Sacrificing Public Education to “Pursue Excellence”?

There is no excellence without labor. One cannot dream oneself into either usefulness or happiness. -- Liberty Hyde Bailey, American Botanist (1856 - 1954)

There are two “impediments” to achieving excellence in American public schools: diversity and compromise. The problem is that both diversity and compromise both contribute positively to our pluralistic, democratic society.

Diversity is a fact, an historical development. Luckily, it has been for the major part -- tightly shutting our eyes to slavery and aboriginal annihilation -- benign. As the United States of America has grown and become more “free,” so have we become more diverse: in religion, culture, gender roles and ethnicity. Indeed, it has been the result of the struggle of minorities, all kinds of minorities, to have our Constitution protect their citizenship rights, which has brought about the extension of our liberties.

The mechanisms have been de facto segregation and compromise. People who really hated, or were hated by, their neighbors could move out into the vast frontiers and isolate themselves for protection. Those who could not escape suffered and had to struggle, with the help of majority members, to bring about the legal articulation of their constitutional rights.

But many people, even those who have benefitted, have little tolerance for diversity and compromise. You’ll hear them complain about diversity as “conceding too much to those people.” You’ll hear them put compromise down as showing a “lack of standards” or as “a sellout.”

The reason public schools have not been able to “achieve excellence” is that there are diverse and often incompatible ideas about what schools are and what “excellence” is supposed to be. And the reason we Americans can’t reach a compromise on this issue is that compromise is not seen as a win-win situation; but, as a sellout, a yielding, an inferior position.

Private and parochial education has long been able to live, thrive, even with the opposite of diversity, a sort of “cultural multi-unitarianism.” It remains to be seen whether public education can survive with diversity. More than a hundred years of recurrent school reform suggests that it is unlikely.

For references and to examine these issues further, see School Image: Expectations & Controversies


Cordially
--- EGR

Teaching (School) in the 21st Century: watching the demise of a profession?

edited 10/15/18

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition. -- Jacques Barzun Teacher in
 America (Boston, 1945), p. 12.

Despite loud, sentimental declarations opportunistically promulgated, the situation Jacques Barzun apprised sixty-six years ago has not improved. Cheating, plagiarism, low class attendance and grade inflation are reported to be common in colleges. In some universities a professor’s winning an award for excellence in teaching presages failure to obtain tenure. After all, given all the administrivia a faculty member is expected to spend time on, he or she can’t be doing much research, much less adminisration-related committee work, if more than a smattering of energy is devoted to teaching!

Many private and parochial school teachers describe rampant cheating, plagiarism and drug usage easily on a par with what the general public imagines goes on in public schools. Parents care more about their kids’ grades than what they represent. School board members stand and salute whatever banner the most vehement ideologues in their community wave.

What informed person, of sound mind and good character would go into teaching anymore, given the widely accepted doctrine that teachers are the major, if not the sole cause for students’ failure? (Compare your job options with a self-survey. See Comparing Teaching to Other Occupations)

Who would pledge their Lives, their Fortunes, and their sacred Honor to work in many of the madhouses that are our schools and colleges? (See for example, Cannonfodder: Preparing Teachers for Public Schools )

What is the foundation of a rising career in education? In the very first course I took for my principal’s certification -- at a university of some “repute” -- I was told, “a principal’s first principle is CYA -- “Cover Your Assets.” God help the teachers and students under the leadership of such a “principled” person! (No doubt superintendents and their bosses observe the same maxim.)

In the good (?) old days before No Child Left Behind, K-12 public school teachers quit their jobs at a rate of 12-13% per year due to “working conditions.” Were it not for replacements from the ranks of the under-informed, the saintly, the gullible and the mislead (see Cannonfodder, above) the public school teacher population would disappear after five to six years! Are the incentives for entering the teaching profession -- at any level -- getting better?

 For references and to examine these issues further, see Who Controls Teachers’ Work?

Cordially

--- EGR

Can Excellence in Education Be Achieved in a Democracy?

It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. – Baudelaire

Suppose money were no problem. Then what could we do? Could we fulfill the aspiration expressed in the education codes of many states: “… to provide each child with a thorough and efficient education”?

Certainly we could have schools, seminars, and (in the language of Ed Biz), “information delivery systems,” that bring some children to be adults with high degrees of skill, or who have stored within them piles of facts which they know how to make use of. If people would be satisfied with this much – and even this is a lot – we could very likely approach some reasonable standard of excellence in education.

But some children are still not all children. And, more importantly, what about nurturance and values? Aren’t these crucial elements in what we understand to be “education” as opposed to “training” and “indoctrination”? We might want our daughter to grow up to be an architect, but not at the cost of her sanity or health. Our son we might envision as a medical doctor, but not at the cost of his religion or morality.

And how much agreement do you think Americans from all walks of life, from all religions or none, from all kinds of commitments to conflicting philosophies and values, will be able to find when it comes to supporting a common school in the hope of promoting a common education?

But isn’t there already a lot of consensus on basic values? Or is it just the sloganeering of those oblivious to their mutual misunderstanding?

To examine these issues further, see Trading-Off "Sacred" Values:
Why Public Schools Should Not Try to "Educate"

Cordially
--- EGR