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TechnoratiThe change they forgot about: education
If the critically wounded were treated first, bailouts wouldn't be handed to car manufacturers, but to schools.
Amid all the bad economic news and forecasts of financial troubles, the TV news in recent days carried the upbeat news of the US’s First Family-elect carefully choosing a new school for their two girls. The Obamas are moving the girls from one private school to another, from the University of Chicago’s Laboratory School to Washington’s Sidwell Friends School. It is a touching story of concerned parents working to identify which educational setting will best serve the needs of their children.
What a natural, human scene: parents, who have the ultimate responsibility for raising their children and who know them most intimately, making the choice for their best educational environment. The tragedy (a word I have selected carefully) is that the reality of such a choice is, de facto, denied to the great bulk of America parents.
The Obamas are just the latest in a long line of US politicians who mouth bromides, such as, “Our children our this nation’s most valuable natural resources,” and then support policies that ensure this natural resource remains “undeveloped.” While mouthing their devotion to the quality education of the nation’s children, our leaders are being handed huge bribes (AKA campaign contributions) to ensure that the great majority of our children continue to be trapped in failing public schools.
The recent, seemingly endless, political campaign was filled with talk about change, change in the conduct of the war, change in our health care system and even some rather vague and airy talk about change in education. And certainly the American public... right, left, and center… is in the mood for change.
We are told, though, that the economy is the first and foremost change target. And the strategy is bailout. Bailout is reported to be the mechanism for change. Bailout is the solution. Everyone seems to be lining up for a bailout. First at the bailout trough came the banks, but right behind them are the US automakers, followed by several states, a few cities, the credit card industry, the airlines, and the universities. (Personally, I have been frantically trying to find the end of bailout line, but I’m warned that our Treasury will run out of cash long before find the line.)
However, change can come to our elementary and secondary schools without a cash bailout. For real change we needed an intellectual bailout, a fresh set of ideas to correct the errors of the past and get our school back on track. Let me suggest two such changes.
The reality of public education
The first change is to get rid of the deceptive word “public”, as in “public education”. “Public” means “devoted to the general or nation’s welfare.” Right now 88 percent of the nation’s 50 million children are in the state-supported school system and receive 99.9 percent of the federal, state and local tax monies. The welfare of the other 12 percent is, if anything, hindered by the state. The great majority of the parents of this 12 percent of unsupported students have to dig deep into their paychecks to buy the education they believe necessary for their children.
The nasty, political fact is that “public schools” exist primarily for the benefit of teachers unions and their membership. While other countries with comparatively excellent schools have been able to support all students, our leaders aren’t seriously interested in this issue. Like a low grade toothache, you stop noticing it after a while. On the other hand, those intoxicating dollars keep flooding in to our politicians from the teachers unions. The use of the word “public” is just a ruse to keep monies and restrictive rules in the hands of the state schools. A just and intelligent state, particularly at a time when the cost of education are so high, should be supporting all children.
Are parents too dumb to choose schools for their kids?
The second change is a bailout from the idea that bureaucrats, whether federal, state or local, know what is a good education for a particular child. Or said another way, that parents are too dumb or too unconcerned to make a sensible choice of schools for their children. Instead, we must leave it to the nanny state and our current educational experts who have created our embarrassingly failing schools.
The fundamental educational question has been and always will be, “What is most worth knowing?” What should children being learning? What will they need to become successful and fulfilled individuals? Besides the questionable anomaly that the state can answer this better than parents, there is a deeper question: Should the State dictate the formal intellectual training of a child from age 4 to 17 or 18? The state, like any organization, business or organism, is primarily concerned with perpetuating itself. That is natural and the way of the world. But is it right?
The state educational systems in every country with which I am familiar spends an inordinate amount of the students’ time learning about (being propagandized?) about itself and very little effort goes into teaching about other governmental and political ways to organize human activity. Again, at a certain level this makes sense, but recent history can document several instances, such as Nazi Germany and Communist North Korea, where the state’s educational system did not promote the human good.
While the analog to the Nazi and Communist educational system may seem over-the-top, it doesn’t appear that way to the many parents of the now two million children who are being homeschooled. These parents see a public school system that has aggressively reject their Judeo-Christian values and replaced them with palette of secularist values from anti-business environmentalism to full-throated acceptance of all “lifestyles,” living arrangements and sexual practices. To be opposed to this educational (read: political) agenda is to be tarred with that worst of all educational epithets: intolerance.
Hoping for real While it is heartwarming to see the First Family-elect carefully deciding about the proper setting for their daughters, it turns sour in the mouth when you draw back from this picture. Drawing back we see a city of parents forced by the law and economic realities to send their children to arguably the worst schools in North America. We see a city controlled by federal politicians who themselves won’t consider for a nanosecond sending their own children to the city’s public schools. We see some 60,000 students trapped in a corrupting environment and one which is systematically dooming their chances of living productive, successful lives.
Real change will not come until the public school’s monopoly is broken and educational decision-making is firmly in the hands of individual parents. Choice needs to be the new change in education. A primary justification for the current enthusiasm for bailouts is that this bank or that automotive company is “too big to fail”. That shouldn’t stop an educational bailout. Our big, bloated public school system is already failing.
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 recently 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
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Lastly, to complete the analogy, the current financial bailout came with strings attached in the form of new rules and constrains to the private banking… is that what is proposed? To raise the regulations and control over private schools?
Perhaps the choice of words was not well done after all (neither mine… looking for the present comments, my comment isn’t very constructive; I apologize and I’ll try to the better next time).
PS. We could have followed the Sweden model reported by Michele, of course, but she forgot to mention another drawback: that Sweden is supported by one of the biggest income taxes rates of the world. They have my admiration, still.
PS.PS.: The author has a point with the politicians preference for private schools in USA however. But he didn’t went far enough. I also think they should use only public transports when possible (if they were good enough for Olav V of Norway too, why not?...)
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Curious choice of words, the need for an “intellectual bailout” of the education… I find interesting the use of the word “bailout”, no doubt due to its success as a new buzz word, but shall we remind in what context it appears?
The current financial crisis has origin in the need of the banks to diversify their products portfolio to gain clients and revenue. Since there are not much it can be done to diversify the business of lending and borrowing (money in different colors, perhaps?), one of the options was to bet on high risk products, which had to pay well of course, but high risk nevertheless… The bet ran well, fortunes were made, wealth started to be based on them, and companies with presumably solid situations ended mined by those, their value inflated directly or indirectly by actives of high risk. And of course, when some of these castles of cards started to felt down, the apparent solid buildings based on them felt down too, and others with them… a mighty building crumbling because some of its foundations were made of paper. The banks convinced the politicians no regulation were necessary because the market knew what were the right safety specs to apply, and the result was this, a desperate public “bailout” to reinforce the foundations still left in existence, more desperate now that they risk to crumble under excess weight. That or evacuate the building.
I find this inspiring. The author uses the term “bailout” but, are we reading the same story? Because he rants against the public system of education (that common-denominator organization which only exists to “benefit of teachers unions"), but which plays in my story the role of those dull, safe products which used to be the core merchandise of the banks, not shining enough today. And his arguments against the “bureaucrats” and in favor of “parents” who knows best, are very alike “my” banks convincing politicians they know best too. And last, like the “toxic” credits, so the education is like a long duration gamble for the student… he might discover he made a bad bet too late to change easily. I have been encounter this kind of rhetoric in my country for years, due to greed for the Education market, but coincidence or not, I haven’t seen it much lately… it helps perhaps the existence of a private university here in risk of closing due to illegalities and bad management, darkening the future of all its students. Reasons for a “Bailout” perhaps?
Tim: There is not ‘one’ way forward: there are many. Computers are hugely useful to students, teachers, writers, artists, and many other people who value quality education.
Jack: Thank you for these observations. It is impossible, in retirement, for me to keep up with everything that is vitally important to civilisation.
Since I have been an educator all my life, first in America and subsequently, for the greater part of adulthood, in Australia, I particularly appreciate the trouble you have taken.
I would have missed Archbishop Tomasi’s wonderful comments if you hadn’t alerted me to them. And I did not know about Germany’s appalling retention of neo-Nazi prohibitions against home schooling.
To Monica:
The only way to “afford” private education is to come together with like-minded people (in my experience, usually a specific religious community), focus on the basics (no computers, fancy schoolyard equipment, often in rented church basements), and practice a truly cooperative, and character-forming, educational community. It is the voluntary agreement of people of different means supporting one another, to achieve a common end: the excellent basic education of their children. I have worked on such a project in the last few years. While it is challenging (as any small, community-based project is) and sacrifices must be made (financial and otherwise), it is the only way forward. We must stop waiting for the state to support alternative schooling. This education will not be typical private school education; but in many ways it is better. Check out the Association of Christian Classical Schools website, a collection of hundreds of Christian liberal arts schools that has “walked the walk” and are working together.
Article at link)
An “inclusive” education means that which respects the rights of parents to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children, a Vatican Cardinal told the U.N.’s International Conference on Education last week.
Citing the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s permanent observer at the U.N. offices in Geneva, said, “Educators should remain aware that they carry out their service in cooperation with parents, who are the first ‘educational agency’ and have the priority right and duty to educate their children. This convergence of efforts is an evident application of the basic principle of subsidiarity.”
The concept of subsidiarity in Catholic social teaching means that the needs of the individual are best served by the stratum of society closest to him, starting with the family. Catholic teaching holds that it is the purpose of the state to safeguard the family and the family’s rights. This doctrine is directly opposed to the high-level statist concepts of social theory that are currently at the fore in the UN and European Union, where governments are creating increasingly tightly regulated social conditions.
Tomasi’s assertion on the rights of parents is directly opposed by some European countries, most notably Germany, which retains a Nazi-era law forbidding homeschooling. In recent years, parents who have chosen to shield their children from the heavily secularised, and sexualised, state education have been hounded in the courts and had their children seized by the state.
Archbishop Tomasi also criticized the emphasis on “efficiency” in education and in society in general, saying that the global financial crisis is a “concrete lesson” in what happens when a society subordinates the needs of the individual to utilitarian ideals.
“‘Inclusion’ works through the promotion of a society that respects the dignity of every human person and goes beyond criteria of efficiency.”
“Only the person that conceives relations with others beyond criteria of productivity and control can value reality in a balanced perspective and assume appropriate responsibility.”
To Przemo: yes, there is such a country, Sweden (where I live right now). In this country education is a right for all citizens and ‘therefore’ free. No tuitions are payed to send your children to e.g. private schools with different orientations. This makes it easy for parents to choose the school that most reflects the values that they are trying to teach at home, in principle. The drawback is that you have to find such a school in the jungle. This is not easy but possible.
In economics, monopolies tend to be inefficient, while competition drives away the inefficient ones. This is a useful principle for all of us. If there are no choices, expect the worst. The US educational system, if it really is monopolized, badly needs to find a way to create competition.
Unless Kevin Ryan is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, I don’t see why he calls Obama’s words about educational reform ‘bromides’.
It is well known that Michelle is from Chicago’s poor South Side, where the late great Mortimer Adler worked hard for years and years to improve schooling; and Barack’s origins were poor and dysfunctional. They both have expressed gratitude many times to the teachers who helped them to acquire vital forms of knowledge.
Since it is children from dysfunctional families, globally, that cause the biggest problems in schools, Barack’s entry into Michelle’s solid family, and the effects of that entry, speak volumes about his own understanding of the vital role played by emotional stability in educational progress.
This is of course NOT to suggest that we are going to see immediate educational progress in America or anywhere else on the scale required.
Finally! Someone hits the nail on the head! I totally agree with everything this article states, our educational system has gone even further down the drain (how much further can we sink?)and it started over 30 yrs ago. Maybe we need a bailout and reorganizing of our entire school system, yet parents still join PTA & PTC’s! How do we change the situation besides pulling our kids out and sending to private school (which I by the way could never afford)?! I believe this is why my parents chose to send my siblings and myself to private school so many years ago!
Thank you for bringing out so clearly the need of reform in education. It really means a widespread reform of society. The US is a nation where social movements can beat all political moves and changes. But, where is the society we live in? Many people of good will don’t seem to have enough of that good will to reach out to others, to get out of their comfort zone, they rather stay put in their “modus vivendi”. The potential is there, the people are there, the channels are open, but few are on the move. When Pope Benedict was in our country a few months ago he expressed his joy and his trust in us and I am sure he was right. I propose that praying about his words, making resolutions for today (who to reach out to, how, how much effort) will help to do this beautiful work.
Thank you for this article.
Is there a country where such a system you describe as desired works? In Poland we also have ‘the tragedy’ of hardly any choice, especially when one is not too wealthy or lives in a town.
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