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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > January > 14 > Entry
Is America really stupid?
One of Get on the Bus’ regular commenters, Red Fox Mary, alerted me to last night’s 20/20 report by John Stossel provocatively called “Stupid in America.” In the piece, Stossel uses examples of a malaise he says is caused by the “government monopoly” that runs schools in this country and calls for more school choice, especially vouchers, as the antidote.
Stossel is sort of a “shock jock” in the news magazine world and this piece is quite one sided, quoting some of the most well known advocates for choice. But the piece is thought-provoking and many of his arguments are both true and fair.
But I think he falls into a common trap — thinking that there is one “magic bullet” solution to the complex problems of public education in America.
For instance, Stossel says more money won’t work but choice will. Let’s think about that.
In arguing against money he says schools have plenty they just waste it. For sure, public schools can be wasteful with money. And as he says, I have also seen “choice” option schools, in my case charter schools, that were much more effectively run financially than typical public schools. But on the other side, some of the worst financial disasters in public school that I have ever seen were charter schools that went belly up.
Here’s another money question. Why do lawmakers love to make kids repeat grades when they fail? Research has shown it is as damaging to hold a kid back than it is to pass them on when they fail a grade. The best way to handle this probably is to advance the kid to the next grade but surround them with tutoring and support to bring them up to speed as they move through the next year. But to do that would be incredibly expensive, so instead of laws that require the tutoring and support, we get laws that require kids to repeat grades. Because it ‘s punitive and it’s affordable.
And on the issue of choice. Stossel’s logic certainly makes sense and it seems completely rational to expect that school operators who depend on enrollment for their very existence would be more attuned to parent needs and be constantly working to make their schools better and more marketable. But it doesn’t always work so smoothly in practice. Choice options, voucher and charter schools, on the whole have performed no better than their public school counterparts so far and in some place (Ohio for instance) they perform worse.
The problems that Stossel points to all are very real. But the solutions just aren’t going to be as simple as giving everyone a voucher. Perhaps that is part of the solution. Perhaps more money is part of the solution, too, if America really wants the best public schools in the world.
The question is what are the big first steps we need to take to improve? What is the first thing you would want to change about public schools in America?
Permalink | Comments (18) | Categories: My Favorite Posts, Teaching and Learning
Comments
By Marise
January 24, 2006 8:15 PM | Link to this
Retaining a student due to age does not make any sense. This whole issue of age should change.If a student is smart enough move him/her to the next grade level. On the other hand, if a student can not learn or perform, let them repeat. Then, if he is not interested in school and education,send them to vocational school. I Think, the system needs to go back vocational school period. One can force a horse to cross over the water, but can not for him to drink. It is time to go back to the basic problem facing teachers and students in America. A student who is not interested is only in the class to be diruptive and blows it for all the others. It is obvious that a teacher can not teach students who are talking constantly in a classroom. Let’s be realistic. Students have every single laws to protect (child abuse and so on). How about adult abuse, disrespect a teacher anytime they want to. A previous person stated well ” unless we deal with poverty, then nothing can be done.” In other word, we would like to help them change their mentality and their conception. It is almost a fight to teach children in America. They have everything they need (books computers). But, if there is one thing 98% do not care about is “books”. They throw them, walk on them and so on. If parents were required to buy books or at least were accountable for part of their children expenses, part of the problems will be solved. I know I can go on and on (the non-stop meeting, the training, the paper work etc.). The school system can invest the whole earth on education, stupid will remain in America, if they do not give kids choices. Let them choose and do what they want to do, then teachers will be able to teach in a classroom.By chris
January 22, 2006 12:34 AM | Link to this
OK I am prejudiced but I have always considered the lack of resources to a strength of the Catholic school system vs the public school system. By that I mean theat Catholic schools have a very lean administrative part and they don’t have the money to implement the latest educational fad or to provide the college type electives that public schools tend to favor. Thus Catholic schools have to teach the basics to everyone. Maybe if the public system would start skinnying down there administrators there would be more money for actual education.By Ryan Grant
January 20, 2006 8:16 PM | Link to this
Derwood—It’s great that your daughter has been able to excel the way that she has, and I commend you for making the positive choice to home school. For a child like that, it’s likely an ideal situation. You’re completely off on retaining kids, though. 99% of the research shows that retaining kids doesn’t have any sort of positive effect. Longitudinal studies show that when you compare kids who were retained to kids who could have been but weren’t the ones who weren’t usually out-perform the holdbacks. The American Educational Research Association’s paper on Kindergarten retention from last year is pretty powerful reading. The key is in differentiating, but that’s one of the hardest things to do in the classroom. I teach 1st grade. In my class I have a couple of kids reading at a 4th grade level, but I also have some who are just now mastering the beginnings of the first grade curriculum. I’ve been blessed with a practicum student this year, which helps, but on my own in a classroom of 22 kids it would be nearly impossible.By John McMahon
January 19, 2006 12:53 PM | Link to this
If there is a single magic bullet to the primary and secondary education problems in this country, it is this: Quit acting like everyone has the same IQ, and start tracking students again, particularly in high school to channel kids to vocational classes or college prep. The magic bullet to save, or use money more effectively: take the practically worthless money pit that is every education school in the country, close them, and tell the professors that they can teach children, or pound sand.By Amerloc
January 18, 2006 9:12 AM | Link to this
Change one thing? I would change the focus of testing altogether. Let’s not test to “get out” of one level. Let’s test to “get in” to the next. Maybe that change is only psychological (which makes it more difficult),but the idea of an entrance exam rather than an exit exam appeals to me.By Mary
January 17, 2006 6:55 PM | Link to this
The situation Derwood describes regarding his daughter is pathetic, and unfortunately not too uncommon in “excellent” school districts - a child being dumbed down by an “excellent”school.I meant to comment earlier regarding “social promotion”. So many children are held back when they are ready for higher grade levels simply because of age. As a study (“How schools hold back its brightest students” www.nationdeceived.org) through the University of Iowa has pointed out, the concept of social promotion by age also works to hold kids back. These policies are based on myths and commonly used despite education research that indicates some students need to be ahead of their age peers.By Derwood
January 17, 2006 12:48 AM | Link to this
Oh boy.. Where to start.. First off, anyone that is an administrator with a school or with the school district administrator should have a definite limit of terms and salary.. The people that should be making the big money are the teachers, a and not the principal, and the 8 assistant principals, deans, etc. ad infinitum… Problem 1 is that too much money goes into playing politics games. Its not needed. If you cant teach, you shouldnt be with the school system for more than 4 years.. Period.. Problem 2 is that teachers need to be tested and screened to make sure they know their material and can teach it.. Next, we need to lose the notion that holding Johnny back will hurt his widdle feelings. The fact of the matter is that either the kid failed becaused he/she did not do the work, or the teacher failed. Promoting the failed student along is not going to help the student to face reality and buckle down to do the work. This will allow them to continue on in mediocrity and graduate without knowing even the most basic life skills. Too much emphasis is placed on touchy feely things like self-esteem and not on actual education.. Requirements for graduation have gone down year after year in the name of politcal correctness and Johnny’s self-esteem.. And, yes, my daughter is home-schooled. Not for religious reasons but for educational reasons. I want her to grow up knowing how to spell and knowing multiplication tables in her head. Something that I was taught in elementary school that simply is not taught today.. The thing that really gets me is that Beavercreek schools still gets roughly $9000 a year for my daughters education in spite of their failure during her second grade year when her teacher came to my wife and I and told us that we needed to slow her down. She was reading books at a 7th grade level and that was too far ahead of her classmates and hurting their feelings. So, we needed to slow her down.. One week after that meeting, we decided to home school her. We’re in our third year of it now, and her scores every year are in the 98th percentile.. My wife and I should be getting that $9000 a year for doing a job that Beavercreek schools have failed to do. The root of the problem is that schools are only capable of handling the lowest common denominator when it comes to students.. If you excel far beyond that or if you are far below that standard, you will never ever get the help that you need. I could probably go on more, but if we continue on the path of political correctness and promoting students so we dont hurt their feelings, then America will only get more stupid as time goes on.By Sawber
January 16, 2006 2:57 PM | Link to this
An example of a problem I have with the teacher’s union is that it makes it very difficult to identify and collect evidence on teachers. For example, a principal should be able to switch on the intercom and listen in to a classroom at any point. The union won’t allow it. Ideally, there would be a webcam in every classroom that any parent or adminstrator would be allowed to tune into at any time. No chance of getting that through the union.By Mary
January 16, 2006 2:39 PM | Link to this
Maybe I need to be clearer that when I discuss or mention things about the teachers’ union, I do not intend my points to be interpreted as “anti-union”. In fact, the book, “Cheating our kids” points out teachers’unions have a purpose, power and organizational skills that others (parents, etc.)can learn from. My purpose in bringing up certain issues is not to bash unions and their existence, but to point out imbalances in power that parents need to be cognizant of and seize for the good of students and their education. It appears students and education are more often at the bottom of the food chain and the current system is stacked against them. I think the balnce of power is too lop-sided in today’s education system. Adults are receiving the benefits and protections at the price of students.By Doug
January 16, 2006 10:59 AM | Link to this
I was anti union for 20 years, Mary. I didn’t belong after my first year of teaching. I joined my teacher union 4 years ago and what I have found out that unions are not preventing schools from doing well. You read their magazines and see what unions are trying to do and you would agree with it. My school district dismisses “bad” teachers all the time. It takes a committed principal, suprintendent, and a school board. The union sits in on dismisal hearings but they can stop it. The conventional wisdom that teacher unions are part of the problem is just a myth. This is not the Untied Auto Workers here. All the public hears are union horror stories. There is a lot of good news thanks to union that you never hear about. Just my personal experience after being aniti-unuion for 20 years. I guess “they” got to me Mary. LOL.By Mary
January 16, 2006 9:46 AM | Link to this
As Strossel pointed out in his “Stupid in America” piece, he wanted to start a dialog. I do not think he said he had the simple magic bullet. Choice might not be simple, but it seems the public school monopoly is not the magic bullet either. Just finished reading “Cheating our kids - how greed and politics ruin education”. I think a lot of Strossel’s show was based on the same concerns as the book discussed. In the book, parent advoates and parent choices seem to be the magic bullet. Parents have to group and empower themselves to take on the educators and politicians as customers of the education system. I would add taxpayers and citizens to the customer list. It is difficult to be taken seriously as a customer by a monopoly. Both the book and the show indicated the teachers’ union has more clout than parents and citizens because of their organization and position of employment. I think the book essentially places many politicians and the teachers’ union in the same boat as adults playing the system for their own selfish power and interests. Follow the money.By Gemma Abels
January 15, 2006 11:19 PM | Link to this
I think the one thing I would change about publc schools is to make teaching a respected profession. There are so many people trying to recruit teachers. I tell people all the time that there should be fewer teachers. The teachers we have should have a passion for their subject and their students. When we recruit teachers to fill classes and reduce class size, we minimize the art of connecting subject and student.By Terri
January 15, 2006 8:45 PM | Link to this
Principals don’t sit on a throne and rule a kingdom. They are actually the lowly lords. Above them is the true arisotcracy - the district administrators. The “good-ole-boy/girl” network is alive and well. Even if the teaching is not so good.By Rick
January 15, 2006 7:31 PM | Link to this
Scott, there is a lot of material on funding and education and how the two don’t necessarily parallel each other. See Sam Staley’s guest editorial of 27 June 1995, “$700 Million Plus School Funding Increase is not the Answer” by Sam Staley of the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, dated November 1996, Buckeye Institute, “20% Increaswe in Schoool Spending Fails to Improve School Performance,” November 1997, and again, from the Buckeye Institute, “Study finds school resources unrelated to student performance,” November 1998 (In this study attendance was the most important indicator of success), Wall Street Journal, “Billions for Failure,” 10 April 2001, or “Public Choices, Private Costs,” September 1998 (“No meaningful relationship between overal spending per pupil and student achievement was found in the analysis.”)and Seymour Sarason, “Parental Involvement and the Political Principle, Why the Existing Governace Structure of Schools Should be Abolished,” Jossey-Bass Press, San Fran (19950(p. 27 “[T]here is no evidence whatsoever that increasing salaries increases eductioanal outcomes, a fact that bewilders both citizens and educators.”)By Chris Wilcox
January 15, 2006 11:24 AM | Link to this
I’m a mom and social worker with a school counseling background. It’s so interesting that the night after 20/20, I read that an Ohio teacher, Scott Gioia, assigned porn for a class project. Hello? The worst is…he’s still teaching kids health! In my job, working with children with mental health issues, I would certainly be fireed if I used gross judgement like that. It’s, among other things, not healthy for kids! This shows teachers are among the stupid in America! P.S. I also plan to homeschool my two young sons so they won’t have to face the “crapshoot” of getting a “well-intentioned” but “inappropriate” education.By Dave
January 15, 2006 10:36 AM | Link to this
I would make two changes. First, my mother always pointed out that the biggest obstacle she had to teaching is the STATE LEGISLATURE, which passes nice-sounding, but fundamentally dumb rules to “improve” education. I guess we would now have to add the morons who came up with “no child left behind”, as their program is more nice-sounding nonsense. Second, I would change the process for teacher certification. Most of the college folks who certify teachers have NEVER TAUGHT BELOW COLLEGE LEVEL. Once we get these two groups of know-it-alls out of the way, we can start to see real improvement in education.By Doug
January 14, 2006 9:02 PM | Link to this
I agree with all points in your post Scott. Stossel’s reports was one sided but he had a few valid points. But I’m tired of everyone blasting public schools. Schools did not cause the problems of society nor will they be the answer to the problems. If you fix poverty, you will “fix” public schools. Critics with the magic bullet solutions do not spend much time thinking things through and looking at the big picture.By Roy Ford
January 14, 2006 11:32 AM | Link to this
As a retired teacher, I have had a long-time dream of term limits for Principals. The little dynasties that they try to build would be the last thing in their minds. Take the politics of jobs and teacher assignments(to positions) away from one individual and allow teachers the privilege of teaching in their own styles. As an insider to several schools in multiple districts, the principal of each school is the determining factor as to whether the school is successful or not.