Public education's intractable problems - Column

The situation in elementary and secondary public education in this country is little short of desperate. The schools' physical plants are crumbling, but citizens, rebelling against suffocating taxes, refuse to vote additional monies for them.

For more than two decades, public schools also suffered the trauma of an unpopular and costly busing integration program that proved a near total failure. Much of the legislation prompting this has been rescinded, but the damage already is done. It helped cause the demise of the public schools by forcing concerned parents to enroll their children in private schools or move to the suburbs, where better systems prevailed. There were good reasons for this "white flight," for youngsters have only one chance at a good education. Few parents are going to sacrifice their offspring to unproven social programs.

Meanwhile, the government-mandated policy of "inclusiveness" weakened school academics. Already overworked teachers had to watch over and integrate the severely handicapped into the classroom. The idea was a do-gooder's dream turned nightmare.

A great number of students, coming from dysfunctional families, were undisciplined and had no respect for authority and little interest in learning. Decorum in the classroom virtually has vanished. The old expression of one rotten apple spoiling a barrelful was forgotten. Among many blacks, students getting good grades were condemned for "acting white." In many cases, the troublemakers, who couldn't be kicked out of school because of concern over false charges of civil rights violations, solved the problem themselves by dropping out. This proved bittersweet at best, for school funding usually is based on enrollment.

The situation is so bad in Denver that just 60.6% of those who enrolled in its public high schools in 1992 graduated four years later, Among Hispanic students, the rate was 45.9%, and blacks fared almost as badly. Nationwide, a mere 40% of fourth-graders meet the basic reading standard.

Instruction no longer is the primary concern of many teachers, as they struggle just to get through the day. The situation is so wretched that a number of schools have policemen on constant duty, and weapons checks are de rigueur. Clearly, parents personally have to assume more responsibility for instructing their offspring at home. However, most parents are both working and too tired at night to listen to their youngsters read -- the key to all education.

Another sign of desperation is that of the School Board of Oakland, Calif., pushing "Ebonics" and ruling that Black English be recognized as a second language. The situation is ironic in that African-Americans today are many generations removed from their slave heritage. Why is proper English not a problem for any other ethnic group that has been here that long?

It is difficult to suggest remedies for the dumbing down of education. A nationwide school voucher program, which would give real choice to parents, probably would all but collapse most public schools. Yet, it possibly might wake them up to the point of being competitive. There could be a case for enlightened self-interest here, as survival is at stake. Teacher unions would have to recognize that they are part of the problem, rather than the solution, and grant major concessions.

Even bribery is being tried today to induce students to study. At Cole Middle School in Denver, the Nathan B. and Florence R. Burt Foundation is giving cash prizes to those who earn an A average over grading periods. It's one thing for parents to encourage their offspring this way, but quite another for outsiders to use money crassly for this purpose. Another use of bribery is meant to reduce violence in the schools. Seattle's superintendent, John Stanford, recently proposed $100 credits to every high school that avoids violence. Ten months of a violence-free school would earn $1,000, to be used for projects chosen by the students. For middle school, the bonus would be $50 a month.

Society has placed too big a burden on the public schools, forcing or strongly encouraging them into far-ranging projects beyond their means and capabilities. Many open early to serve breakfasts, supposedly because children don't get them at home. Schools stay open as long as four hours past the last class to accommodate working parents. They have taken on the task of teaching manners, values, and ethics under the rubric of moral education, yet must teach diversity and tolerance for opposing views on each. In many instances, political correctness has hurt competitiveness as a means of achieving excellence through spelling bees and other academic activities. Losing in these is said to lower the self-esteem of the participants.

Teachers are obliged to provide sex education in early grades, thereby possibly encouraging sex experimentation. Who would have conceived a generation ago that teachers would be putting condoms on bananas in front of ninth-graders? A Rhode Island Educational Task Force even suggested teaching kindergartners about AIDS.

Finally, the states that have an overflow of immigrants, legal and illegal, are given the near-impossible task of contending with up to 20 different languages spoken by those enrolled in a single class. One art teacher friend commented that he could succeed in part only because art is a universal language, but couldn't understand how math and science teachers could do it:

The most telling criticism of public schools comes from IBM CEO Lou Gersten. He says that businesses spend $30,000,000,000 a year on remedial education for high school graduates they hire. Additionally, industry loses another like sum in an attempt to upgrade others who can't handle training in high tech.

Education? Who needs it? Most of all, the public schools do!

COPYRIGHT 1997 Society for the Advancement of Education
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group