Education: The Tunnel Back

Education: The Tunnel Back

Education, defined as the imparting and acquiring of knowledge through teaching and learning, has been one of the foundations of American social and economic success. Historically, the introduction of universal public education in this country has been a cornerstone of our democracy. It is the poor's most reliable social path for upward mobility. It is thus tragic to witness that promise to America's poor disintegrate into a failing public education system. Gangs, drugs, and violence are too often found in poor neighborhood schools, with discipline becoming the first casualty. Academic achievement becomes non-competitive in an increasingly competitive world. Middle-class neighborhoods suffer less from the existence of gangs and violence, but many also have unacceptable levels of drug abuse. Here again, discipline and order are often less than desirable; academic achievement as well is too frequently disappointing.

Globalization and transnational competition, fueled by the mushrooming internet technology, no longer afford us the safety of the domestic employment of yesteryear. The playing field has been leveled, and our children will compete for internet-based jobs with the children of the world. The only remaining question is who will enjoy a better education. As more and more jobs go overseas, our economic power will be comparatively reduced; so will, inherently, our military supremacy. For America to remain the preeminent global superpower, American children must be the best educated.

Money alone is not the answer; desperate calls to throw more money at the problem will not bring us victory. Let's remember that we spend more per capita than any other country, yet we are behind more than thirty other nations in critical areas. India and China today greatly outpace our production of scientists and engineers, and there is a significant deficit in other areas as well. Even in our own highest education schools, we are out-competed; as much as half the graduate engineering students in American schools are foreign. Not that we do not benefit from educating foreign students in our schools. Many schools would have to close without them, and a significant number of graduate foreign students have in the past remained in America after graduation, adding to our brain pool. The issue is that most of them return home and the balance continues to tilt and not in our favor.

The net results are not much better in our primary and secondary schools, where we are relegated to the celebration of minimal improvements in the comparatively dismal levels of math and reading scores. There are reports suggesting that one-third of our children drop out of high school. In poor neighborhoods, the figure is reported to be frequently higher than fifty percent. These statistics seem to affect all American groups except the Orientals. It may be accurate to say that Oriental children are not smarter than the rest of our children; perhaps their parents just have not yet stopped disciplining them. Teachers, often left at the mercy of intimidation from some unruly students and some equally unruly parents, have, in too many instances, thrown up their hands and surrendered to our American educational reality. Many concerned but exasperated parents, more often than not, follow suit. Politicians are, as usual, content with squeezing some credit out of rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.

Where could we start changing? Fundamental transformation is not necessary. At least this article is not an attempt to reinvent American Education. Neither curriculum selection nor pedagogical methodology is being addressed here. Structural organization, proportional funding, and rules of order are the areas of immediate interest. The greatest drawback to our public education organization may be its tendency toward universal inclusion in the student population mainstream. With some exemptions for serious emotional or behavioral dysfunction, the bulk of the student population is housed together in ever-larger school buildings. The academic performance of these schools is set at whatever level they can collectively achieve, not at the level that competing institutions in other neighborhoods and abroad are demonstrating as desirable, as if their children were not preparing to compete as adults in the real world. We have to consider the creation of a dual or multi-tier system where the greatest possible number of students can reach a pre-set competitive level of academic standard. The balance of the student population would be provided education at the highest attainable level. We need a structure where no child is left behind, but no child is held behind.

Most important the school system has to become transparent to parents. Video cameras, which are already used in many school hallways, may be a valuable addition to the classroom as well. The quality of teaching and student behavior would dramatically improve if classes were recorded. Evaluations of teacher competence and student behavior would become evidently clear. Access to recorded classes could be limited to viewing by school principals and review boards or, in its far-reaching application, available in real-time to parents via the Internet. Millions of Americans throughout society now work under the eye of video cameras.

The disproportional distribution of funding in the public school system is perhaps the direct result of a system of county and city-based property taxes. Affluent counties accumulate adequate funding for their schools, while poor neighborhoods await government handouts. Wealthy segments of society set aside school cash, which is deductible from their state and federal taxation, while state legislatures turn a blind eye to crumbling and malfunctioning schools in poor neighborhoods. This economics determined separate and unequal structure needs to be altered, not by busing the students, but by equalizing conditions. It would, by necessity, require higher spending in the poorer areas.

Discipline and order must be dramatically improved throughout the public school system. Many articles have been written documenting countless horror stories, ranging from refusal to do homework to murder. Schools in the upper-tier system must adopt a credible policy of expulsion. Administrators in all schools should have an unlimited supply of school guards, academic tutors, and family intervention counselors and investigators. The desperately needed infusion of trained manpower must become available.

We will never be able to address this problem with insufficient resources any more than we have been able to pacify Iraq. National service conscription of young Americans across the board may be necessary, with the use of a fair universal lottery system. The nation must finally transcend the paralyzing intimidation of the civil rights explosions and the anti-Viet Nam War youth revolution. We should stop expecting so little from our youth; it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and they are not the better for it. Most Americans would support a draft system that offers a free choice between military service and a host of civilian social services. Those draftees who freely choose the military option would be part of what would continue to be an all-volunteer military. The others, presumably the great majority, would provide many of our social institutions with desperately needed manpower at a plausibly affordable price. They would become a rotating, but endless supply of well-trained supplemental labor. This would be a labor supply, which could be decreased as easily as it could be increased to respond to changing needs; no high salaries, work contracts or pension plans would exist to hamper the progression. Those draftees, who refuse to serve, would in the process forfeit many of the perks of American citizenship, which they now unthinkingly take for granted as birth rights. Why don't we decisively tackle some of our major national problems without surrendering to them; why don't we let our young people make us and them selves proud by joining us in the effort?

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