“Why is public education still on the decline?”By Tom Boyden | June 21, 2010
The argument of how to best educate America's children has prevailed for over the past 50 years. Since 1957's Sputnik launch, our country placed a major emphasis on improving schooling to provide smarter and more skilled workers for our future. For decades, presidents, educators, experts and business executives made education improvement a priority. Yet public school outcomes have continued to deteriorate. In 1983, "A Nation of Risk" forcefully stated that U. S. education is in a downhill condition.
Why, in 27 years are we continuing to slide? We are no longer the world's leader in secondary education rankings. A CBS News study of high school degrees showed that 20 years ago our country's 17 year olds were ranked first compared to other industrialized countries. More recently, we ranked 21st out of 27 countries. Yet we are near the top in dollars spent on education. The National Center for Education Statistics indicates reading and mathematics scores showed no statistical difference from 1971 to 2008.
If a business demonstrated similar results, that enterprise would fail. "Going Out of Business" signs on schools are not an option.
The U.S. Department of Education stated the gap between blacks and whites on math and reading scores for eighth graders showed no substantial difference between the early 1990s and 2007. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was quoted as saying, "When more than a million students a year drop out of high school, it's more than a problem, it's a catastrophe". Educator/author Jonathan Kozol, after a visit to a Harlem school, noted that it was ranked "dead last" in reading scores of all the elementary schools in the city. It doesn't have to be this way. Some creative educators, business leaders and entrepreneurs have found ways to dramatically improve education results in a relatively short period of time. Inner-city successes include: Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children's Zone, KIPP schools, Dr. Ben Chavis's Oakland, CA, American Indian school, a myriad of charter schools across the country, and Philadelphia's principal and teacher, Salome Thomas-EL. The Eastmoor Academy High School, located in a high poverty area of Columbus, Ohio, has a 97 percent graduation rate. What is striking is that many of the recent success stories in education are from groups or individuals -- not from the existing school systems.
Joel Klein, New York City Schools chancellor, has worked hand-in-hand with the union to turn around a poorly rated public schools system. Quite an accomplishment for the country's largest school system.
Michelle Rhee, chancellor of Education in Washington, D.C. is credited with a positive transformation of that city's school system. The Washington Times recently stated, "D.C. Public Schools is a long-troubled system, and in recent weeks, Ms. Rhee has announced student gains on math, science and reading standardized tests. She is also trying to turn around the culture of the system itself.''
Working with the teachers' union, changes include implementing a non-seniority evaluation system and merit pay, and agreeing that the school system can fire poor performing teachers -- even those with tenure. Studies indicate commonalities among very successful schools: High levels of student, teacher and parental involvement, strong/consistent discipline, encouraged self-responsibility, high expectations and accountability, measured results, consequence management, strong leadership and highly qualified teachers who create a can-do environment, are knowledgeable about their students, and work longer hours. These disciplines are not any different than what is found in best-selling books on highly effective business management.
New Haven's Dr. James Comer's School Development Program is now in place in over 1000 U.S. schools. He recognized that many inner-city kids enter school "underdeveloped."
This is consistent with Comer's quest to dig deeply for causes of poor education results. He realized that all babies are born with generally the same level of intelligence. Further, children's first three years will predict how they will fare in school. His focus on educating fathers and/or mothers with effective parenting skills starts within the later months of pregnancy up through pre-kindergarten. Similarly, Jenks and Merideth's, "The Black -- White Test Score Gap" says: "Changing the way parents deal with their children may be the single most important thing we can do to improve children's cognitive skills." Could it be that we are focusing on the symptoms rather than major causes?
Truly our challenge is complex, but we have seen bench-mark successes that clearly run counter to the deteriorating general results. We have also learned that the normally adversarial relations between teachers' unions and the school systems can be turned into positive results. Clearly, it is possible to make major headway.
We must take those steps that have improved school results and replicate them throughout the country.
Public education must be a major priority. Answers must be found for the sake of our nation and its future.
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