Epidemic of Ignorance - Back-to-school blues.

National Review Online ^ | August 23, 2007 | Victor Davis Hanson

[neverdem]

August 23, 2007, 0:00 a.m.

Epidemic of Ignorance
Back-to-school blues.

By Victor Davis Hanson

Last week I went shopping in our small rural hometown, where my family has attended the same public schools since 1896. Without exception, all six generations of us — whether farmers, housewives, day laborers, business people, writers, lawyers, or educators — were given a good, competitive K-12 education.

But after a haircut, I noticed that the 20-something cashier could not count out change. The next day, at the electronic outlet store, another young clerk could not read — much less explain — the basic English of the buyer’s warranty. At the food market, I listened as a young couple argued over the price of a cut of tri-tip — unable to calculate the meat’s real value from its price per pound.

As another school year is set to get under way, it’s worth pondering where this epidemic of ignorance came from.

Our presidential candidates sense the danger of this dumbing down of American society and are arguing over the dismal status of contemporary education: poor graduation rates, weak test scores, and suspect literacy among the general population. Politicians warn that America’s edge in global research and productivity will disappear, and with it our high standard of living.

Yet the bleak statistics — whether a 70-percent high-school graduation rate as measured in a study a few years ago by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, or poor math rankings in comparison with other industrial nations — come at a time when our schools inflate grades and often honor multiple valedictorians at high school graduation ceremonies. Aggregate state and federal education budgets are high. Too few A’s, too few top awards, and too little funding apparently don’t seem to be our real problems.

Of course, most critics agree that the root causes for our undereducated youth are not all the schools’ fault. Our present ambition to make every American youth college material — in a way our forefathers would have thought ludicrous — ensures that we will both fail in that utopian goal and lack enough literate Americans with critical vocational skills.

The disintegration of the American nuclear family is also at fault. Too many students don’t have two parents reminding them of the value of both abstract and practical learning.

What then can our elementary and secondary schools do, when many of their students’ problems begin at home or arise from our warped popular culture?

We should first scrap the popular therapeutic curriculum that in the scarce hours of the school day crams in sermons on race, class, gender, drugs, sex, self-esteem, or environmentalism. These are well-intentioned efforts to make a kinder and gentler generation more sensitive to our nation’s supposed past and present sins. But they only squeeze out far more important subjects.

The old approach to education saw things differently than we do. Education (“to lead out” or “to bring up”) was not defined as being “sensitive” to, or “correct” on, particular issues. It was instead the rational ability to make sense of the chaotic present through the abstract wisdom of the past.

So literature, history, math and science gave students plenty of facts, theorems, people, and dates to draw on. Then training in logic, language, and philosophy provided the tools to use and express that accumulated wisdom. Teachers usually did not care where all that training led their students politically — only that their pupils’ ideas and views were supported with facts and argued rationally.

What else can we do to restore such traditional learning before the United States loses it global primacy?

To encourage our best minds to become teachers, we should also change the qualifications for becoming one. Students should be able to pursue careers in teaching either by getting a standard teaching credential or by substituting a master’s degree in an academic subject. That way we will eventually end up with more instructors with real academic knowledge rather than prepped with theories about how to teach.

And once hired, K-12 teachers should accept that tenure has outlived its usefulness. Near-guaranteed lifelong employment has become an archaic institution that shields educators from answerability. And tenure has not ensured ideological diversity and independence. Nearly the exact opposite — a herd mentality — presides within many school faculties. Periodic and renewable contracts — with requirements, goals and incentives — would far better ensure teacher credibility and accountability.

Athletics, counseling and social activism may be desirable in schools. But they are not crucial. Our pay scales should reflect that reality. Our top classroom teachers should earn as much as — if not more than — administrators, bureaucrats, coaches, and advisers.

Liberal education of the type my farming grandfather got was the reason why the United States grew wealthy, free, and stable. But without it, the nation of his great-grandchildren will become poor, docile, and insecure.

© 2007 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

[HKMk23]

Nice try, Victor; no cigar. You’ve fallen into the classic trap of believing that the guiding purpose of Public Education really is to educate.

That’s completely wrong.

Public Education was NOT created to educate minds, it was created to conform minds to a predetermined mold so as to produce successive generations of people fit to fill the job vacancies in factories, and office buildings owned and managed by others.

Public Education does not teach people to think, it teaches people to reguritate the pre-packaged, pre-thought thoughts of those producing the various curriculae.

Certainly, some things — like counting correct change — represent failure to even achieve that rudimentary level of information transfer, but consider this: when children find themselves compressed out of their own thoughts into those that others have decided that they should think, and this environment persists for 12 years, it is inconsistent with logic to contend that some will not inwardly rebel, and put the whole system on “IGNORE”, and eitehr graduate by the skin of their teeth or drop out early.

These kids aren’t incapable of being educated; they’re insulted by a system that doggedly insists that they and their peers ought all think just like the guy who wrote the textbook. And, their response???

Entirely predicatble:
“F@#% the textbook, AND the guy who wrote it, AND the horse he rode in on!!!”

MUCH of the educational malaise besetting this country arises from the inner rebellion of great minds battling the imposed thought-conformity of the PubEd system. Those who persist with this inner rebellion frequently perform poorly, get labeled “ADD” or “learning disabled”, barely graduate, or drop out. Those who give up the fight find their surrender rewarded with better grades, but — in the end — they emerge with a propensity to compliance, following directions, completing mindless tasks repetitively, focusing on the present, and leaving the creative ideas to management.

But, don’t just take my word for it, undertake your own investigation.

I strongly recommend that you begin with a little history lesson:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history1.htm

Following that, I suggest a more in-depth study of the roots of our institutions of public instruction, here:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/index.htm

I warn you, though, if you give a rip about children, you ARE GOING TO BE ANGERED by what you read.

[darkangel82]

Sounds like you really put her in her place lol.

[Pyncho]

You’re overlooking a central fact: the public school system had earlier been the single most important institution of upward social mobility in the United States, and today this is no longer the case. We can debate all day long whether and how schools teach “students how to think,” whatever this means. What is beyond debate is that whatever schools are now doing, they are not contributing to upward social mobility. They are keeping working class kids down, whether minorities or majorities. And, for sure, this was NOT the intent of anyone in founding a public school system. Given that schools are now PREVENTING upward social mobility, they have become a cancer on the body politic.

[SoftballMominVA]

Before the homeschool crowd starts up: according to the HSLDA, public school kids outscore the homeschool bunch in math.

This is a true statement. When the latest ACT's were released home schooled kids wiped the floor up with the public school kids, but when it came to math, the public school kids came out on top by about a point and a half.

[SoftballMominVA]

Ahhhh, my bad, that sentence should read 'When the latest ACT's were released home schooled kids wiped the floor up with the public school kids in VERBALS.....'

smart brain, dumb fingers :)

[dan1123]

Good job going after the school. How did it turn out? I heard the same thing back in junior high, that they purposefully mix the bright kids with the dumb ones to help the dumb ones out. The end result is that the bright kids are bored while the teacher has to focus all his energy on the troublemakers. Most of the class ends up not being taught a proper lesson because of this.

My son is only 15 months old, but my wife and I have already decided to homeschool. I had a horrible experience even in the “good” public schools. I think I would be much better off today if I could have had that opportunity.

[Gabz]

Parents have to teach kids the skills that school will not.

Thankfully, in my case anyway, school is teaching them how to calculate without electronic assistance.

[Non-Sequitur]

I know...give a kid some odd change and watch them look at you like you are from another planet.

Last fall I was at some carry-out place picking up dinner. The total was $12.15 and I gave the girl behind the counter, who looked to be about 17 or 18, a $20 bill. She punched in the amount into her cash register which told her the change - $7.85. She took out the bills and then counted some change into her hand. Then she turned to her manager, held out her hand, and said "Is this 85 cents?" The manager looked, picked out a dime, and tossed it back into the cash register. The girls response was to stamp her foot and say, "I always get that wrong."

True story. I fear for the next generation.

[Gabz]

I’m not so sure about “putting her in her place,” but I do believe I played at least a small role in her leaving this district within a month after my last encounter with her.

The teacher did the dirty work of explaining to the bureaucrat about this “bored housewife’s” background. She called me after the encounter to apologize for spilling the beans, she hadn’t realized I had not informed the bureaucrat until she made mention of it and the bureaucrat visibly blanched. Now that was sweet, and I wish I had been a fly on the wall at the time.

[HKMk23]

The strenght of your point bears upon when “earlier” was.

But, let’s just make this simple and say that “earlier” was before the three classical purposes of education — making good people, making good citizens, sparking people to develop their strongest talents — were, at last, sufficiently marginalized as to allow a fourth purpose — to mold “human resources” into standardized cogs suitable for “the workplace” — to surge ahead unhindered.

I’ve not the time, right now, to engage and develop this discussion as fully as it requires, so let me defer to the work of John Taylor Gatto, available via the links I’ve already posted. Engage the produce of his years of teaching experience, and his observations as a system insider. I think you’ll find yourself challenged and changed by his input.

[VeniVidiVici]

It’s no surprise that the dumbing down of America occurred as the Democrat Liberal party solidified its hold on the education system.

[Gabz]

I didn’t go after the school, just the district bureaucrats. The school itself was on my side. It was the principal that kept encouraging me to call the idiots and speak before the school board.

Unfortunately the bright, bored kids tend to wind up being the troublemakers. I know I did, and I didn’t attend public school. Our daughter is no different. she has all kinds of awards and honors for her academics, but she will not see any such in “citizenship” which is now what they call behavior.

Open House at school is next Friday, when we find out who her 4th grade teacher will be, and get a chance to meet with her/him. I’m debating about not mentioning the “behavior” issues this time around, as I have in the past. I’ve gotten the distinct impression the teachers have held her to a highr behavior standard than other students because I do pay attention, and I do want to know when she is misbehaving in any way.

My husband and I seriously looked into homeschooling, however before she was 4, it became obvious to us that it was just not for us. She has my personality and we are just both too hard headed. That is not to say her education is ignored in anyway, one of the reasons we moved to Virginia is because the schools are far superior to those in Delaware. Additionally she gets plenty of education at home because both daddy and I are voracious readers and have many other interests. She was able to add and subtract fractions in kindergarten because she loves to help me cook and that is one of my passions.

I support anyone who chooses to homeschool, I think it is wonderful. I just know it is not for everyone and have a problem with the militants who consider anyone who has a child in public to be a child abuser.

I have to scoot now——time to leave for karate class :)

[cinives]

Parents’re also the ones who have to put up with asinine liberal administrators, teachers who can’t spell as well as a 3rd grader, curriculum that is anything but academic, and oftentimes homework and projects that do nothing to advance academic education. Let’s not even start on the lack of gifted education in elementary schools, or the unwillingness of administrators to skip kids ahead to take advantage of their gifts.

Let’s recognize the problems on all sides and realize that there ARE a lot of parents out there who push their kids to do well academically. If the school isn’t there to support it, there’s little you can do after a full school day and an hour or two of homework. The kids are exhausted and so are you.

And please - abysmal salaries for teachers ? That canard has been debunked so many times I’m surprised it’s still around in circles other than union strongholds. Read this: http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3438676.html

The only real answer is school choice: homeschool or a carefully selected private school without having to simultaneously support the local government indoctrination center.

[eraser2005]

True - no human can make someone believe something they don’t want to. But if the parents don’t work to instill the value of an education, do you really think the teachers stand a chance?

As for the pay, please show me a teacher who only works 66% of the year. Most I know work from mid-August to mid-June (10 months, not 8 as you claim), and during that time they’re putting in at least 9 hours a day. You may think its what the market will bear, but at that price, the teachers you get are what the market will supply. If you want highly qualified teachers, you have to pay.

For example, Ohio requires all teachers to get their master’s degrees to keep their licenses. Subsequently, masters level pay fell off a cliff in most school districts. The increase in pay from bachelors to masters doesn’t even cover servicing of the student loan to get the masters in most districts.

So if I get a Masters in Physics, I could be very well qualified for teaching science courses in the high school. But those jobs will pay $30k starting vs. 65-70k starting in the private sector. Where do you think most people go?

Sure, you work 2 months more per year, but that’s the only real thing you’ll give up. The teachers’ pension plans even are a lousy deal - they make social security look good.

[cinives]

Please stop repeating union talking points:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3438676.html

Economist Richard Vedder has observed that the Bureau of Labor Statistics National Compensation Survey shows that teachers earn “more per hour than architects, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, statisticians, biological and life scientists, atmospheric and space scientists, registered nurses, physical therapists, university-level foreign-language teachers, [and] librarians.” In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the average pay per hour for all workers in the “professional specialty” category in 2001 was $27.49, while public secondary school teachers earned $30.48 and elementary teachers $30.52 — or about 10 percent more than the typical professional.

[cinives]

Yep, and whole word reading methods do the same for reading.

No kid should be allowed a calculator until they are halfway thru Algebra I.

[Pyncho]

You’re mumbling, consistent with your tag line.

[cinives]

You are right. If you present your material logically and well, and make sure every student has the opportunity to learn it, you should not be held responsible for them failing to hold up their end of the equation.

As Yeates said, Education is the lighting of a fire, not the filling of a bucket.

[cinives]

phoenix=phonics

[taxcontrol]

I think you may have meant your comments for someone else. You might want to go back and reread my post. I was pointing out that teachers get paid the rate at which the market will bear. Further, I was pointing out that they don’t work full time like the rest of the skills marketplace.