Make education great again!

Imagine these words as the first speech delivered by the incoming Secretary of Education.

Today, I am here to deliver bitter medicine: American education has failed. Teachers and parents, administrators and government—and even students—all bear some responsibility.

The most common explanations for our educational crisis are inadequate funding, overuse of standardized testing, and systemic prejudice. They are false.

  • Our schools do not lack funding—no country spends more on public education.
  • The poor results of standardized tests indicate our failures; they are not the cause.
  • Our schools are not prejudiced—the most aggressive education reforms since 1955 directly aimed to eliminate systemic discrimination.

For decades, we ignored signs of trouble, but the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the depth of our challenges. The problems are so pervasive and complex that there is no quick fix. We cannot merely repair; we must rebuild.

Since 2020, American families have struggled mightily. The declining quality of education prompted affluent families to opt out of public schools, leaving middle- and working-class families with diminished resources and influence to push for reform. States' refusal to enact school choice reforms widened the wealth gap and limited generational mobility.

But lower- and middle-class families bear some responsibility, too. The rise of single-parent households, less common among affluent families, has been catastrophic. When the only adult in the home works up to 60 hours a week to make ends meet, there is little time for homework help, PTA meetings, or engaging with school officials. Even in households with two working parents, time and energy are often in short supply.

Teachers, for their part, have good reason to despair. Despite the monumental importance of their work, many are underpaid. They face administrators who value standardized test scores above all else. Meanwhile, declining standards for decorum and discipline, often justified in the name of "social justice," have made schools unsafe for both teachers and students. Violence and insubordination create an environment unfit for serious learning. Some parents treat schools as daycare centers or demand good grades for minimal effort. Worse, parents of disruptive students often refuse to ensure their children do not rob others of the opportunity to learn.

Yet teachers, too, have failed. They inflate grades to keep their jobs but do no favors for students unprepared for future challenges. This, in turn, lowers the quality of education for students ready for more advanced work, driving gifted students out of public schools.

Another harsh truth is that many teachers are unprepared for the job. The education system has failed for so long that many teachers have never mastered the material they are supposed to teach. Colleges steer future educators toward "education" majors, where coursework focuses more on leftist "social justice" ideology than on subject mastery. Some graduates believe their mission is to "dismantle" an "unjust" society by creating anti-American activists.

When these activist-teachers enter classrooms, they often abandon their duty to transmit America's culture, knowledge, and values. Instead, they teach students to disdain their nation, its people, its past, and its way of life. This undermines social cohesion and deprives disadvantaged students of the tools they need to succeed.

Outdated curricula exacerbate these issues. Most schools still use models from the late 20th century, failing to address how computing, the internet, and artificial intelligence have transformed how we read, write, and learn. Even in innovative schools, teachers often struggle to balance the needs of non-native English speakers with those of native speakers, diluting the educational experience for the latter.

Our colleges and universities are also broken. Admitting underprepared students has lowered academic standards nationwide. General education curricula often assume a need for remediation, leaving motivated students without the challenge or preparation they deserve.

Government-run financial aid has inflated tuition costs while diminishing the value of college degrees. Proposals to cancel student debt signal to universities that they can continue raising prices without consequence, encouraging predatory admission policies that saddle students with unmanageable debt.

 

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How do we revitalize American education?

Nothing short of an academic Sputnik will suffice. Just as Sputnik spurred the urgency that sent Americans to the moon, we need a bold initiative to revolutionize education:

  • We will create K-12 curricula prioritizing history, civics, and an understanding of our government.
  • We will eliminate curricula that divide Americans by race, class, religion, sex, or sexual identity.
  • We will implement school choice nationwide.
  • We will end federal student loan programs, allowing private lenders to evaluate borrowers' ability to repay. Conditional lending will force colleges to lower tuition and revise admissions and program offerings.
  • We will expand vocational training and enhance opportunities for gifted students.
  • We will raise teacher credentialing standards to ensure advanced subject knowledge.
  • We will enforce decorum and discipline in schools. Uniforms will unify student bodies, and measures like suspension and expulsion will ensure classrooms are conducive to learning.
  • We will revise college accreditation standards to reflect post-graduation success and employment metrics.
  • We will penalize public colleges and universities that engage in discriminatory admissions practices.

And that is just the beginning.

The destiny of our nation depends on education. The effort to revitalize our schools must be as bold as our aspirations. Together, we will bring American education into the 21st century. Together, we will make American education great again.   


Would these ideas work where you live?  


This article has been republished with permission from RealClearEducation.

Adam Ellwanger is a professor at the University of Houston–Downtown, where he teaches rhetoric and writing. He is also a Higher Education Fellow at The Leadership Institute’s Campus Reform.

Image credit: Bigstock 


 

Showing 15 reactions

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  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-11-27 16:12:21 +1100
    I can only speak from the perspective of my children’s experience with Australian public schools.

    When we arrived in Australia we sent our kids to a local public school within easy walking distance – 3km – of our house.

    The teachers were terrific.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-11-26 08:09:35 +1100
    “Schools serve the teachers” spoken like someone who has never taught in public school, Marty.
  • David Page
    commented 2024-11-26 04:53:27 +1100
    Marty, is that all you have? You have typos in your reply to me. Did you know? Ranking education by state; Massachusetts is #1band Texas is #41. Why do you think that is? And, unless my information is fauly, Michael Cook chose to do his higher education in Massachusetts. Why not Texas?
  • Malcolm McLean
    commented 2024-11-26 03:37:48 +1100
    You need a decent religious school with teachers who know what they are doing. But it’s not that hard to educate children if you yourself love learning or science.
    http://malcolmmclean.github.io/babyxrc/StToms/index.html
  • mrscracker
    Mr. Marty, I think we’re mostly on the same page but to be fair, we all make typos from time to time. And I haven’t been able to discover an edit feature in these comments for my own typos.
    I sincerely hope Pres. Trump dismantles the federal Dept. of Education. That could use an edit/delete option also.
    :)
  • Marty Hayden
    commented 2024-11-26 01:03:51 +1100
    O.K. so this post will probably be taken down, but here it goes. DAVID PAGE you clearly are a sharp, highly educated individual. You are a testament to liberals everywhere. Take, for example, your use of the word ‘are’ instead of ‘our’ to refer to the quality of education in your fair state. Heck, even this Texan knows when someones grammar our wrong.
  • Marty Hayden
    commented 2024-11-26 00:56:19 +1100
    Contrary to popular option, schools are not there to serve the students first. Schools primarily serve the parents, the teachers and then the students. Also, the ultimate issue with our broken education system is the broken nuclear family. Could anyone disagree that students from single family homes have the deck stacked against them?
  • David Page
    commented 2024-11-24 09:52:39 +1100
    Education benefits everyone, unless you are in the business of dismantling a democracy.
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-11-23 17:12:42 +1100
    Let’s go over these one by one.

    -We will create K-12 curricula prioritizing history, civics, and an understanding of our government.

    Sounds like a good idea. Presumably the curriculum will explain how government REALLY works – you know, the amount it costs to be elected and how this puts legislators at the mercy of wealthy donors, the gerrymandering and voter suppression camouflaged as making elections more secure, the great, high paid jobs in the corporate sectors that awaits legislators and senior civil servants who “behave” themselves, the pork barrelling, the deliberate spreading of misinformation and disinformation, the fact that The Pentagon has failed to pass an audit for seven years, the dark money that is laundered through eg the Chamber of Commerce, the lobbying, the swiss cheese tax codes that enables legalised tax evasion…. I could go on but I think you get it. Are you going to explain all this to the kids so they get a real understanding of how government actually works?

    —We will eliminate curricula that divide Americans by race, class, religion, sex, or sexual identity.

    So you’re not going to cover slavery, Jim Crow, women struggling for the vote, the battles between corporations and trade unions – all this sort of stuff is going to be left out of the curriculum?

    —We will end federal student loan programs, allowing private lenders to evaluate borrowers’ ability to repay. Conditional lending will force colleges to lower tuition and revise admissions and program offerings.

    Good one

    —We will expand vocational training and enhance opportunities for gifted students.

    Details please. Would it include, say, a generous system of scholarships for able kids from deprived backgrounds to enter tertiary education.

    —We will raise teacher credentialing standards to ensure advanced subject knowledge.

    Good one but will you make the conditions of service, which includes pay, attractive enough to retain people like that?

    —We will enforce decorum and discipline in schools. Uniforms will unify student bodies, and measures like suspension and expulsion will ensure classrooms are conducive to learning.

    Good one

    —We will revise college accreditation standards to reflect post-graduation success and employment metrics.

    Sounds good but not sure what it means in practice.

    —We will penalize public colleges and universities that engage in discriminatory admissions practices

    Good one.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-11-23 08:15:42 +1100
    What if we removed state government from local communities? It always struck me as hypocritical that the Texas state house wants to impose its big government rules and regulations on local municipalities and cities.
  • mrscracker
    Removing the federal govt from state & local education might be a start.
    I’m not a fan of everything Bill Gates has funded but his early college program is the highest performing high school in our state.
  • David Page
    commented 2024-11-23 02:25:23 +1100
    I’m from Massachusetts. Are schools can compete with any in the world. Of course we get lumped in with Mississippi and Texas, and all the other"conservative" states.
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2024-11-23 00:14:08 +1100
    The US has one of the worst rates of poverty and homelessness in the industrialized world. It’s no coincidence that its educational achievement is similarly abyssmal.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-11-22 23:24:50 +1100
    Someone should ask Linda McMahon if she approved of the Katie Vick storyline at her confirmation hearing.

    Someone should also ask why she lied about having a degree in education
  • Adam Ellwanger
    published this page in The Latest 2024-11-22 21:18:39 +1100