Why

Why do we as a nation care so strongly about being competitive even dominant in the Olympics, but seem totally unconcerned about out education performance against the global competition? The National Academies Press just released an update to their report The Gathering Storm which 5 years ago pointed to the need for much better math and science education because innovation and technical prowess have been the key to our economic success and job creation. One of the many factoids to make their point was “The World Economic Forum ranks the United States 48th in quality of math and science education.” Thus, being competitive in the education of our children has real value, much higher than that of being best in overall Olympic success.

Is it sane to ignore the reality that continually comes out showing how poorly we do in preparing our kids for the competition they will face from their global peers? Many of whom are much better prepared for the most important “game” they will play. Why are our priorities so “out of whack?”

Is our national pride in Olympic competitiveness more important than the preservation of our lifestyle and standard of living which is being threatened by our attitude of leaving the education of our kids to the education “experts” who aren’t. We seem to feel that always supporting more money for schools is fulfilling our duty. It is very clear that if educators were really expert the results would be far better than they are. Over the last 5 plus decades the education spending per student has risen at about twice the rate of inflation. Yet, our performance educationally has floundered getting worse in comparison to the competition because they are improving briskly while we improve not at all or at a snail’s pace. Where has all the money gone you might ask? To enrich the educators, it has not helped the kids get a better education at all.

I believe many educators are well meaning, but I also know that they are unable to face the truth of their performance in their politically correct, Group Think world. If you are unable to face the truth, you certainly will not be able to improve your performance no matter how much money a foolish public directs your way. The new movie, Waiting for Superman is bringing attention to the problem of poor performance. It is particularly telling about the impact that our “don’t work” education process has on the gap children. However, the conclusions that it draws are very superficial and do not address the most important problems that require addressing if things are to get better for our kids educationally. To lay the foundation for pointing out what makes up those “make or break” impediments to improvement, a definition of the key constituencies in the education fiefdom must be understood.

• The Education Schools; Faculties, deans, researchers
• The Federal and State Departments of Education
• The District Administrators; Superintendents, Assistant Superintendents, Central Office Specialists, Principals and Assistant Principals
• Teachers; Teacher Unions, Teacher Assistants, Library Specialists, Para- Professionals
• School Boards at State and Local District Levels
• Book Publishers

This is not intended to be an exhaustive list but it does cover the biggest leverage areas in education. E.D. Hirsch comments in The Knowledge Deficit that an army of American educators have been taught “technically incorrect” education principles in their ed school training. He points out that what American educators “know” about education is different than what educators in other nations who are teaching their kids more effectively know. Yet the insular, defensive, delusional, and inbred education fiefdom is adept at suppressing this truth. Thus, for decades (beginning in the 1930s) American educators have been trained consistently in the same wrong principles. This continuous “poisoning” of the well of American education knowledge is a huge problem and is far more important to address than other areas given current focus. The key shortfall here is that the education schools teach the “how-to” process to the virtual exclusion of subject knowledge. Research shows that the “how-to” process doesn’t work and cannot work. While some kids will learn no matter how poor the education system because they have the safety net of parents who understand the subjects and can teach them outside of school or they have access to tutoring, private schools or other support mechanisms, many depend on the schools doing what they are supposed to do. They are the ones who are most harmed by the current system.

An extension of the education school impact is that their leadership programs do not produce effective leaders if anything more than preserving the status quo is required. You may be shocked by this assertion but if you deny it is a problem, then why is the performance of our education system so poor? This problem is very well documented. One of the most thorough and complete reports on the education school leadership programs is available in Arthur Levine’s (2005) Educating School Leaders. He concluded after studying every degree granting education school in the land that “they confer masters on those who display anything but mastery and doctorates in name only.” He also stated that they were in a race to the bottom and that the ed doctorate has no value in any public school administration job. So, why are most districts led by doctorate holders. Because the boards of education like the sound of the title and are able to kid themselves that a doctor title guarantees the ability to perform. In fact, it does carry a guarantee; that the person won’t be able to lead the needed productive change required.

Based on the above you might ask why do we still have the education schools providing a huge negative drag on our education performance that harms millions of kids? GOOD QUESTION. But to be honest, the people who have the degrees don’t want to admit they were defrauded and their education is not up to the task. This is especially true since the worthless degrees are used to justify higher pay scales and status for those who have them. The education system is very insular and defensive. They are careful to prevent as many outsiders, without the education school brainwashing in erroneous theories, from gaining entry into the fiefdom. They don’t want capable and truly educated outsiders coming in and performing in a way that casts doubt on their own credentials. And since the education system is run to benefit the adults who work there, the students continue to get dumped on decade after decade.

Thus, the two most important problems to solve are to correct the educators’ knowledge of what really works (expecting them to use the new knowledge immediately) and to upgrade the quality of education leadership. Fixing these problems is doable without throwing a bunch more money at the system. The currently available money will have to be spent differently to be sure but it will be far more productive than the current practices. Cutting back on the funding of the current harmful activities would only help the kids.

Thus, while the conventional wisdom lays the blame for poor performance predominately at the feet of the teachers unions that does not address the real and much bigger foundational problems of educators trained in faulty theories and the curricula that go with them. Plus, the lack of management competence among administrators adds the “stuck in the rut” permanence to the problems. The dual highest priorities are to upgrade the teachers and administrators in what they need to know and didn’t learn in education school. Don’t get me wrong, it is worth working on the union problems but that alone will not fix the problem and thus must take a lower priority than installing the right curricula, teachers who know the subjects adequately enough to teach them well and leaders who know how to lead productive change.

This will take a motivated public to insist that the kids take top priority in our education system, really. I say really because there is unending lip service to serving the kids well now especially when the adults in education want more money for their pay and benefits. Also, the education power groups have enormous political power through funding “in their pocket” politicians. This power can only be overcome by an active and united electorate who realize that the very future of our nation requires that we must solve this problem and that politicians who don’t agree need to be given their walking papers.