough. We don’t want to accept the fact that, despite our best efforts, some will fail. Some of those failures may go on to do great things. Many more likely will not.
Unfortunately, no matter what we as a society do, it is unlikely that little Johnny will learn to read until his parents value his education highly enough to get involved. But that is a little difficult to mandate.
No matter how we look at it, we are stuck with treating symptoms. Parents ceased taking responsibility for the education of their children a long time ago. Instead of educating them, they turned them over to the factory or allowed them to run the streets. Organizations developed for the health and safety of these children, creating the beginnings of free and compulsory education. The responsibility for the children was thus handed over to the local school district. It wasn’t up for the task so the state took an increased role. As the states fail, we see increasing federal involvement.
No Child Left Behind is not so much a problem as it is a symptom of a deeper problem. Imagine for a moment, if we really did just remove all federal funding from education. If we did return the control of our education system to the local level. I fear it would completely disintegrate. Sure, my local school would be fine. I live in an affluent area. But what about downtown L.A.? Local control assumes that the local community cares enough to get involved. It assumes that parents will oversee homework and attendance. It assumes that parents will not stand for corruption in the school board and incompetent teachers. It assumes that someone close to the child is fighting for his interests. But that isn’t always the case.
Something has to fill in the gap. Right now, it is the state because no one else has asked for the job.
If I were able to do such a thing, I would say it is the responsibility of the church to step in. Not to take over the public school system. Leave it more or less as it is. But in my little utopia, the church would create its own free education “system,” with schools in every community under the direction of the local church. I find it ironic that one of the first things the church does in missionary efforts is set up a local school, yet the schools set up by the church here at home carry a hefty price tag.
But that isn’t going to happen any time soon. So I guess it is the state and Bill Gates who get to care for the fatherless.
education, homeschooling, No Child Left Behind, public school
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
Wow Dana… As I read, I kept anticipating the conclusion where you would neatly solve this problem and tie a pretty bow around it to send off to Washington
Seriously, I think that this statement is excellent:
“No matter how we look at it, we are stuck with treating symptoms. Parents ceased taking responsibility for the education of their children a long time ago. Instead of educating them, they turned them over to the factory or allowed them to run the streets. Organizations developed for the health and safety of these children, creating the beginnings of free and compulsory education. The responsibility for the children was thus handed over to the local school district. It wasn’t up for the task so the state took an increased role. As the states fail, we see increasing federal involvement.“
I couldn’t agree more. I’m on vacation right now at a camp that’s been in our family for generations. There are pictures hanging on the wall everywhere here from the early 1900 (I posted some of them here). One of the things that really struck me recently as I looked at those photos was the value that was placed on rugged individualism in that generation. There were so many things to conquer… so many freedoms available… so many opportunities. The “schools” of the day reflected these values. You might have to fight for it, but if you were determined enough, anyone (well, at least white people) could learn almost anything and rise to any office.
Today, I feel as though the purposes of public school can be best illustrated by suburban values for complacency… don’t stand out… look and act like your neighbor… don’t infringe on anyone’s rights. We take children with a zest for life and a God-given spark for liberty, and basically imprison them in order to socialize them into being good predictable consumers and effeminate neighbors. The schools that are able to rise above that deadness are increasingly old-line private schools that dare to teach (*gasp*) religion, leadership and ethics… I think you and I might disagree on this point, but I see this trend as education returning to a pre-industrial, almost pre-colonial state. The majority of children have increasingly fewer tools with which to rise to prominence, and wealthy families are increasingly guiding our political and business institutions.
The great leveler (of course
is parental involvement, by where ordinary people can fight for their kids and take on the mantel of responsibility in order to empower their kids for success. That’s really no different than the colonial era, but instead of the majority of kids being caught in kiddy assembly lines, they were caught in an economically necessary cycle of binding out and apprenticeships that made education beyond our present third grade standards very rare and difficult.
Thank God we still have the right to homeschool! As federal control over education increases (and it will), I can easily see homeschooling exposed to be “violating” national security policy and/or promoting anarchy or some silliness, and homescooling found to be illegal and forced to go underground.
Sad.
- Ross
Wow. Thank you for the excellent comments and contributions to our discussions. I really hope that we can make some inroads to improving the state of education in the US. There seem to be a lot of people who want to foment change.
-oddpodz
i think Ross says it all.
Hi Dana,
Your post reminded me of an article I recently read by a gentleman named Jason Boffetti called “All Schools are Public Schools” . It’s written from a Catholic point-of-view but what he says is applicable to other Christian denominations as well.
The biggest problem I can see with his argument for vouchers is what strings would the government money come with? Would Christian schools accepting vouchers then have to teach controversial topics like Darwinism and “comprehensive” sex ed? Would they have to allow “Gay-Straight Alliance” clubs to meet?
I do believe that this problem is the responsibility of the church. However, as you have already stated, attempting to fix the current school systems won’t fix the problem.
Our churches need to serve the community and reach out to the children… attempt to teach the parents a bettter way. If the parents refuse at least we have a chance of instilling God’s love into the children so that they will not treat their own children the same way.
This problem will take a couple of generations to improve upon. It is not impossible though.
The children also need to know that they do have a purpose, they were not an accident, and that they are loved by many. They need to know that they have value.
We now have several generations of parents who were taught that they “accidentally” came from monkeys and that living life is a survival of the fittest, just as it is with animals in the wild. They are taught that children are disposable. Their is no value for human life. Why should they care about their children? They are still busy trying to prove their own worth through their job, social status, and bank account. Then there are others trying to escape those thoughts by abusing alcohol, doing drugs, and living recklessly.
The solution to this problem was solved long ago in the pages of the bible. God says to “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Matt. 19:19. If we all do this for just one person we can change the world.
That is a very interesting topic and one that will be debated forever and a day. Even here in South Africa the education systems are a mess! We went from a organised structure (if you want to call it that) to one of total chaos! I remember when I still went to school alot of emphasis was placed of spelling for example, now today with the new “outcome based education” if you do not spell correctly and it reads right then they don’t correct it or mark it wrong!!!!! I actually don’t know why I actually bother sending my children to school - It has become a real joke!!!!!!
Anyway’s I thought I would sneak in to say hi, seeing that I have not been here for so long! So - HI!
Have a super weekend
Rgds
NMOTB
Thank you everyone for your very thoughtful comments! I may come back to them when I have more than a few minutes!
Ross, you may be right…but I think the pre-industrial system worked in its time. There are two things we could learn from it: the responsibility the family took for the education of the child and the unity of purpose. Parents wanted their children prepared for work so they apprenticed them. While I believe there is more to education, society was getting from the system what it wanted.
If parents took responsibility across the board, the rest of the discussion would be pointless. Parents would not tolerate incompetence and corruption in the classroom, and they would pick uo where teachers left off, whether through changing schools, tutoring or helping themselves.
There is no governmental solution which can replace the parent.
Amen, sister! It’s posts like this one that led me to nominate you for a Thinking Blogger Award:
http://barbaramfrank.blogspot.com/2007/07/thinking-bloggers.html
Excellent post! Indeed, you allude to one of the biggest problem with “no child left behind” — that not every child is capable of the skills to obtain a high school diploma.
But I think if you look deeper, I honestly believe that the vast majority who run the public schools have one goal in mind: the school. I honestly believe they do not care about socialization, education, learning, or anything like that — they just want more for the school.
For example, here in Charlotte, NC, the county just agreed on an amount to put on the ballot for bonds for the schools (per a request from the school board). Already dozens of government officials and government dependents have gathered and are spending money to support the bond effort — and the school board literally has not decided where ANY of the money from the bonds will go. The message is clear: the schools need more for the schools.
I do agree that the current system is utterly and totally beyond repair — but I think the churches WOULD step in if all federal and state funding stopped overnight. I know I’d be opening up a school myself the very next day — and probably not in a “rich” area.
Dana says:
There is no governmental solution which can replace the parent.
That just about says it all.
There are plenty of things that could be done to improve our schools, but an institution simply cannot take the place of the disintegrating family life that hurts so many children. There is a bit of a cycle at play — the more the government tries to fill the gap, the less proactive people become, creating a downward spiral.
History is full of stories of people who went to less than ideal schools, or who had little opportunity to go to school at all, who took the best advantage of the opportunities they did have — and sought out further opportunities — and accomplished great things. The burden of learning ultimately rests with the student.
There is church in our town that is starting up a little private school — the pastor will be the sole teacher, and the school will be tuition free. I’m interested to see how their little experiment pans out.
Thanks for stopping by, Ogre! The institution exists to serve the institution. Hmmm…I guess that becomes a problem with any institution when it gets started.
Rebecca, it would be interested to see how that school gets on. We have (or had, I’m not sure) a little homeschool co-op near here that accepted a limited number of children into their “school” above and beyond the children of the parents involved in the co-op. Money was no issue, but the parents had to commit to helping the child at home. I think that could be an interesting model.
My only disagreement, however, is that I think parents threw off responsibility first. I see our problems as “bottom-up” rather than “top down.” After all, if most people took personal responsibility and saw governmental programs as a threat to liberty, these people never would have gotten into office.
Some of it has to do with powerful lobbies, but that isn’t most of it.
What ogre says reminds me of (yet another)thing Gatto says in his book (on my stack of current reading in case you can’t tell!)
He discusses how the first purpose of any institution, even before the purpose for which the institution purports to exist, is the acquisition of resources to sustain the existence of the institution. Gatto give a couple of examples of this.
My dh has often pointed out that the death rattle of institutions or organizations in decline is preoccupation with how to save the institution — we’ve seen this happen with a few church organizations!
I got here from Mom is Teaching. Great post! I would have to agree that the system is completely broken. Part of the problem is we’re trying to educate the ineducable. Part of the problem is general disintegration of our culture from a moral stand point. I agree, I don’t think we can fix public school. (I’m a professional public school educator, too.) In your list, though, I think you left something out…the free market. The free market has solved a lot of problems for us in this country, why not let it have a try at education. The results might be astounding, although they would be unequally distributed.
Thanks for stopping by, lee! I agree that the free market is important. If that seems to “commercial” for some, all it means, really, is that parents have more choice. They, after all, are the paying consumer.
There are a number of things we can do to improve education, but I think we have to let go of the notion that one system is going to work for everyone.
And realize that the situation is complicated by parents who are uninvolved. Sometimes these challenges are overcome, and they are tremendous stories of perseverance and dedication. But it isn’t the norm.
I think that parents weren’t left many opportunities to continue teaching their children at home as our current society evolved with industrialism and wars that broke families up with men going away to work and war and many women moving into the work place.
Once the practice of children being sent to school was in place, it became all to easy to leave the educating up to someone else. Unfortunatelt, that practice isn’t able to accomodate all the diversity of learners, personalities, values, interests, passions, learning styles and levels, etc.
And then the family unit begins to fall apart as the society continues to evolve–giving the institution a whole new set of circumstances to deal with and parents all too willing to leave their children were they are knowing things aren’t as they should be.
It seems like this big snowball effect and that maybe the snowball just needs to be smashed to smithereens rather than stopped in its tracks and reshaped.
I do believe that the industrial revolution had a lot to do with it…but I think it put a strain on an already weakened system. And the problem with immigrant children was a big factor, as well.