Public education in the United States, in a necessary attempt to be broad and encompassing, has been sharply criticized as being “a mile wide and an inch deep” by politicians, pundits and even a few educators. The critique reflects the sentiments of many individuals, some well meaning, others less so, that public education is failing our youth.
Taking aim at public education, making it the whipping boy for many social ills, has become a dominant narrative.
Cited as cause for alarm are the rise in drop-out rates, criminal activity in schools, poorly run schools and the U.S. falling behind other developed nations. Yet public education survives all of this, and in many respects is better today than it has ever been.
In 1900, around 6 percent of children graduated high school. By 1996, this number had increased to nearly 85 percent.
Public schools accomplished this increase despite strong trends at play with American families. In 1950, fully 93 percent of American households were two-parent households. By 2000, this figure had shrunk dramatically to about 69 percent. Currently, 42 percent of white children spend time in a single-parent household, while 86 percent of black children do the same.
Single-parent households accounted for the lion’s share of high school drop-outs, but school staff, collaborating with these single parents (mostly mothers), helped reverse a downward trend. About 50 percent of black and Hispanic youngsters dropped out in 1990. By 2008, this figure changed to less than 35 percent.
Many large, urban schools have begun dramatic turnarounds through innovative leadership and the advent of charter schools. Despite findings like these, the dominant narrative persists. Namely, that American public education is badly failing our children and major change is needed.
Less well understood was the government’s role in establishing this narrative.
An argument can be made that the government’s intentions were basically good. The goals of desegregating schools, establishing uniform curricula and providing broad constitutional protections were laudable, but the methods chosen to accomplish these goals turned out to be much less so.
The opportunity for the government to dramatically intervene began in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik 1. The first satellite to orbit the Earth created the first real opportunity for the federal government to truly assert control over public education.
Public concern over the launch was whipped into hysteria by politicians, notably Lyndon Johnson, Henry Jackson, Styles Bridges and then-Secretary of Defense Neal McElroy, who saw an opportunity to use public fear to bolster defense spending by coupling it to a broad educational initiative that became the National Defense Education Act of 1958. “Our public schools are failing our children (especially in science) and something must be done about it,” became the mantra of many.
Instead of choosing a collaborative role with educators, the politicians of that era chose to appeal to the public’s fear of yet another dictatorial government on the rise in Europe.
At roughly 20-year intervals since, this theme of failing and falling behind has been reiterated. In 1983, James Harvey, the principal author of a report titled “A Nation at Risk,” lamented that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.”
Citing a drop in SAT scores among other measures, Harvey and others argued for a renewed federal initiative in education. The report was commissioned by then-President Ronald Reagan, which added some irony in the mix because Reagan touted himself as a firm states’ rights advocate.
About 20 years later we had “No Child Left Behind,” another federal initiative to ensure that states were complying with government regulations, putting teeth into the bite of government reforms by penalizing states for low student performance. NCLB sought to use testing as a way to ensure quality education for all students.
Were we falling behind the Soviets in science in 1957? No. Prior to Sputnik, the G.I. Bill produced a tremendous surge in post-secondary education that actually peaked in 1947, producing a highly educated professional class of teachers, doctors, attorneys, scientists and business people. President Dwight Eisenhower knew about the Sputnik initiative and felt assured that it didn’t mean there was a “missile gap.” He had every reason to feel comfortable.
Was there a precipitous drop in SAT scores in 1983? No. As the saying goes, “there are lies, damned lies and statistics.” The supposed “drop” in scores was a statistical anomaly known as ”Simpson’s paradox” where an apparent drop in scores can be attributable to changes in subgroup composition. While this was known to be the case at the time, then-Deputy Secretary of Education David Kearns buried the Sandia Labs report that uncovered the error.
Did it prove possible to test students into performing better while holding school districts responsible for poor performance? No. Many of my educator friends privately joked that No Child Left Behind actually translated as “No Tree Left Standing.”
All of this begs the question of whether states have actually failed students on a massive scale or have politicians and others simply used public education as a venue to further their own ends. Despite efforts to make “failure of our public schools” the dominant narrative, most Americans intuitively doubt this and, more importantly, question the efficacy of federal initiatives in our schools. The doubt Americans have primarily stems from positive encounters with teachers they have known and the caring those teachers gave to them.
Common Core, the current government initiative, seems to be a modest improvement. There is more flexibility for states and districts, and the testing model does a better job of differentiating student skill sets by employing strategies that do not rely on older methods of evaluation. Teachers are using competencies rather than assigning a number grade. Still, any search for a final common pathway to an educated populace remains fraught with difficulty. Ultimately, it will be the teachers collaborating with other teachers and parents that will make the difference for our children, not the tests or models we employ.
Will we resist this narrative of failure and entrust our children to trained professionals or must we constantly look over their shoulders? Will we become a nation of technocrats or one of independent thinkers?
There is every reason to believe that we are verging on major change in public education, but not because public education is failing. Preparing children for work in industrial settings, the past purpose of public education, was tremendously successful. The preparation of children for social and service roles in the late 1900s was also successful. Now education is being asked to prepare children for careers in technologies that are not yet in existence, while at the same time training a new generation to become teachers, social service workers, doctors, lawyers and the like.
To do this, educators will begin tapping the “multiple intelligences” that children possess, taking us well beyond the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.
In order to accomplish all of these objectives, teachers will be held directly accountable for the performances of their students. If you take the time to talk to a teacher you’ll find that they wouldn’t have it any other way.
I have no doubt that public education will rise to this challenge, but as parents and concerned citizens we must do our part and collaborate with educators. If it’s been awhile since you have set foot in your public school, I encourage you to do so. You will be amazed at what you find.
(Philip Mead is a licensed psychologist who has worked collaboratively with public schools in Wisconsin and New Hampshire for the past 35 years. He lives in Concord.)