Posted on 05/02/2003 7:56:48 AM PDT by LavaDog
What with Americans being such an opinionated people, it isn't often that an issue of public policy ever arrives at the steady state of national agreement. Even as skulls were brought up from Saddam's torture chambers, e-mails still rolled in from the war's opponents to reargue the wrongness of the effort. So imagine how surprising it was to discover this past week that there is one subject about which the people of this country are in about as much agreement as statistical science ever achieves: America's public schools. They are widely and deeply regarded as awful.
Public Agenda, a New York-based nonprofit that does opinion surveys on a range of issues, compiled an analysis of a decade of polling on public education, and news reports about the study were eye-catching. Mainly the message was that while accountability matters in the public mind, what really upsets people is the generalized disorderliness in public schools. Having opinions of my own on what caused many schools to shift from being temples of learning to temples for having-fun-with-my-friends, I thought the Public Agenda report, "Where We Are Now," deserved a closer look.
Please join me for a tour of the second circle of hell. George Bush has a plan of action called No Child Left Behind, but if Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were sufficient reason to invade Iraq, he should now send in the Marines to occupy and reconstruct the nation's dysfunctional public schools.
Teachers, principals, parents, employers, college professors and students all have a uniformly low opinion of what's going on in our schools. Unless bracketed, the language here is taken largely from the study's own wording of questions and results: Some 71% of respondents believe most public-school students do the bare minimum to get by; 83% of teachers say parents who fail to set limits and create structure at home are a serious problem, and 81% think parents who refuse to hold their kids accountable for behavior or academic performance are a serious problem. Of teachers, 43% say they spend more time keeping order than teaching. Instead of more pay (12%), 86% of teachers said they'd rather have a school where student behavior and parental support were better.
Some 61% of African-American parents think inner-city kids should be expected to achieve the same standards as wealthier kids. Priorities: 82% of African-American parents think the biggest priority is raising academic standards; 8% want more focus on diversity and integration. Nearly all parents, 92%, think you should have to pass a standardized test to be promoted--and, if you fail, you should have to go to summer school or repeat the grade.
Teachers would prefer: A school where student behavior and parental support were significantly better 86% A school that paid a significantly higher salary 12% Don't know 2% Note: Teachers with five years or less experience Source: Public Agenda
Employers who think local public schools are doing a good or excellent job: 42%. Some 59% of college professors rate public schools as fair or poor. Professors who say a high-school diploma means students have learned the basics: 31%. [In the 1970s, a friend who began teaching at the University of Texas told me most of his freshmen thought they were A students; "they're not."] Only 47% of professors and 41% of employers think public-school graduates have the skills to succeed in the work world. About 74% of employers and professors think public-school graduates' writing skills are fair or poor; same number for grammar and spelling. About 64% say graduates' basic math is fair or poor; 69% of employers feel personal organization is fair or poor.
Only 19% of teachers say parental involvement is strong in their school [parental involvement is one of the established keys to a successful school]; 87% of teachers think parents ought to limit their kids' TV time or should check their homework [clearly the inference is most parents do neither].
Disrespect is pandemic.
Of all Americans surveyed, 9% say, "The kids I see in public are respectful toward adults." Only 18% of teachers and 30% of students say, "Students treat each other with respect in my high school;" 19% of students say, "In my high school, most students treat teachers with respect." Americans who feel their schools have a serious discipline problem: 76%.
Any stairwell of public-school hell we've left off the tour? Oh yes, we've left off the politics from hell.
Asked why talented teachers quit, school superintendents say: low pay and prestige--5%; politics and bureaucracy--81%. Sixty-seven percent of principals wish they were able to reward good teachers and remove bad ones [that is, they can't do either now]. Over 80% of principals and superintendents say they have more new mandates and responsibilities than they can handle. Eighty-four percent of superintendents say they spend too much time on special ed., and 50% say they spend too much on legal issues and litigation.
A wag might ask: If we're so stupid, how come the U.S. earned an A in technology and human performance in Iraq? Short answer: The armed services don't let stupid people enlist anymore. The Army now provides its own education, which is largely what most employers do as well today. A job is now a re-education camp for many public-school grads. How the schools got this way--how respect for teachers died, disorder rose, basic learning fell, bureaucracy rose, why the best teachers quit, parents stopped caring and why professors think freshmen are academically delusional--is a subject for another column and maybe another lifetime (it takes more than one paragraph to explain how Supreme Court justices with high IQs render legal decisions reflecting no common sense).
But for now, amid the overwhelming agreement found in the Public Agenda surveys, I have one small, recurring question: Tell me again why we're supposed to think charter schools and school choice are bad ideas.
It's just treating the symptoms. To cure the patient you need to defeat the illness. Cancer needs to be excized.
Abolish government schools. No more problem.
IMHO, a couple hundred bucks a month for a private Christian education is well worth working a part-time night job for my kids (that is if I had any and my financial situation was such that I had to).
Survey results from other parts of the country welcome:
Education Policy Components
Agreed. So many problems would disappear if gov't schools were privatized coupled with elimination of education conscription.
Property taxes could be abolished, so you would actually own your property (rather than the state owning it). Parents would be forced to actually put some investment into their kids' education. Those without kids would no longer be extorted to pay for others' education.
The list goes on . . .
I read that Idaho taxpayers pay $5800 for each student that attends public school. A co-worker pays $2200 per child for private school.
Just what we need, the feds running the education system.
What you need is some governors with balls. I suppose it could happen in Colo. or Ark.
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