Twenty-Five Years Later, A Nation Still at Risk (Education)

Wall Street Journal ^ | 26 April 2008 | CHESTER E. FINN JR.

[shrinkermd]

Today marks the 25th anniversary of "A Nation at Risk," the influential Reagan-era report by a blue-ribbon panel that alerted Americans to the weak performance of our education system. The report warned of a "rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people." That dire forecast set off a quarter century of education reform that's yielded worthy changes – yet still not the achievement gains we need to turn back the tide of mediocrity.

...We're also far more open to charter schools, vouchers, virtual schools, home schooling. And we no longer suppose kids must attend the campus nearest home. A majority of U.S. students now study either in bona fide "schools of choice," or in neighborhood schools their parents chose with a realtor's help.

Those are historic changes indeed – most of today's education debates deal with the complexities of carrying them out. Yet our school results haven't appreciably improved, whether one looks at test scores or graduation rates. Sure, there are up and down blips in the data, but no big and lasting changes in performance, even though we're also spending tons more money. (In constant dollars, per-pupil spending in 1983 was 56% of today's.)

And just as "A Nation at Risk" warned, other countries are beginning to eat our education lunch. While our outcomes remain flat, theirs rise. Half a dozen nations now surpass our high-school and college graduation rates. International tests find young Americans scoring in the middle of the pack.

What to do now? It's no time to ease the push for a major K-12 education make-over – or to settle (as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton apparently would) for reviving yesterday's faith in still more spending and greater trust in educators. But we can distill four key lessons

[Comparative Advantage]

“We have too many classrooms today that are nothing more than a free babysitting service for parents.”

Spot on! Ever hear how angry some of these parents get when there is a Teacher-Parent Conference Day and they have to actually parent their children for the day?

[MissEdie]

I have a very good friend who teaches. One of her duties is afternoon car duty, where she makes sure the kids get safely to their cars and she sits with them as they wait for their rides. She said it never fails, on Fridays or the day before holidays the parents will be on average an hour late picking up the kids.

[Comparative Advantage]

“on Fridays...the parents will be on average an hour late picking up the kids.”

Well, of course, Happy Hour doesn’t get over until 7:00. :(

[nyyankeefan]

Twenty-Five Years Later, A Nation Still at Risk (Education)...

public education is pissing money down a rat hole.....

try having the NEA teach basics and stop worrying about how children feel....forget affirmative action...after all....MLK wanted children to be judged by the character of their content...not color quotas...kick out and put into the military all that won’t act civilized and avail themselves to learning.....stop rewarding students for mediocrity....it breeds nothing but lib/dems voting for more government....

and never forget.....get rid of the illegal parasites that have decimated the tax resources intended for LEGAL students in favor of these crap filled bi-lingual esl and all other placating programs that produce little if any results!!!!

[CRBDeuce]

Your analysis...spot on! I agree that it is clear that Mr Finn has lead the charge in the dumbing down of America, and the obfuscation of the cause: a sharp turn to the left in a (now) Marxist curriculum in public schools, textbook publishers, et al. Since he praises “A Nation at Risk” the obfuscation may have originated there....but clearly, no progress since...none whatsoever! NEA, successfully alienating students one student at a time!

[CRBDeuce]

Has there ever been a year in which America has been able to declare that it has the best educated population in the world?

1956

[CRBDeuce]

Brilliant post....Carter’s DOE MUST die, preferably while he’s still alive!

[CRBDeuce]

Of the 2 greatest of Carter’s legacy gifts to America....the Jihad, and the DOE, the DOE may have done the most damage!

[Malesherbes]

I recently saw a picture of Harvard University President Drew Faust visiting Beijing’s “High School No. 3.” It appeared to be single sex (female), all dressed in neat uniforms. Maybe it was too regimented, too competitive, too disciplined. But it left me with the impression that these kids may be gaining on us.

[Jay P.S.]

Ping for later reading

[Tammy8]

Some schools are doing this, the little high school here is using their vocational agriculture program to get students started on the path to being welders, and diesel technicians- both careers pay fairly well too. The boy my daughter dated in high school went through the program at the school and then to a diesel tech. trade school and now has a great career that is in demand. I think this is happening more and more. My youngest daughter decided to go to a medical technical school instead of college, and she really likes it. The technical schools also help the students get jobs when they finish the program.

For a while I think people in education thought everyone needed to follow the traditional school path- and then off to college. I think reality has set in and some now realize that is not the path for everyone, I do see more going to trade schools after high school and some schools help them in that direction. Many community colleges are also offering programs that train for a career instead of a degree path.

It’s hard for the education system folks to understand that not every student wants to go to traditional college- or should.

[freeangel]

“We seem to believe we can succeed by sending 40-60% to college”

The problem is that by dumbing down our schools, getting a college degree is now the equilivant of a high school diploma. All majors aside, one needs at least a masters to look educated in todays world.

[AD from SpringBay]

Has there ever been a year in which America has been able to declare that it has the best educated population in the world?

In Colonial America, before there was such a thing as government schooling, foreign visitors were often amazed that most Americans, even some slaves, could read and were fluent in some of the great works of literature. Circa Benjamin Franklin, et. al.

[Lucky Dog]

The problem with the public school system is essentially one of accountability, or lack thereof. School boards and administrations are no longer held accountable for the performance of their organizations. However, in fairness, it could be argued that such comprehensive accountability is currently impossible.

Local school boards and administrations must contend with an ever-expanding list of federal and state mandates over which they have no control. Unfortunately, beyond that issue is the real culprit: the lack of tort reform which means every public school must constantly be on guard against suit-happy, legal buffoons with their willing accomplices among the parental ranks.

Some would hold out “political correctness” (PC) as a root cause of our public education system’s maladies. It would be hard to argue against this premise. However, consider that with tort reform, those who would resist the chicanery of PC could do so without fear of legal jeopardy and financial purgatory. PC, in one form or the other, has existed since people defined a social “class system.” However, its power would diminish to that which existed prior to the ‘50’s, if the force of legislative and judicial actions were removed from behind it.

Another arrow in the quiver of solutions for the public school system is the rigid enforcement of requirements for basic literacy and numeracy among all of its students. If our republic is to survive in the modern era, we must have citizens who can read and manipulate numbers well enough to carry out the basic functions of citizenship and everyday, economic activity. Beyond these essential requirements, every public school product should have a basic grasp of science in order to deal with today’s technological society. Additionally, a mastery of the basic historical concepts of Western Civilization from which our republic sprang is essential to the exercise of citizenship.

One could extend the list of things that “should” or “must” be included in an “education,” but therein lies the problem. Once other items are added to the list, the impetus for mastery of the basics can be diminished by those who want to implement “societal change” through control of the attitudes of future generations.

Mentally try the paradigm below as a solution for the public school system’s current problems:

1) A mastery test for basic literacy and numeracy is administered at various grade levels (today’s competency tests, expanded in depth but limited in scope) and those students who fail to show mastery are sent to progressively more rigid (in terms of classroom discipline and pedagogical rigor) classes or schools (separated from previous classmates) until mastery is demonstrated.

2) Demonstration of “complete” mastery of basics is required to progress to classes in non-basic subjects.

3) At certain points (possibly,13 or 14 and again at 16 or 17, some students are “guided” toward “practical” vocational skills education while others move into academically more challenging and more varied classes.

4) Parents may withdraw their children from any school at any point with financial credit (a voucher) to enroll them in another school of their choice, having capacity, for which the child can qualify for entrance.

5) Remove any price incentive program from textbook publishers to school systems at any level and move the responsibility for the selection of all textbooks to the local school board.

6) Parents whose children are repeatedly cited for classroom behavioral breaches can be fined, and after a certain number of breaches certified by a independent investigation, forced to remove their children to another school without a voucher.

7) Schools which show a less than acceptable percentage of students passing basic skills are marked for “harsh” reformation, to include replacement of staff from the classroom level up to the administration and school board level followed by eventual closure for continued failure.

8) Schools would undergo a tri-annual “inspection” system wherein a comprehensive examination of every school function (including finance and extracurricular activities) is performed by a “rotating” (never the same inspectors to the same school twice in a row) examination team (similar but much more comprehensive and rigorous than today’s certification).

9) Schools would have an independent “ombudsman” complaint system (with anonymous complaint source) with a required, public publication of complaint and investigation results. Furthermore, the above cited “inspection” system would contain an even more independent, complaint review and investigation system. Additionally, any complaint investigation/resolution would be appeal-able by the complainant to an elevated level for resolution, followed an independent, non-judicial, arbitration panel if required.

10) Teacher bonuses (with the exception of those in “referral classes or schools) would be paid as a dependency upon the measured increase (independently administered, subject testing) in student performance from the beginning of a classroom course to the same type of measure at the end of the classroom course.

11) The costs of any lawsuit against a school system or teacher for any alleged cause beyond egregious, documented, physical, child abuse which fails on merit, is the complete financial responsibility of the attorney(ies) and complainant(s) who brought the suit (loser pays).

12) Students who never show mastery of basic literacy and numeracy are eventually “graduated” as “second class citizens” meaning they have all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship except the right to vote or run for office and the obligation to serve on juries. Additionally, the ability of these “second class” citizens to qualify for any, government administered “welfare” or benefit payments beyond disaster relief or educational help would be far more limited than other citizens. This encumbrance would be removable at any time with the successful passing of the basic tests failed earlier which would be freely, state offered and administered with individual attempts to be made anonymously.

Some of these suggestions are in place at various places in the country, but nowhere, to my knowledge, are all of them employed together. IMHO, a system similar to that I have cited is the only way to rescue our public school systems.

[RU88]

Good analysis as to our higher education system turning into a puppy mill populated by students who do not the intellectual capabilities, nor the desire, to make it through college. The higher educational system, like any other good bureaucracy, wants inflated numbers that will be commensurate with inflated governmental aid. This is not being done for the betterment of the students but for the universities bottom line.

Wonder exactly what the percentage of students who enter four year universities actually graduate? If someone out there knows the answer to this please share it.

Lastly, I’d point to two things that have been an incredible drag and have contributed immensely to the dumbing down of our educational system besides Marxist rhetoric; those being illegal immigration and one parent households with multiple offspring from many “fathers.”

[shrinkermd]

Well thought out post. Socrates via Plato had a similar idea when they structured society as to gold, silver and bronze. They allowed for movement up and down the typology but restricted ruling to the gold.

[Lucky Dog]

Thanks... I just wish some politicians would take note and then action.

[E. Cartman]

The report warned of a “rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.”

And we still want to amnesty 20,000,000 very poorly educated illegal aliens just to add to our problem. Yep, pouring gasoline on a fire only makes sense to kooks, liars and politicians.

[RipSawyer]

We need to relearn some respect for skilled tradesmen, many of whom earn more money than some college graduates. We have a huge need for mechanics, electricians, plumbers, welders, carpenters etc. I remember the slogan I was taught in the Navy, “It takes every man on this damned ship to get underway”. There was little room for elitist attitudes on an aircraft carrier.

[RipSawyer]

getting a college degree is now the equilivant of a high school diploma.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

In too many cases a four year degree fails to even equal what should be a high school education. I have spoken to too many college graduates who could not answer simple questions about topics I had to learn in grade school, not to even mention high school. We are producing people with undergraduate university degrees who don’t know the first thing about the history of this country. Some cannot name the correct century for the civil war.