Flat tires, diapers and school reform

Are federally mandated accountability and school choice going to join other attempts to change US schools in the junkyard of great ideas?

An educator I know once said that trying to change or reform our schools is like trying to change a flat tire on a speeding car—something that needs to be done but is nearly impossible to achieve. Apparently, that is the conclusion of one of America’s most gifted and respected “mechanics” of school reform.

Diane Ravitch has changed her mind. The educational historian, policy wonk and one-time Washington bureaucrat has given up on federally mandated accountability and school choice. She is discouraged by the negative effects resulting from the government’s focus on intensive testing of math and literacy, citing the lack of attention to other subjects, such as the arts, history, science and literature. So, too, with the mediocre academic improvements of charter schools, reported in several studies. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, Ravitch concluded:

On our present course, we are disrupting communities, dumbing down our schools, giving students false reports of their progress, and creating a private sector that will undermine public education without improving it. Most significantly, we are not producing a generation of students who are more knowledgeable, and better prepared for the responsibilities of citizenship. That is why I changed my mind about the current direction of school reform.

For nearly one hundred years, attempts have been made to bring about change in American schools with very mixed results. Many of these reform efforts have been fueled by philosophical debates as to what the purpose of schools should be. For example, in the early 1900s, with the development of factories, which were seen as a more efficient way of producing goods, some people argued that students could be more efficiently educated if schools looked and functioned more like factories. They also thought that students would become better adult workers if their schools used more industrial techniques such as standardization and assembly lines. Opponents, such as John Dewey, thought that schools should educate students to be good thinkers and citizens who, as adults, would work to bring about a better, more equitable society. Thus, our schools shifted and became more democratic.

The most recent movement to bring about change in our schools grew out of an influential 1983 report by the National Commission on Excellence in Education entitled, A Nation At Risk. In clear and forceful language, the Reagan instigated Commission described what it called a “rising tide of mediocrity” in the schools. The report demanded that this tide be stemmed through a greater focus on the academic achievement of students. Ms. Ravitch was one of the leading scholars to enlist in President Reagan’s effort to turn back that rising tide of mediocrity.

In the 27 years since A Nation At Risk was released, limited progress has been made toward reforming schools, particular with regard to the reform’s primary target: gains in academic achievement. Since the publishing of A Nation At Risk, we have seen a blizzard of national and state reports, most hitting many of the same themes, and all calling for massive change in the way we educate our children.

Last February, our then new President declared that education was one of his top three priorities. Right now the other two, the economy and health care, are generating their fair share of critical response. However, the reaction to his educational plans for the nation’s schools has ranged between bored glances from most of the American public and to broad smiles from the teachers’ unions.

It is a hoary presidential cliché to announce that the education of our children is of fundamental importance to our nation. Every US president nestled in my aging memory bank has declared himself “the Education President” and surrounded himself at photo ops with dozens of smiling, carefully orchestrated multiracial faces. President Obama is no exception.

There is a growing question in the US over why we need an “Education President” or, for that matter, why a “Health Care President” or an “Automotive President.” There is a growing resistance to government overreach, particularly when they still botch up the mail and the postal service is threatening to cut back service to five days a week. What does a president who has spent his educational life in fancy private schools and who is sending his own children to an exclusive private school know about public education? The same critique can be made of the members of congress who have overwhelmingly avoided public education in favor of private schools for their children. On the other hand, politicians have never been noted for humility in the face of a social problem.

More than humility, however, serious educational change needs courage, courage to take on the school’s eight hundred pound gorilla, the teacher unions. There are sound reasons for teachers to band together and form unions. Teaching, particularly in today’s schools, is a very hard job. Kids come to school with little impulse control and self discipline and various embedded habits of pleasure addiction. Trying to get students to do the work required for serious learning in an environment where one has little authority or power would reduce a drill sergeant to tears. However, in their current form, teacher unions are little interested in the plight of the classroom teacher and give little only lip-service to educational reform.

While they posture about school reform and will allow minor changes, such as salary bonuses for highly skilled or high need area teachers, the union bureaucrats are committed to keep their power over the public schooling. They do this through sheer political power. They own the Democratic Party from Main Street to the White House and their highly paid leaders know in their bones that introducing the free market means the end of their educational monopoly and their power.

The charter school movement is a case in point. While charter schools represent an opportunity for innovative teaching and greater parental choice and involvement, the unions and their well-rewarded politicians have been fighting a rear-guard battle against them for fifteen years. Realizing the high level of support for them, the unions grudgingly gave ground. However, through their extensive political influence, they have made sure the numbers of charter schools have been carefully limited and the financial constraints on them have been severe.

The Educational Establishment, of which the teachers unions are just one factor, does not cherish interference from outsiders (read: parents). However, parents obviously are the ones who care most about the education of their children. For most parents, though, interest in schooling is a short-term concern. Unlike their church, or town governance or the local hospital, where commitments tend to be long and deep, schooling is a transitory concern. Parents do get involved , if they get involved at all, during the period their children are in schools. Just about the time they understand what is going on, their children graduate and they de-couple.

Educational reform is not for sissies, as Ms Ravitch has discovered. Change in schooling, like most change, is long, hard and demanding work. It has been said that the only one who likes change is a baby with a wet diaper.

Kevin Ryan founded the Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character at Boston University, where he is professor emeritus. He has written and edited 20 books. He has appeared on CBS's "This Morning", ABC's "Good Morning America", "The O’Reilly Factor", CNN and the Public Broadcasting System speaking on character education. He can be reached at kryan@bu.edu.

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