Horace Mann (1796-1859) once stated that education is the great equalizer. He believed that a publicly funded education system was necessary in order to provide the chance for everyone to learn, not just those that could afford it. Mann was skillful in convincing the public that this needed to be done in order to provide an assimilated American culture that would be capable in participating in a representative democracy.
Public schools became increasingly popular and offered a taxpayer-funded education while a private school was still available to those that would choose to pay more money. Parents continue to have this choice. A majority of students attend public schools, take advantage of this government service, and exemplify Mann’s dream of education being the great equalizer.
In recent decades, public schools have not enjoyed the success they once did. Graduation rates have tumbled, truancy has risen dramatically, and achievement levels have sagged when compared to those of other nations. Much discussion and billions of dollars of public tax money has been given to address the problem of a declining public education system without substantially positive results.
What is wrong with the public schools? There are many answers, but they are not pleasant.
1) Class Content.
The essential classroom content taught in public schools was originally intended to be language arts and communicative skills, sciences, mathematics, art, music, and social studies. The content of these courses would ideally be relevant to life skills and future jobs. Many students graduate from high school without the knowledge of how to balance a checkbook. Some cannot identify where major nations are on a globe. Others cannot differentiate the difference between “your” and “you’re.” Contemporary classrooms often have multicultural sensitivity training in social studies instead of history and geography. Other examples include how to apply a condom to a banana in health class instead of applying a healthy lifestyle or reading about homosexual, bisexual, and transgender acceptance in literature class instead of reading the works of Melville, Twain, or Hawthorne. This does not stop at the primary or secondary levels. Look at what occurs at American universities. How about a little bit of “Pizza & Porn”? This actually is an activity promoted during “Sexploration Week” at the University of Cincinatti. http://www.newstalk1130.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=104673&article=4933616
2) The National Education Association (NEA).
Like many unions, the NEA went above its original intentions of being protective of educational employees to leading an assault on the very concepts its constituents were attempting to uphold. Is a teacher’s strike ever in the best interest of the students of a school? Is a teacher taking accountability for student performance contrary to the very nature of the teaching profession? Is bullying union members who do not back the same politics really protecting the workers? As troubling as it may seem, the original intentions of the NEA are obsolete. Now the NEA literally sells itself out to certain politicians because they know that their influence will not diminish as long as said politicians are still in power.
3) Too Much Building…
Public schools and their districts have nearly become obsessed with building new school buildings citing that the old facilities do not meet the demands of a modern education. A follower of educational research will note that the correlation between student learning and those same students’ learning facilities is very weak. Should a school be large enough and safe enough to accommodate its students’ needs? Absolutely. However, is it necessary to have a new school building constructed in a district with dropping enrollment and buildings that, while dated, are safe? How is this fiscally responsible? Instead of focusing on building palatial school buildings with fancy offices, athletic facilities, and the most advanced computer technology, would it not be more beneficial to address the failings of its schools by analyzing what is going on the classroom?
4) …Not Enough Teaching
Would student learning improve if effective teachers were compensated for their results and ineffective teachers weeded out of the system? If a car salesman does not sell cars, he usually loses his job. On the contrary, a salesman that sells cars is rewarded for his success. If a teacher’s students are not learning, they are often kept since they have tenure after teaching for a number of years. Is there not a problem with this? Why is the public paying a teacher to run off copies of textbook lessons and worksheets instead of developing innovative lessons that teach students the content in a way that fosters effective learning? All too often, public school teachers settle for what is comfortable and do not like people to intrude upon something that is comfortable.
5) Opposition to School Choice
School choice allows public money to be given to low-income families that otherwise would either not be able or less likely to afford sending their kids to private schools. While definitive research has yet to provide irrefutable proof regarding the success of school choice, some themes tend to be present. Students that are the recipients of school choice vouchers have a high graduation rate, the cities that have school choice have seen it expand quickly, and the public schools and teacher’s union hate it. Why? They fear that more people will want to send their students to private schools, thus decreasing student enrollment, thus decreasing the need for bloated staffing. However, school choice may be a good thing for the public schools. They provide competition. For a business to compete with another business, it must offer a product or service that is similar, equal, or better than the other business. Currently, this does not apply to public schools. The recipients of school choice vouchers are beginning to understand this, and the public schools want to kill it rather than improving the product (instruction) they offer.
Education is indeed the great equalizer. Without a proper education, people are not prepared to enter professional lives nor will they be able to function as informed citizens in their society. Since public education has long become a mouthpiece for a very one-sided agenda, many Americans are being fleeced blind by the system they bankroll that produces ill-prepared graduates.
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