Public Education

CAN PUBLIC EDUCATION BE FIXED?

Those who attend to media reports can have little doubt that public education is in serious trouble across the United States. Even if one disregards 50% of the reports as alarmist or political posturing the news is still bad. Those reports always precipitate resolutions for improvement from government at every level and from all sorts of groups including teachers, teacher training institutions and social action organizations. Nothing appears to work. Many have begun to ask, “Can public education be fixed?” I doubt it.

Consider this. Let’s say that an established system of methods and materials though well-known but not popular has recently gained attention because it was producing outstanding long-term results where used. Further let’s say the approach had been rigorously tested and found to be educationally and cost effective. And, let’s us say that such a strategy produced the excellent results without additionally burdening teachers and in fact were so good that pupil self-esteem rose and classroom discipline problems nearly vanished. Would there be a wide-spread move to adopt such a system? Probably not. And there are reasons that is so.

When the phrase, “public education” is used, the mental image it evokes is something far removed from what public education is. For most, public education calls to mind a class of eager eight-year-olds and an energetic, concerned teacher willingly doing whatever it takes to maximize learning in a happy classroom environment. That isn’t the public education that I see.

Public education is a very complex enterprise with many separate groups each with its own agenda. Each sector could and does tell us that foremost is the welfare (meaning education) of children. It doesn’t seem so. Self-perpetuation seems the more likely primary agenda. Of course most make the case that they have to insure their own viability to enable them to guarantee the educational well being of pupils. Consider for a moment some of the “building blocks” of the institution we call public education.

Begin with teachers. They do teach—more or less well. It would be absurd to declare that all teachers are good teachers. Any time spent in faculty lounges will uncover many complaints about poor teaching among those colleagues not present. One also finds good teachers, often the recipients of sundry well-deserved outstanding teaching awards. Most teaching is average in classes of average children. The model works fairly well. Do not mistake that rather serene description to mean that teaching occurs in a static environment. The teaching process changes frequently and teachers like other workers often want more and seek ways to attain it with less difficult working conditions.

One means that teachers have used to attain those better working circumstances is to unionize. Teachers press for more pay with smaller classes, often declaring that smaller classes lead to more individual attention and better outcomes. Maybe, but standardized tests don’t seem to support that claim. Smaller classes obviously mean more teachers in each district—and more classrooms—and more buildings—and more managers—and more support staff—and more custodians—and more equipment—and more and more and more. And, citizens pay more taxes. But, standardized test scores show little if any benefit.

Many in the educational enterprise like the growing behemoth of pubic education. The teachers unions certainly do. More members yield more dues revenue. More union dues buy larger union officer salaries and more officers, nicer union offices, more support staff, nicer vehicles, more trips, bigger conventions with better-paid speakers, and more and more and more. But, it doesn’t seem to benefit student performance.

Administrators like big education too. More teachers mean more mid-level teacher managers usually with salaries higher than the teachers they manage. More buildings and more classrooms mean bigger physical plants and that means more physical plant workers and managers with “good” salaries. Big education, as note previously, requires big support staffs. And all of that bigness leads to human resource managers and their support staffs and of course, more salary all around. Administrators like all of that because the larger the enterprise the larger the compensation for those at the top of the pile. But, standardized test scores have not shown improvement.

School boards evidently like big education. They get to make decisions about ever-increasing sums of money. They enjoy considerable public attention in the media. Since the education enterprise involves matters of personnel management, public education policy, bond issues, building design and construction, health and safety issues, contract negotiations, worker benefits, busing, food service, equipment and material, parent relationships, curricular issues and many other matters there are more and more local and distant meetings to attend—all at public expense. Board members campaign and raise the money to get elected and some probably find that activity self-esteem enhancing. There is even the possibility that a school building, gymnasium or athletic field will be named for one of them. That may well be an ego inflator. Standardized test scores haven’t been a benefactor.

Colleges of Education like the ever-larger public education enterprise. The demand for more teachers and the myriad support professionals give rise to more students in more classrooms at those colleges and universities that prepare teachers. Of course that means more professors and more college classrooms in more buildings. Like the public school that grows and grows and increases the demand for support workers the same things occur in higher education. Deans get assistant deans and associate deans, and mid-level managers to help make everything work. College faculties are very often unionized too so the unions of college professors are happy because they will have more members and more dues and all of the “mores” that apply to the union of public education teachers.

State departments/bureaus of education, both public and higher education, enjoy the increasing size of education. The increasing work-load brought on by the growing public school system and the responsive higher education training institutions mean more government workers, more mid-level managers, more senior executives, more offices, larger budgets, more and more and more. Standardized test scores remain static.

Publishers of teaching texts and materials love a growing educational enterprise too. They make a great deal more money when the system continues to expand. Many parents like it too because “super-sizing” has become an American trait that defines our homes, our cars, our holidays and now—our schools. None of that has made things better for our nation’s school performance. Can anything?

A television program called “This Old House” comes to mind. In one series of programs a New England couple found themselves with a very nice century-old barn that they wanted to remodel into a modern functioning home. They set out to do that by attending to all the things that would need to be repaired/altered/changed. When the outside experts, in this instance the team of This Old House, surveyed the barn they quickly discovered that the only real choice was to dismantle the old barn and start anew.

We know enough about how children learn to rebuild public education into a working effective model but I doubt that it can happen. There are too many agendas to let it happen in the public sector. The only hope may be for private ventures to do it and nothing is more certain to cause all of those private agendas to close ranks than that threat.

A recent television program pointed out that many European schools attach educational funds to students. The money goes where the student goes. Private schools and even church-related schools can receive the funds if that is where the student chooses to attend. The model works well and those students consistently out-perform US students. Even the public schools in those countries see better student performance than we see in the US. The competition produces improved performance in the public sector.