THE LONG WAY HOME
NATIONAL
EDUCATION REFORM
By
Jack Random
As a former
educator I have long defended public education.
I have argued that teachers are among the most dedicated professionals
in the nation. They are underpaid and
too often underappreciated in that they are made scapegoats by far too many
politicians who have little to no understanding of the difficulty teachers
face.
I stand by
that position but the election of a president who is by every measure
unqualified for the responsibilities of high office compels me to realize that
our educational system has failed. Until
the election of Donald Trump, I would not have considered it possible that the
American people as a whole – even with systemic flaws in campaign financing,
foreign interference and the Electoral College – would elect an obvious con man
who rejects the basic tenets of democracy and acquired knowledge. I would not have considered it possible that
an educated society would elect a man who holds science in contempt, who
discards facts as the products of elitist propaganda, who regards media as the
enemies of the people and who demonstrates disdain for the balance of power
inherent in a democratic system of government.
That we could
have allowed this to occur once is understandable but alarming. That we might well allow it to happen again
suggests that the foundation of our democracy is crumbling before our
eyes.
Clearly, we
need to better educate our children so that they will grow to become informed
citizens with respect for the principles of democracy, an understanding of
institutions of government and a firm grasp of reasoning and respect for the
scientific method.
Even now, as I
write these words, I realize that a significant number of our people cringe at
the term “scientific method.” They are
composed of people whose social upbringing and education has taught them that science
is the enemy of religion. They have
grown up in a world where every individual must choose between faith and
science, between the word of God and the words of Einstein, between the
elitists who control our universities and social institutions and the ordinary
people who work for wages and struggle to get by.
We live in a
society that divides us by geography and demands that we choose sides and
burrow in or risk being ostracized by our family and peers.
I understand
the disdain that many people have for institutions and elitists but the
election of Donald Trump demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how
things work in a functional democracy. Because
ordinary people have not learned to process information and derive logical
conclusions for themselves, they have allowed others to think for them. Because they have learned to divide the world
between good and evil in the most simplistic terms, they have allowed a con
artist to use them for his own enrichment.
Donald Trump
is not a man of the people. Donald Trump
does not value the principles of democracy.
Donald Trump is an opportunist who has exploited the prejudice and
ignorance of the people for his own aggrandizement.
A great deal
has gone toward the immediate task of removing this man from office as soon as
humanly possible. Relatively little time
and resources have been devoted to ensuring that such a tragic mistake of
electoral politics never happens again.
At this point
it is important to expand the topic of systemic failure to include a Democratic
Party that has also exploited the people in so many ways. It was the Democrats who signaled “full speed
ahead” to NAFTA and the Free Trade Mandate that spelled the demise of American
industry. It was Democratic lip service
that allowed unions to collapse as a counterweight to corporate influence. We should not forget Democratic betrayal
simply because Trump is so much worse than anything the Democrats could have
delivered.
Nor should we
ignore the fact that Donald Trump’s candidacy was enabled by a Republican Party
so removed from the people that a pretender had no difficulty plowing his way
through a large field of contenders to the nomination. The problem is bipartisan and the solution
must be nonpartisan.
It begins with
education. The government guarantees a
free public education to all from age five to eighteen. It is one of the fundamental responsibilities
of government. What our government has
not guaranteed is a quality education for all. We have in fact yielded the content of public
education to state and local authorities and that is where the problem
begins.
It is often
said that all politics are local and local politicians have long recognized the
propaganda potential of education. Not
long ago there were places in this nation where a science teacher could only
teach Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution if the Christian church’s creation
story was presented for contrast. Please
note that between evolution and creation only one is a theory. The other is faith-based mythology – aka
religion.
In 1985 the
Supreme Court ruled that public schools could not teach creation myth in a
science curriculum. In 2005 the court
ruled that the so-called theory of “Intelligent Design” was only an attempt to
repackage creationism in a more acceptable form and it too was banned. As a result, the rightwing anti-science
community has pushed the Charter School movement as yet another way to
circumvent the law of the land. School
Boards in Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Arizona and the
District of Columbia have approved the teaching of creationism or intelligent
design as an alternative to evolution.
[1]
A theory is
more than speculation. A scientific idea
begins as a purely speculative postulate before becoming a hypothesis to be
tested. A hypothesis becomes a theory
only after rigorous and repeated testing confirms its validity. The creation myth – an essential story in all
known religions – has not survived peer review or rigorous testing and cannot
be considered a valid theory. It does
not therefore belong in the same scientific discussion as evolution.
Religion is
personal and every individual is granted the right to believe and worship as he
or she will – as long as those beliefs and practices do not prevent others from
believing as they choose. Religion can
no part in the scientific realm just as science can have no part in matters of
pure faith.
Science must
be an essential part of any public school curriculum and the scientific method
for establishing facts and theories even more so. An education that is not founded on science
and the scientific method is not an education at all for at that point it
crosses over to the realm of faith.
Religion can
have no part in public education. The
moment you admit matters of faith into subjects worthy of education you give
credence to magical thinking. You
falsely enable students to challenge the most basic facts. You enable students to challenge
gravity. Physics does not yield to
prayer or public opinion and will not allow a scientific challenge to gravity
because gravity is an established fact.
If a given
district wants to allow magical thinking in its curriculum it must be
challenged by a greater authority. At
present, under the leadership of Donald Trump and his faith-based Secretary of
Education Betsy DeVos, a greater authority does not exist. Or rather, it exists to defend magical
thinking. It exists to divert funds
meant for public education into private, faith-based charter schools. [2]
We can no more
allow the perversion of science with faith-based diversions than we can allow
public school districts to choose their curriculum without regard to scientific
validity and historic fact. For example,
we cannot allow districts in the South to teach that the southern states were
right to break away from the north because African slaves were inherently
inferior and slavery was therefore justified.
I have little doubt that there are those not only in the South but
across the nation who believe just that though such prejudice has not and
cannot be validated by the scientific method.
This nation
needs to agree that all students regardless of locale are deserving of a sound
education grounded in fact and science.
We need to agree that the nation has one historical narrative for all
students. We need to agree that this
nation was born with high ideals that were subverted by Native American
genocide and African American slavery.
Our universal narrative must include the story of Japanese American
internment by a Democratic president. It
must include the stories of systemic discrimination against Latin Americans,
Irish Americans and immigrants of all backgrounds and colors.
Beyond history
we need a public school curriculum across all states that prioritizes the
teaching of reason – of how to interpret the facts we observe and draw
objective conclusions. A student that
does not know how to reason is as critically handicapped as a student that does
not know how to read, write or perform the basic functions of arithmetic.
We should also
be teaching our children the art of compromise and the role it has played in
the nation’s crowning achievements: The
writing and adoption of our constitution, the abolition of slavery, the
enfranchisement of women, the Civil Rights Act, Social Security, Medicare, the
prohibition against child labor, the forty-hour work week, on and on.
We have come a
long way in our understanding of the world and the fulfillment of our ideals
but we have blocked our schools and teachers by saddling them with politically
motivated curricula. Let’s be
clear. Education curricula has become a
political football. We must do
everything we can to remove both religion and politics from the schools.
We must also
devise a new system that no longer divides students into successes and
failures. This idea that what our kids
really need is tough love, that kids must experience the hard knocks of life in
their growing years, has got to end.
No child
deserves to fail. Certainly, no child
should be branded a failure and forced to endure years of failure just to
fulfill the dictates of a tough love curricula.
We all know that’s how it works and we all pretend there is no other
way. There is. We cannot simply bend the normal population
curve as the George W. Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind initiative
proposed. With its high academic
standards and one-size-fits-all approach, NCLB guaranteed failure for a
generation of students.
NCLB reigned
over education for over a decade with catastrophic results before being
replaced by Common Core (2010) and the Every Student Succeeds Act (2015). The new program suggests national standards
with the goal of producing students who can succeed in college and
university. The actual administration is
left to the states.
Education has
gone through this process of rebuilding the education system from top to bottom
numerous times and it has always failed.
It fails because all students cannot succeed on a moving scale of
academic standards. The system fails
repeatedly because we try and try again to bring students to the system rather
than bringing the system to the student.
All students
can succeed if we assess their talents and interests early on and guide them to
achievable and functional goals. All
children are not meant to be scientists but all children can learn to employ
the processes of logical thought. All
children cannot become doctors and engineers but every student can become and
valued member of society. All students cannot
become litigators but all can learn to distinguish credible evidence from
opportunistic speculation.
Those who have
advocated trade schools are on the right track.
Society’s responsibility is to determine what trades will be valued in
the future and to provide appropriate students the background and training they
require. Some students will naturally be
guided on an academic path while others may be encouraged to develop blue
collar, artistic or entrepreneurial skills.
When there is
a place for every child’s interests and abilities then every child – with
appropriate assistance, guidance and encouragement – will succeed.
Moreover, when
all students succeed they will become citizens who are able to make realistic
and responsible judgments regarding our political parties and candidates. Is it any wonder that those who have been
branded failures in education have rejected the institutions and elitists who branded
them? When the electorate is informed
and engaged, we will not be fooled by con men and pretenders.
Who
knows? We may finally reject the
politics of cynicism, division and derision.
We may finally elect representatives whose ultimate motive is to improve
the lives of all Americans rather than to enrich themselves and their corporate
masters.
- “Map: Publicly Funded Schools that are Allowed to Teach Creationism.” By Chris Kirk.
Slate, January 26, 2014.
- “Betsy DeVos Wants to Use America’s Schools to Build ‘God’s Kingdom’.” By Kristina
Rizga. Mother Jones, March/April 2017.
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