February 8, 1996
Education is the one of the few things that Americans are willing to pay for and not receive.
All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends upon the education of youth.
... Aristotle
What happens in the schools is not unlike what happens in society at large when the penalties of improvidence, laziness and ignorance are not just softened, but removed. When there is no such thing as failure, there is no such thing as success either.
... S. I. Hayakawa
It may well be that our education authorities exagerate the value of reading, writing, and arithmetic as aids to citizenship. In these days, a person unable to read would be spared the experience of much that is vulgar, depressing, or injurious; a person unable to write will commit neither forgery nor free verse; and a person not well grounded in arithmetic will not engage in betting, speculation, the defalcation of accounts, or avaricious dreams of material wealth. At any rate, it will not be denied that the spread of these three studies has had many evil and dubious consequences.
... A. P. Herbert, Uncommon Law
For the last thirty or more years, the nation has been writhing, at war with itself, over the problem with the public schools. Of course, it is not just one problem but a host. Honest, intelligent, well-meaning, thoughtful citizens stand on every side of the issues, and the best that can be said about the struggles is that there is truth on both sides.
Some people are utterly opposed to any prayer in public schools, rightly insisting that public prayer imposes a religious standard on non-believers' children and tends toward the establishment of religion. On the opposite side are those who cannot understand how, in a free society, it should be illegal to pray anywhere one wants to, also citing the First Amendment.
Some people urge a return to the traditional approach to education: readin', writin', and 'rithmetic, citing the falling SAT scores. Others see the New Math and new methods in general as a breath of fresh air in a system that has failed to teach the ability to think. And besides, learning should be fun: it's much more effective that way.
Some people want evolution; others want creation. Some want traditional history; others want a less "Euro-centric" or less "Anglo-centric" or less "male-centered" history to be taught. Some want teacher pay to be increased, while others are trying to hold the line on the taxes from which teachers are paid. Religious holidays send school administrations into seizures trying to decide whether to mention them or not, for fear of lawsuits. Left-wing agendas in the curriculum send the right wing through the roof and onto the picket lines. Intervention by the so-called Education Department has done nothing to fix these problems and has, in many cases, exacerbated them. Authority has eroded, discipline has gone to hell (children have to be frisked for weapons at school, now), teachers and students alike are not safe. Where is it all going, and where will it end? Have we totally forgotten the point of schools?
There is one important fact that binds all these problems together: the public schools are state institutions. If they were private businesses, these controversies would simply vanish. Think of any public education issue you like: it likely follows this model, in that the problem lies with the fact the public schools are owned and operated by the state. Disestablishment solves the problem. Consider: those who want prayer in the schools could send their children to little praying schools; those who do not could send their children to little agnostics schools. The same would apply to creation vs. evolution, traditional vs. modern, religious vs. secular. Liberals could send their children to empty-headed little liberals school; conservatives could send their children to little conservatives school; bigots could send their children to little bigots school; and, for all I know, dedicated Rosicrucians could send their children to little Rosicrucians school, as could Mormons, Republicans, vegetarians, flat-earthers, followers of Esperanto, newspapermen, and pickpockets. No one would have to attend a school that teaches anything contrary to the values of their parents.
This is an important freedom, not to be made light of; witness the hundreds that turn out to debate variations on these themes at school board meetings across the country. Public education is a value that has emerged since the Constitution was written, and so, the Founders did not address it. The ideal of public education is that we all, jointly and individually, have a stake in an educated citizenry, and that every child therefore should have the opportunity to receive an education in the basic skills of life, at public expense, if necessary.
The chosen medium for implementing public education has been the public schools. Perhaps this was a good mechanism when schools were small and completely under the thumb of local authorities. But the benefits of this plan began to unravel at the beginning of the century, and threaten to disintegrate completely by the end of it. In a fast-moving, diverse, highly educated culture, it is not reasonable to assume that this structure will deliver the goods.
The problem is that for most people public education and public schools are inextricably confounded. This is the fault of politicians for not making it clear that withdrawing support for the public school systems does not diminish our commitment to public education. When the majority of citizens begins to make the intellectual distinction between public education and public schools, the public schools will collapse.
The entire text of GOALS 2000: EDUCATE AMERICA ACT is approximately 604K bytes, 87,828 words. One of the best ways to find out what an enormous, unreadable document like this is about is to do some word studies on it. My preliminary report is as follows:
A glance at the foregoing makes it clear what the Act is about and what it is not about. It is NOT about teaching children how to read, write, do arithmetic, etc. It IS about adding tons and tons of administrative layers to the education system and devoting those efforts to issues that have nothing to do with education.
Occurrences Term
147 funds
125 administer/administration/administrator
32 gender
27 diverse/diversity
25 ethnic
16 powers
14 (shall be) paid
14 penalty
6 writing*
4 reading
0 add
0 subtract
0 multiply
0 divide
0 arithmetic
0 algebra
0 geometry
0 calculus
0 spell/spelling
* but only four times in reference to the art of writing.
We need to repeal this abomination and take control away from the federal government, if we ever hope to correct the problem with the schools.
Sarah Chang is unbelievable. When I heard her two years ago under the tent at the Aspen Music Festival, when she was just sixteen, I could close my eyes and believe I was hearing Heifetz or Oistrakh playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, so musically mature and complete was her music making. It was hard to understand how a sixteen-year-old girl could know enough about life to express its joy and the triste in that music.
Last week I heard her, at eighteen, perform Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole more perfectly than I though humanly possible. This is a phenomenon we do not understand. It is like an Act of God.
All contents © Copyright 1995, 1996 by Redmon Barbry ¶ 8:51 PM
