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.

[Gabz]

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.

Where I live the opposite is true. The state chapter of the NEA is nothing more than a trade/professional association that teachers can choose to join, or not.

My local schoolboard is not elected, they are appointed by the county board of supervisors (county council) but ultimately SOMEONE is held accountable to the voters.

I would make it a felony for any public employee to belong to a union.

I am not a fan of union management, who have absolutely bastardized the original premise of unions, but there is no way I could ever go along with your idea.

[Gabz]

I really like your idea.

[taxcontrol]

I did not choose ANY quote from the article ... again, you have me confused with someone else.

[Gabz]

again, you have me confused with someone else.

Again? I don't think so.

I included you in my post out of courtesy because I was quoting and replying to someone who had responded to you.

I was agreeing with your point.

[taxcontrol]

work year for a wage earner is 2080 man hours. That is for a WAGE earner. Any profession (as in salaried, non wage) normally works 10 to 12 hour days. I routinely put it 50 hour weeks and often as much as 65 to 70. So cry me a river about working “over” and not getting any extra pay.

Last year I put in 2,600 BILLABLE hours total. That is my work year and many of my co-workers have similar hours. 66% is a little over 1,700 hours. My sister when she was an English teacher did not put in that many hours. So while the 66% might be a personal number, teachers are still only seasonal workers.

[Amelia]

That would be true if I chose to take each summer off also.

Except by the fact that they choose to teach, most teachers don't choose to take each summer off - they have absolutely no control on how the school calendar is set up.

And I have been a teacher at the college and graduate level.

Yet you aren't anymore - are you now better paid?

I would submit that comparing college teaching to elementary and secondary level teaching isn't comparable at all. First, teachers at the college and graduate levels work much fewer hours (and generally more flexible schedules) than teachers at the elementary and secondary levels. Secondly, students at the college and graduate levels presumably choose to be there, rather than being forced to be there by compulsory education laws and/or judges.

[Amelia]

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.

It's not true in the South, and probably not true in most of the midwest.

[Amelia]

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.

Some of the research showing how "well paid" teachers are has been contested, and not always by those supporting unions. You might try reading this, for example.

[mother22wife21]

"Once teachers have cleaned their own house Americans will be much more open to their complaints about parents."

Right on the mark.

[TruthConquers]

"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."

For a vast majority of the schools in this country, you are soooo right.

[Gabz]

I’m a parent, not a teacher, and I have no problem with the majority of complaints from teachers about parents.

During parent/teacher conference times, both my husband and I have had far too many teachers tell us “You are not the parents I need to see” for me to believe that lack of parental involvement is not a major problem. With a class of less than 20, and the parent/s of 3 students show up? That’s pretty pathetic.

My daughter and her friend did not ride the bus last year, I drove them both to school every morning and the other girl’s mother picked them up every afternoon. One or the other of us saw one of the girls’ teachers EVERY day. When my friend had to go back to work because her husband had a heart attack and couldn’t work, either he or I picked them up every afternoon, and on his days off, my husband did the drop off or pick up.

I’ve seen first hand, on a daily basis that parents, or lack thereof, and parental involvement are a major problem.

[TruthConquers]

That is just your local school. I would think that is a bit of a broad brush you are using there. Teachers, the bureaucratic system of the NEA, and the intrusion of the Federal government all have no business in a so-called “school” that is not much more than fancy day care.

The law is actually only about “compulsory attendance.” That is why schools districts haven’t and can’t be sued. There is NO guarantee of an education, there never was anything in the law about that.

[Gabz]

I do believe you are the broadbrush user here, the NEA has little or no impact on schools here. The local “chapter” of the NEA is not a union it is a trade/professional association.

“Compulsory attendance” also includes private schools, and it did even 40 years ago when I first started attending school, and only attended private school until I went to college.

[TruthConquers]

The NEA does impact a majority of schools. Period.

And that sound your hearing is your own broad brush flapping in the breeze.

[Gabz]

The NEA does impact a majority of schools.

I didn't say otherwise, just that the impact is not much where I am.

And that sound your hearing is your own broad brush flapping in the breeze.

No, it was what YOU heard about YOUR broadbrush.

[Amelia]

In the south, and in other mostly rural or agricultural states, the NEA has very little influence. I don’t doubt that it is influential in the northeast, the highly unionized areas of the upper midwest, and in California.

[ModelBreaker]

It's not true in the South, and probably not true in most of the midwest.

Perhaps. But were I not very close to the situation and politically active, I wouldn't know that the teacher's union runs the show. They do a good job of presenting a happy face to the public. I would wager that most folks here in Colorado have no idea how powerful the teacher's union's stranglehold on the State is.

[Amelia]

But were I not very close to the situation and politically active, I wouldn't know that the teacher's union runs the show.

Are you implying that I am not "very close to the situation and politically active"?

[Gabz]

Not everywhere is in Colorado, and many of us don’t live there, but are close to the situation and politically active.

[neverdem]

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