Refrains of the School Critics

Behind the rhetoric lies a contempt in some quarters for the work of public educators

George Packer, a New Yorker staff writer, points to the danger of clarity, observing that seemingly simple and tough-minded words blow out as much smoke as the jargon of the Pentagon of decades past. Nowhere is this smoke thicker and trickier than in the lingo the corporate-politico-media squad uses when talking about public schools. At first glance, their talk seems plain and to the point: failing schools, caring about education and education as war. In contrast, education progressives befuddle the public with authentic means of assessment,decision-making processes and triangulated learning.

Dear Susan, In your article "Refrains of the School Critics" you never really seem to come to a point about the current value of public education. Perhaps your only intention in this article is to declaw it's critics, pointing out it's successfulness would be one way to accomplish this goal. I am curious as to why you didn't make such an effort.

I too am sick and tired of seeing the battle going on in public education, but indeed there is a battle for the minds of our young people. Conservative vs liberal, black against white, minority against majority and so on cause a great amount of confusion to all involved, especially the students. This is where I think we fail our young people. Is it not the purpose of education to teach people to think for themselves that they may be able to hold their own in the arena of ideas? If such is the case, then a firm foundation of knowledge must be laid as building blocks for future thought. With so many of our young people not knowing the very basics of reading, English and mathematics, how can intelligent, rational thought ever be expected of them? Is it the teachers fault? I trow not. Perhaps some may do an inefficient job, but the majority of teachers still love what they are doing and love their students. I feel teachers have been dealt a hand from a rotten deck of cards. New curricula appear to make a vain attempt at improving education while the product belies their' effectiveness. Too many students graduate without a minimal knowledge base. Many cannot read or write nor of course have skill in math. Would you be in favor to going back, at least at the elementary level, to tried and true methods of teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic prior to exposing students to reform methodology? This would give each student the ability to read and write and reason. Students could then use this ability to build onto their education with more advanced methods of teaching. Perhaps the advanced methods are not wrong, but just incorporated earlier than a student can grasp them. When the product (ie. Students) of public education shine brightly we can again be boastful about the greatest country in the history of mankind having the greatest educational system.

I am interested in your thoughts.

"Would you be in favor to going back, at least at the elementary level, to tried and true methods of teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic prior to exposing students to reform methodology?"

No, she wouldn't.

She would prefer to continue "the war" by blaming corporate America. The public school system was a socialist experiment which had some success when the majority of students were from traditional families. Ironically, the elites who were most involved in the experimentation knew that to control the minds of the children, they must dilute the strength of the family. Moms heading into the workplace en masse in the late eighties seemed an ideal time to begin with new experiments on our children. What they didn't count on was that middle class children would be adversely effected by moms being in the workforce rather than at home; that this would lead to increased deterioration of the family unit to the point where children started to show more and more behavior problems that would interfere with their new experiments in indoctrination. The schools have ended up a mess because families are messed up. Tolerance and diversity programs take up more time than math class. In one sense, the socialist teachers' unions are getting what they wanted - chaos in the home, so they could take control of the children. However, because that chaos is showing itself in behaviors of children in the schools, teachers (and some really do want to teach rather than indoctrinate), are called on to control the chaos, plus teach. They cannot control the chaos because the most effective tool (common sense) has been made illegal. Tolerance and diversity have been made more important than learning the 3 R's. Socialistic "Community Building" classes are more important than factual history. Children of vastly different abilities are dumped together in classes instead of allowing children with like ability to learn at different speeds. (OMG! This might lead to segregation and unfairness). This woman even needs to rant about children who do well being from more affluent families, disregarding the fact that there are plenty of children who do well as long as they have a stable homelife. Although your letter is noble, I truly don't think it will make a bit of difference to this woman or to liberal educators who pretend to care about the disenfranchised while doing everything they can to make sure that they stay disenfranchised.

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