IMPACT OF HIGH SCHOOL PREPARATION
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our kids' test scores in math and science are among the lowest in the indus–
trialized world (we must take what comfort we can from knowing that on
the most recent international study of general math knowledge our kids
did better than those of Cyprus; in science they beat Lithuania), well,
they're going on to college anyway.
It
will take time and a lot of effort to carry the day. But
if
charter
schools succeed in showing what children can learn from teachers who
have not been trained by the ed schools and are not controlled by the
unions, it may be possible to create a system in which the idea of a com–
mon culture can prevail and be extended.
Where to begin? Well, to paraphrase Dick the Butcher in
Henry VI,
the
first thing we do, let's kill all the education professors. But that being an
impractical suggestion, we have to content ourselves with trying to wake up an
indifferent public to the facts of the case: how an ideological agenda (whatJohn
O'Sullivan of
National Review
has called "liberal utopianism") has pushed out
core knowledge, replacing academic effort with political indoctrination, sub–
stituting attitudes for basic skills. Public awareness of the issues is the necessary
precondition for public arousal; it means finding ways of reaching people with
other things on their minds, overcoming their inertia, and motivating them to
support change. Conferences like this are nice, but we're
all
friends and we
need to get the attention of strangers, to
talk
not just to each other but to them.
It can be done, and in fact the national uproar over the publication of
the infamous government-supported u.S. and world history standards in
1994--the many articles, op-ed pieces, and letters to the editor it occa–
sioned-lit a spark that shouldn't be allowed to die out. There is a potential
force for change
if
the voting public can be made aware of the mess that is
public education today and the extent to which the schools have been co–
opted by the federal government/ ed school/ teachers'
union
complex.
That force should be brought to bear on governors and state legisla–
tures to allow the operation of greater numbers of charter schools and,
once the legislation is in place, on state education departments and local
school boards to grant their approval to more of them. At the same time
more private foundations should be encouraged to fund charter schools and
voucher programs. And if independent-that means truly bipartisan-local
boards can be insulated from political pressures, it might be possible to
begin loosening up the system and restoring learning as the main activity
in the classroom.
What has to happen, though,
if
real change is to occur, is an end to the
requirement of a degree in education as the ticket to a teaching job. We
may not be able to do away with ed school, but we can make it superflu–
ous. I can't think of a single thing that would be more conducive to the
health of the nation's young and the promise of its citizenry. Thank you.
