A Few Radical Proposals
This final blog in the series on education will delve more into the educational curriculum as it is usually defined and perceived. The numbers will follow the ordinal sequence established in blogpost 5.
1.Mathematics is essential to competitiveness in our world. Math should be part of every student’s (boys and girls, math prodigies, and those who struggle) schedule every year. Tutors, extra work time, field trips to physics laboratories, astronomy labs, and engineering firms where mathematics rule the day should be incorporated regularly into the curriculum. Let those trips pass for the fun and entertainment that now so dominates schools.
- Science—real science—is about how the real world works and can be understood. There are not enough science teachers, and in many American schools, those teachers are faced with obstacles to their teaching by the theological and political debate about biological evolution which lurks in the background of every effort to devise science curricula. The conflict comes from the deeply held religious conviction that evolution conflicts with religious belief, and science in general is suspect because it exists on the tails of evolutionary subject matter. There is a serious need to separate teaching about science from teaching about religion everywhere in the United States public school system. There is a firm place for teaching evolution which is the best and most persevering theory that explains origins, diversity, change over time, and is one of the four pillars of biology. Students should be required to understand its fundamental concepts. There is no place in a public school science curriculum for ideological/religious doctrinal, and even fanciful Intelligent Design concepts. They are religion and should be taught in religion classes—hopefully outside schools—but not in biology, chemistry, genetics and physics labs, or classrooms.
- Teach philosophy, logic, statistics and other subjects that help our youth to have a foundation for critical thinking and reading. Prepare them to form their own opinions based on evidence rather than ideology (religious, partisan political, or from the latest cult or fad).
- Teach religion and about the great diverse world of ideas for the purpose of education instead of indoctrination in schools. Learning about religions is different than learning a religion for the purpose of being a practicing believer. In an objective classroom situation, it is possible to learn both the positive and the negative aspects of religion or of specific religions without favoritism or animosity. A Mormon boy in Utah can learn about Catholicism without enmity. A Brooklyn Heights Hasidic Jewish girl can hear about what Christians believe without fear of contamination. Anti-Mormonism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, anti-Islam, etc. are every bit akin to racism and other learned hatreds. They have no place in school. Nor should the obverse sides of those coins be deemed acceptable. No born-again Christian child should hear his or her religion denigrated in Mormon Utah, and conversely, no Mormon child should have to be subjected to anti-Mormon hate propaganda from strongly conservative Protestants in Arkansas, and so on.
- Teach health. No mincing euphemisms, no evasions, no cabbage patch origins of babies. Reproductive health is no less important than heart health. Children should learn proper names, processes, and concepts without embarrassment. Sex is more than procreation. Even procreation is shrouded in mystery and blushing and given short shrift. That is no longer acceptable in a world of destructive out-of-wedlock teenage pregnancy and STDs. Children need to learn what sex is and what it is not. How babies are conceived and born. Why promiscuity is dangerous and harmful, and not just because the local pastor says so. They need to learn about STDs, condoms, contraception, and HPV immunization—how to protect themselves. As an aside, every boy and girl in the United States who does not have some rare problem with the immunization, should have the HPV immunization in early childhood. Teenage pregnancy is declining because of birth control measures such as condoms, and that is a good thing that has come from appropriate education. Abstinence-only as a teaching mandate is wrong and harmful even if it is comforting to old people who ruminate about a fanciful era when those things did not occur and moral rectitude ruled society.
By the same token, students should be familiar with all of the other human physical, chemical, and physiological systems—even if only to understand something about the vocabulary. They need to understand the role of doctors, nurses, and other care givers; so, that they can make sense out of what is happening when they develop health problems. They need to learn to think critically about their own bodies and health and to be able to discern evidence-based life preserving treatments from snake oil or charlatans or fads.
- There is a crying need for common American standards—a core curriculum—taught by expert professional and experienced teachers. The core should be national in scope but not under federal jurisdiction. The principles of teaching science, including health, as well as other rigorous subjects need to conform in principle to national guidelines unhampered by ideological idiosyncrasies of the various states.
- Teachers should hold master’s degrees at least and be tested experts in the arts and sciences of teaching youth. Like doctors, nurses, engineers, and lawyers, they should undergo regular continuing education and rigorous intermittent testing. Teachers should be “well-educated, not just well-trained.” Ravitch, Great American…op cit. They should be certified professionals and held to that standard, just as is done in Finland. And, like Finland, they should be well paid and positively recognized for their contributions to the health, wealth, and the general wellbeing and advancement of our civilized society. “Unfortunately, most other practices of high-achieving countries are not being implemented broadly and consistently in the U.S. Grossly unequal funding between school districts is tolerated in far too many states. Teacher pay is not comparable to that of other college-educated workers. Teacher preparation programs vary widely in quality; and too many professional development efforts are short-term, disconnected or irrelevant. New common state standards for reading and mathematics which were written after study of the academic standards of the world’s top-achieving countries…[should be implemented across the board in the United States]. Teacher Pay: U.S. Ranks 22nd Out of 27 Countries, Huffington Post blog, 8-30-11).
- Number 15 above brings up the subject of school choice, and accountability. Suffice it to say that the business model imposed on schools, teachers, and students is a failure—we are doing more poorly in our efforts to educate our young people than we did before the NCLB and similar corporation model concepts took hold. The aficionados of the corporate model were (and many still are) so certain that it was the answer. The problem is that it is a false analogy to compare business and education closely. The testing and the system behind it degenerated into a “test and punish” policy. There was an unforeseen outcome: the fear and negativity of the NCLB resulted in widespread corruption. State tests were dumbed down; teachers concentrated on tests at the expense of real education; in more than a few places, there was frank cheating. “State tests were geared to inflate success.” -Ravitch, Great American…op cit. The concept of choice was never embraced by the American public despite all of the hype and rhetoric by the special interest and government groups which touted the idea. Ravitch pointed out that 85% of parents and students offered the choice to move to a different school turned it down. Less than 1% of eligible students even asked for transfers. Americans love and prefer their neighborhood schools. It was a moot point anyway; most of the successful schools did not have room; and the poorly performing schools were devastated by having their best students transfer out—the process of “cream skimming”. “More than 35% of American schools cannot meet even the basic minimum levels of compliance with the NCLB even with the massive costs without achieving change [in the tests themselves] and dodges to fake achievement.” –Ravitch, Great American…op cit.
Testing and grading which are not primarily designed to help students and teachers but rather to punish the education system can be manifestly unfair. Consider an example from Utah: The state has a test and accountability program called the Utah Comprehensive Accountability System which gives letter grades to schools and makes them public. A newspaper article reporting on the system quoted an alternative school teacher who described the grading and the reporting as a “kick in the face”. She told of her 244 student school where “students struggle with issues that include depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, attention deficit disorder, and addiction. Thirty-five students are parents; 17 are homeless.” –Salt Lake Tribune, October 1, 2013. And, in the end, it is not surprising that the gap between the educational experience and performance of minorities versus Caucasians and Asians has not improved.
The model should be dropped and allow experienced and motivated teachers to get back to their profession and the students back to the sweat and toil and triumph of learning. If the corporate model proved anything, it was a negative for their great and immoderately expensive experiment: curriculum and instruction by competent professional teachers is more important than the market, accountability, and school choice. It is time posthumous to get back to a focus on the essentials of education, and they are more than just low level literacy in math and English. Most assuredly, grades and testing have a place. However, “testing became a central preoccupation in the schools and was not just a measure, but an end in itself,” -Ravitch, Great American…op cit. She suggests that the school day be 95% curriculum, instruction, and educating and 5% testing. More importantly, she suggests that testing be done for the purpose of evaluating and improving schools, teachers, and students and not about punishing, humiliating, and destroying. Instead of having the NCLB system employing self-serving state tests with accountability, punishments, and humiliation, the real test should be the National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP]; and it should be done for the purpose of assessing, correcting, and helping.
- Do not mistake the above argument against testing, accountability, punishment, and choice as opposition to testing and grading. Tests are for the student first, the teacher second, the school system third, and government last; and they have definite uses. Students should demonstrate that they have learned. If they have not learned, steps should be implemented to help them to inculcate the requisite educational information needed to advance. There should be no social promotions. That bespeaks laziness and indifference in the student, his/her parents, and the school, and is unacceptable. Better that a student repeat a course or a grade year or attend summer school than that he/she fail to learn the crucial basics of a good education. Any embarrassment the student may have from the early correction of a failing course pales into insignificance compared to becoming an ill-educated adult thrust into the uncompromising world of commerce, employers, and demanding requirements—as Bill Gates would put it, “the real world.” Early intervention—as early as age three—needs to be fostered to put into place in the homes and schools of our children more books, magazines, newspapers, television news, and educational programs of all sorts to supplement and to help implement a well-rounded and thorough education, a lifelong love of learning, and a practical approach to education that will aid in making life more successful and fulfilling for all of our citizens.
Colleges and universities are, for the most part, discontinuing remedial classes for applicants with deficient educational foundations in math, reading, and writing. The prevailing attitude in universities is, “come prepared or don’t come.” Elementary schools, middle schools, junior high schools, and high schools are tasked with the responsibility to prepare youth for higher education, the military, and other gainful employment. Colleges and universities expect well prepared students and will not dumb down their offerings just because our lower educational institutions are deficient. Neither will employers.
- Currently, over “90% of American students attend public schools, a slightly higher share than the 88% who did so from the 1950s through the 1970s. Clearly, the future of America is being formed in the public schools where the vast majority of tomorrow’s citizens and workers are being educated.” Ravitch, Great American…op cit. It follows that the public school system should be protected, preserved, and enabled. It is the opinion of this blogpost author that home schooling, church schools, magnet schools, and any other substitutes for the public school system that focus on the ideological biases of parents, political entities, or special interest groups should be discouraged in favor of giving our young people a thorough, deep, diverse, and objective education. Further, in this author’s view, vouchers are little more than excuses to move students into private schools to avoid having to be in schools with minorities, so-called “open enrollment”. Charter schools have largely been taken over by entrepreneurs, special interest groups, and promoters. The benefit they provide in general for students is suspect.
Attending public schools gives youth a chance to enter into the rough-and-tumble real world at their age level to help them to cope with real-life situations they are bound to face. In public school, they can learn what works and what does not, what is acceptable in the wider society—not just within their church or among their family’s political or socioeconomic associates. Schools—both in their curricular and extra-curricular activities—provide a protective environment where social and other skills can be learned and practiced. Students can make mistakes and learn from them in a place where mistakes can be corrected without the more lasting effects encountered at an older age when a more exacting and unforgiving set of rules and policies exists. Our public schools should be “no excuses” schools—places where social norms, acceptable behavior, civility, hard work, and good citizenship are taught and insisted upon.
Overly protected children–especially those who are taught in an institutional setting that presupposes an idealized society—do not gain that measured and step-wise opportunity. For example, Danish children have the world’s most child friendly society. Schools celebrate birthdays, holidays, and have outings and adventures that create healthy happy, and generally unaware children. Up until the last two years of undergraduate education, all is fun, play, and joy. Psychological tests confirm that idyllic quality of life for Danish children. However, there is a dark side. The abrupt transition to the harsh realities of adult life is not coped with the same success that adult Americans—most of whom were educated in our public schools–enjoy. Denmark has the highest suicide rate in the world.
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