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.

[Patriotic1]

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.

But if you separate them, you have "tracking" and that's not fair. /s

Luckily, I was in a school district that tracked and I was able to stay challenged.

[kitkat]

BUMP

[cinives]

You never read Dewey, did you ? He didn’t think reading was essential for the masses.

No, it just took a while for the plan to work, but the dumbing down advocated by Dewey and Columbia Teacher’s College got a lot of help from Progressives and Liberals in government and we are now seeing the result.

Go read up on the history of public education in this country, and the leaders of Columbia Teacher’s College. You’ll be shocked.

[cinives]

No, my comment was to you. Do you not understand what was written in the article ? Here, let me quote:
“The average teacher salary in 2001 was $43,300, compared to the average full-time worker salary of $40,100.”

In other words, they compared a teacher’s part time pay with the average professional’s full time pay.

Get it now ?

Teachers get paid an hourly wage that is higher than almost all other professionals. If they need more money than what they earn in 10 months, they have plenty of opportunity to tutor, teach summer school, and so on for those additional 2 months, not to mention the lavish vacation times during Christmas, Easter break, Winter break, and the like. Or any other job, for that matter.

Read the article at the link before you criticize.

[eraser2005]

Wow... that link has so many holes in it I’m not sure where to start...

Generous pensions that require no contributions?!?! Teachers in Ohio pay 10% of their salary to their pension plan - no ifs, ands, or buts.

For that, if they work a full career, they can get a pension that pays out 66% of the average of their last three years’ salaries.

What does that mean?

If you go by the 5% rule and withdraw 5% of the funds each year (and don’t adjust for inflation) during retirement, that means that if you get annual 3% raises, the state’s annual contribution as a % of your salary to your pension is defined by:

cont=-68.795*x^3+41.613*x^2-8.3046*x+0.4795

where x is the annual return on invested funds.

If the market returns an 8% annual return, that means the teacher’s pension has the equivalent cost to the state of 4.6% of their annual income. If the market returns 9%, the state’s cost is 1.9%. If the market returns more than about 9.8%, the state makes a profit off the teacher’s contributions to their own pensions.

I don’t know where you come from, but I consider that a horrid deal.

(and no, I am NOT a teacher)

[Amelia]

The “self-esteem” movement is killing any educational baseline, let alone educational excellence. And there is little parents can do to swim upstream against this torrent. The “self-esteem” movement is killing any educational baseline, let alone educational excellence. And there is little parents can do to swim upstream against this torrent.

Parents? Who do you think is driving the self-esteem movement?

Social promotion has two major groups of proponents: parents and administrators.

Remember the case where the parents raised bloody murder about their children who failed because they plagiarized a major assignment, and the board made the teacher change the grades, so she resigned in protest?

[dan1123]

Hehe, I must have been channeling my discussing of Medium to this thread :-)

[Amelia]

Now, I am a public school teacher, I have a Master’s degree in Latin. I teach Latin and English. I am tenured, but I do not want my job tied to the fact that no matter how many ways I present material, modify, scaffold, assist, allow, communicate, beg, and do everything I can to help a student succeed, they still do not make it. I am, as a teacher, capable of so much before the student must take some responsibility for their learning. It is here that the line falls sharply and the author of the piece gets it.

I agree, and I also don't want my job tied to whether or not the school board member's child works hard enough to pass my class.

[Amelia]

As to your comment about salary, recent studies have shown that, adjusted for the fact that they get the summer off, teachers are right in the middle of the pack, salary-wise.

Please note that if I decide to apply for a mortgage or car loan, the bank is only interested in my yearly salary, not in how much I get paid "per hour."

In other words, there are reasons that people who can do other things and make more money often choose not to teach, which means that some of your teachers are going to be people who can't do those other things.

Simple economics.

[Oatka]

I fear for the next generation.

You're not alone. I always try and make some comment to the cashier (this one in a department store) just to break their tedium. Whenever my bill or change comes up with a historical date, I throw that in. One bill came to $17.76. "Famous date in history." sez I. "Whut's that?" asks the youth at the register. (groan) "The birth of our country." "Kewl." sez the yute. (double groan) This experience is not unique. We are going to be in big trouble.

[ModelBreaker]

Please note that if I decide to apply for a mortgage or car loan, the bank is only interested in my yearly salary, not in how much I get paid "per hour."

That would be true if I chose to take each summer off also. It doesn't change the fact that teachers are well paid professionals in most jurisdictions for the work they put in.

The problem with the education system is emphatically not money. It is structural and probably unfixable. At this point, the best thing we could do as a society is to tear it down (including the education colleges) and start over from scratch. And I have been a teacher at the college and graduate level.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

But if the parents don’t work to instill the value of an education, do you really think the teachers stand a chance?

Actually, yes.

Do you think that all earlier generations had wonderful parents who helped them with their homework every night? Please.

Let's go back a hundred years. Most parents were illiterate and many did not speak English all that well.

Girls didn't need an education to get married and have kids and boys should be out working rather then spending their time on sissy stuff like books. Many of those children only got a few years in the class room before they were yanked out and put to work. And yet they came out able to read, write and do basic math. Something that current teachers are failing to do with far more advantages.

Do good parents help? Of course. But to say that unless a student has a perfect home life and parents that are willing to teach that the teacher can not do their job is a flat out cop out.

[ModelBreaker]

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

Succinct and accurate. So why put them in school in the first place if you are going to end up doing most of the teaching anyway?

[HKMk23]

You’re right about a motivation crisis, but haven’t yet dug down to the underlying causes.

You’re right that the quality of today’s average university student resembles that of the average High School student from 20 years ago, which resembled that of the average grade school kid from twenty years before.

There HAS been a steady decline in the degree to which the students give a rip about their education, and it tracks with the degree to which social engineering projects have invaded the classrooms with their efforts to bring students’ minds into conformity with project goals.

So, screw arithmetic, we’ve got to talk about “public health”. Forget sentence structure, maybe we’ll get to it AFTER our Social Studies.

My grandmother used to talk about studying “civics” in school; understanding the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the principles of good citizenship. By the time I came through it was this nebulous “Social Studies”, wherein we explore all of the many ways that unfettered American Capitalism has heartlessly ruined vast swaths of the globe and left millions impoverished and starving in the Third World. Nevermind whether that’s actually TRUE or not, just the fact the there are starving people in a country where American corporations are doing business is all we need to pronounce damnation on ourselves, or so we were told.

I can’t imagine it’s better than that, now.

Is it any wonder children are less and less motivated? What child could maintain motivation to excel in a society that was the cause of all that misery? Who wants to become a Mechanical Engineer if it means going to work for a company that makes big machines that destroy things in other parts of the world?

I really think Gatto would resonate with you far more than you presently believe.

Oh, FWIW, the tagline’s sarcastic humor; a blend of the anti-war left’s incessant mantra with themes from The Lord of the Rings. It pains me to have to explain that; I’d hoped it would be self-evident.

[dan1123]

Thank you for the voice of sanity in this kneejerk blame-parents-first crowd.

Many teachers are failing students, but far more bureaucrats and administrators are. Blaming parents for a systemic failure of modern schools is indeed a cop out. I think school systems are designed to fail, and are even worse when social politics get in the way. Students need less time in school with smaller class sizes, and school shouldn’t be a mini-daycare for working parents. I would support half-days through highschool with more flexible hours for extracurricular activities, extended tutoring, and work.

[taxcontrol]

What part of my original post #10 did you not understand??? Your comments to me are so far off from my comments as to be almost not the same subject.

The closest comment that I made regarding teacher pay was that the pay is set by what the market will bear for a job that only works 66% of the year.

[dan1123]

The problem with the education system is emphatically not money. It is structural and probably unfixable.

I agree that the modern US education structure is badly broken, but I think it can and will eventually be fixed. The rising homeschool population and the interest in vouchers are a catalyst to change that should eventually lead to someone figuring out a better method of educating a large number of unruly students.

[Gabz]

From the article:

“The average teacher salary in 2001 was $43,300, compared to the average full-time worker salary of $40,100.”

Your comment, in regard to the quote you chose from the article (above):

In other words, they compared a teacher’s part time pay with the average professional’s full time pay.

Average full-time worker does not equate to average professional.

Get it now?

[ModelBreaker]

I agree that the modern US education structure is badly broken, but I think it can and will eventually be fixed. The rising homeschool population and the interest in vouchers are a catalyst to change that should eventually lead to someone figuring out a better method of educating a large number of unruly students.

You're much more optimistic than me. Once the public employees unions (NEA, in this case) figure out that they can elect people who will raise their salaries and vote them benefits packages and tenure, you have a vicious cycle that is very difficult to break. The people who are supposed to be making the responsible financial decisions (the state legislatures and the school boards) are beholden to the people who want them to be financially irresponsible (the NEA). So the legislatures send ever more money into the government schools and grant the union ever more power to organize and control their members. The union coffers grow and they have an even easier time the next election cycle in electing friendly candidates. Ad infinitum.

In my neck of the woods, all school boards are controlled by the teacher's union, even most of the ostensibly Republican members (if they don't play ball, they don't get money from the union and they don't get elected). That's pretty much true nationwide.

No reform is possible until we break the stranglehold of the NEA on the education system. I would make it a felony for any public employee to belong to a union. But that will never happen. Short of that, I hold out little hope for any improvement in the government schools.

[dan1123]

It seems like pretty basic campaign finance reform to forbid a public union to contribute to an election. The fist step would be to not let unions advertise as “teachers”, “firemen”, etc. when they lobby for or against politicians and legislation.