Teachers have never been the problem, but our American Educational
System is floundering in an attempt to meet the needs of 1915 America.
Rather than teaching children to analyze information, we are demanding
teachers to train our young to be expert test-takers.
We are training production line workers and combat troops. We do not
teach students to question, but instead, to accept. The following
article is worth studying and saving.
Carl Jarvis
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Google the phrase "education crisis" and you'll be hit with a glut of
articles, blog posts and think tank reports claiming the entire American
school system is facing an emergency. Much of this agitprop additionally
asserts that teachers unions are the primary cause of the alleged problem.
Not surprisingly, the fabulists pushing these narratives are often backed by
anti-public school conservatives and anti-union plutocrats. But a
little-noticed study released last week provides yet more confirmation that
neither the "education crisis" meme or the "evil teachers' union" narrative
is accurate.
Before looking at that study, consider some of the ways we already know that
the dominant storyline about education is, indeed, baseless propaganda.
As I've
reported before, we know that American public school students from wealthy
districts generate some of the best test scores in the world. This proves
that the education system's problems are not universal-the crisis is
isolated primarily in
the parts of the system that
operate in high poverty areas. It also proves that while the structure of
the traditional public school system is hardly perfect, it is not the big
problem in America's K-12 education system. If it was the problem, then
traditional public schools in rich neighborhoods would not perform as well
as they do.
Similarly, we know that many of the high-performing public schools in
America's wealthy locales are unionized. We also know that one of the best
school systems in the world-Finland's-
is fully unionized. These facts prove that teachers' unions are not the root
cause of the education problem, either. After all, if unions were the
problem, then unionized public schools in wealthy areas and Finland would be
failing.
So what is the problem? That brings us to the new study from the Southern
Education Foundation. Cross-referencing and education data, researchers
found that that a majority of all public school students in one third of
America's states now come from low-income families.
How much does this have to do with educational outcomes? A lot. Social
science research over the last few decades has shown that two thirds of
student achievement is a product of out-of-school factors-and among the most
powerful of those is economic status. That's hardly shocking: kids who
experience destitution and all the problems that come with it have enough
trouble just surviving, much less succeeding in school.
All of this leads to an obvious conclusion: If America was serious about
fixing the troubled parts of its education system, then we would be having a
fundamentally different conversation.
We wouldn't be talking about budget austerity-we would be talking about
raising public revenues to fund special tutoring, child care, basic health
programs and other so-called wrap-around services at low-income schools.
We wouldn't only be looking to make sure that schools in high-poverty
districts finally receive the same amount of public money as schools in
wealthy neighborhoods-we would make sure high-poverty districts actually
receive more funds than rich districts because combating poverty is such a
resource-intensive endeavor.
More broadly, we wouldn't be discussing cuts to social safety net
programs-we would instead be working to expand those programs and, further,
to challenge both parties' anti-tax, anti-regulation, pro-austerity agenda
that has increased poverty and economic inequality.
In short, if we were serious about education, then our education discussion
wouldn't be focused on demonizing teachers and coming up with radical
schemes to undermine traditional public schools. It would instead be focused
on mounting a new war on poverty and thus directly addressing the biggest
education problem of all.
Root Of The Education Crisis: Teachers Were Never The Problem |
