I love that you care about this issue, John, and I love even more that you talk about it on your blog.
As the husband of an inner-city Chicago charter school teacher and as a former editor of a magazine for educators, I must say ideas like the ones you describe, while all solid, bricks in the Grand Canyon.
Lots of public schools are already wonderful.
Lots of public schools are so ridiculously miserable that it's ridiculous to hope they'll be turned around without GIANT infusions of cash (and the good personnel that cash could buy).
Charter schools are underfunded and often fail; mostly, the business community is just dabbling in this one company at a time and can't be expected to revolutionize education in any organized way. And how is it that we're calling art and music "elective subjects" these days?
I agree with you that the most important thing to do is change the culture and attitude of young people today. The best and only way to do that is to demonstrate to them that we care enough to seriously invest in schools to lower class size, replace decrepit school buildings and overwhelmingly improve whole quality of instruction.
Impossible, you say? Too much of a tax burden? No politician will commit to it and no electorate will tolerate it?
Well, then pardon me if I'm not holding my breath waiting for the Disney Co. to fix the situation.
David:
Thanks for your comments ... I agree that the problem is so big that it's overwhelming.
I have mixed feelings about the role that funding plays. It's clear that many urban districts are underfunded. But I've visited schools in several low-performing districts around Houston and they all seem to have adequate supplies, computers, libraries, etc. It's not that there aren't enough amenities, it's that the students require so much intervention due to family and personal situations and a lack of focus or attention on learning, reading, etc., in the home.
This is spreading to well-funded suburban schools now, where kindgarten students show up not knowing their colors, letters, etc. They are already light years behind their peers who arrive at school knowing how to read! They will play catch up the rest of their lives ... and most will never make it.
Well, my close second-hand view is of urban schools. About that, I think: There's nothing we can do as a matter of public policy to force parents to read to their kids at home. But we CAN, as a matter of public policy, acknowledge the problem and give these kids drastically more support at crucial stages (I'm talking, first-grade reading classes of five kids).
Amenities don't educate kids, they only provide a baseline possibility for educating kids. Class size is the number-one way to improve reading and math scores. But reducing class size means "throwing money at the problem" and no one seems to want to do that.
As far as suburban schools: Why are kids showing up not knowing their colors or letters? Does anybody have the foggiest idea why this is?
John:
My take on the issue will not surprise you.
The biggest reason that our public schools continue to fail is because they are just that - public schools. In other words, government schools. They are political institutions run by bureaucrats who are not accountable to anyone and don't have to compete with anyone. Students, teachers, and parents - and society at large - are the victims.
The more involved government - particularly the federal government - has become in education, and the more money government has spent on education, the worse education has become. The correlation is positive.
It's clear that more money is not the answer; study after study shows that the amount of money spent on education does NOT have a positive correlation with academic performance.
To me the only answer is more privatization of the education "industry." And the people who claim that that would deprive poor children of an education have simply given the idea no thought. It is a lazy, intellectually dishonest, fall-back, alarmist position that does not stand up to scrutiny. The free market, as it always has done, will see the need and fall all over itself to fill it - in innovative ways we haven't even thought of yet.
Only the private sector - the free market - can deliver the kind of cost-effective innovation that will make our schools healthy and competitive with the rest of the world.
Until we as a society realize that the government 1) should have no role in educating our children and 2) isn't any good at it anyway, the situation will continue to get worse.
Related to this subject is the insanity of compulsory attendance laws. Many public schools are full of students who don't want to be there, with parents who view the government as babysitters. Good teachers spend much of their time maintaining order and trying to push a rope, while the kids who do want to learn and do want to get ahead are being short-changed.
The late, great Harry Browne had this to say about the issue. It's worth a read. Funny and thought-provoking.
http://www.harrybrowne.org/
artic...eTheSchools.htm
Russell--
When you think of a corporation running the public schools you think of Southwest Airlines.
When I think of corporations running the public schools I think of General Motors. Or--more to the point, because the best way to profit on schools is to cut costs--Wal-Mart.
We'll never see eye to eye on this one, I guess. Luckily, the public doesn't seem to have the will even to privatize in a big way. So I imagine we'll be at these tiresome loggerheads for some time.
David
Actually, when I think of privativing schools, I don't think of Southwest Airlines, General Motors, or Wal-Mart. I think of the thousands of private schools and home schools already in existence that successfully educate students without interference from the government, many of them for a fraction of the cost that government schools cost in taxes.
And, actually, a Wal-Mart model for private schools wouldn't be that bad. Wal-Mart has done more for lower-income people than all government assistance and anti-poverty programs combined, by offering what they need and want at prices they can afford. A Wal-Mart model for education might work well for low-income parents who want to get their children out of government schools but can't afford more expensive schools and who need to watch their budgets tightly.
I do agree with you, though, that complete privatization of education is an idea whose time has not yet - and may never - come. And until it does, we will continue to throw taxpayer money at the problem and watch our public schools continue to get worse and worse.
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