Chapter 3 of Citizen Power: On Education (excerpts)
AFTER YEARS AND YEARS of failing schools, the federal government finally woke up to the concept of accountability. Unfortunately, their solution to the lack of accountability was No Child Left Behind, which mandates testing so "failing schools" can be identified and punished. Many politicians point to rising test scores and call that program a success.
Of course, scores will rise when teachers are forced to teach to a test and dedicate their math and reading course to teaching test-taking skills. Some principals increase time for test preparation by cutting not only art, gym and music but history and science as well. Now wonder kids are bored with school. We are shaping them into good test-takers-a bunch of pleasers who lack entrepreneurial instinct, intellectual curiosity and creative thinking.
I constantly hear people complain that kids today spend too much time playing computer games and not enough playing sports. We fear our children are becoming fat, soft, nerds. Well, playing technology games is just an extension of what our educational system values: acquiring a set of skills that allows you perform a rote task so you can get the highest score.
To improve the "system," teachers' attitudes have to continue to change. Teachers who think their students are incapable of learning very often find this to be true. Yet, a different teacher with the same class and a different assumption sees them become interested in learning.
I was not a very good student when I was a youngster growing up in Springfield, Massachusetts. I was a poor reader and had considerable difficulty in expressing myself clearly; I discovered years later it was because I was severely dyslexic. As a consequence, I became disinterested and unresponsive. School was something to be endured, not enjoyed; learning was a chore to be avoided.
In my senior year of high school, however, something happened that changed my attitude and my life. A remarkable and dedicated teacher, Brother Edgar Bourque, recognized my reticence as just a problem to be overcome. Because of his interest and his willingness to tutor me in speech and reading beyond the classroom demands, I discovered the joys of learning and was imbued with the desire to maximize my talents.
that experience or failed to benefit from it. I was one of the fortunate ones, and I often wonder how many boys and girls will never realize their full potential because there are not enough Edgar Bourques in the teaching profession or because, for some other reason, they will receive something less than the kind of education they need to develop fully and to compete well in our society.
America's Failure in Education
- One third of our children fail to graduate from high school, thereby being condemned to a sub-economic existence.
- Our children must be trained for adulthood with a year-around academic system with a minimum of at least 200 classroom days.
- We must create safe and humane environments in all schools.
- Teachers should be paid as professionals and expected to work year round, with merit pay for excellence and the system of tenure reexamined.
- Competitive and alternate forms of education should be made available through vouchers or other forms of equitable distribution of the educational dollar.
- The real estate base of educational funding should be reexamined.
- The federal government should pay more than 50% of the cost of education and establish standards and curriculum accordingly.
- Education should be made available to adults to become better qualified for their life's work and to culturally enrich their lives.
- The nation's educational goals should be equal to that of Finland, Sweden, Spain and a number of other nations which educate their children from childhood to the highest level at public expense.
- If Americans are to succeed in a competitive world and enjoy a rewarding life, they need something better than a 20th Century educational system in a cybernated 21st Century.