Unless you have been living in a box, you know there is great consternation over the state of education in the United States. This is despite the decades of reforms and theoretical improvements since 1983’s landmark document, “A Nation At Risk,” which famously stated, “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”
The latest item in the war on educational mediocrity is the now 2 year old “No Child Left Behind” Act. It is built on two lofty ideals: that all schools can improve, and that all children can succeed. In fact, any public school receiving Title I funds that fails to improve the performance of children in every sub-group, any school that fails to submit test scores for 95% of children in every sub-group, is labeled as failing. Yes, this means that if there is a school with 10 Latino kids and one is sick on test day the school is failing no matter how good it is. That is one of several reasons many at the state level feel NCLB needs new standards. Frankly the two lofty ideals it is built upon are flawed. We don’t like to admit that there are children who cannot succeed, whether it is because of profound mental deficiencies, or because of a home-life that is hostile to the educational system, or because the child simply has no desire to learn. As for improving schools, when the only standard for school performance is “better,” you have the underlying assumption that all schools are failing.
Critics point out that even good schools can improve, and even in good schools there is often a gap between various groups of students. Furthermore, they point out that even good American students lag behind foreign students. This problem is not addressed by simply demanding “better.”
A new report even cites the state of the American educational system as a reason for overseas outsourcing by “failing to provide strong science and math education to students.” The organization publishing the report “called for tech businesses to support math and science education in schools, with donations of both money and time.” They support the idea of educating and inspiring kids by sending scientific professionals out into public schools. Unfortunately, NCLB prevents this. The act requires “highly qualified” teachers in every classroom by Fall of 2005. The government definition of “highly qualified” includes first and foremost having a teaching license, which in most states presupposes having a specialized degree in education. This prevents many “highly qualified” individuals from teaching. Bill Nye cannot teach a science class; Norm Abram cannot teach wood shop; John Williams cannot conduct the high school honor band.
American society, parents, and employers have a reasonable expectation that schools will produce graduates who can take their places in society, who know certain facts, who have skills in areas such as reading and math. Instead of simply demanding “better,” let’s set forth attainable goals and standards. These standards should not be written in private by intellectuals, but with public input from the people who will interact with the graduates of the future.
Here is a start: a high school graduate should be able to read and understand a newspaper, VCR instruction book, or IRS tax form; he or she should be able to use math to balance a checkbook, tabulate an order form, determine whether he/she received correct change, or calculate square footage or yardage of a room; he or she should know enough about American history and government to know how we elect public officials, that Social Security is not a savings plan, and what the Bill of Rights says; he or she should know enough about science to realize that Dihydrogen Monoxide is not a threat, he/she should be familiar with basic facts and generally accepted theories about the world around us, and should be able to determine when something is bogus by comparing claims with reality.