RECLAIMING AMERICA: EDUCATION REFORM IN THE AGE OF TRUMP

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. 

1. “Map: Publicly Funded Schools that are Allowed to Teach Creationism.”  By Chris Kirk.

Slate, January 26, 2014. 

2. “Betsy DeVos Wants to Use America’s Schools to Build ‘God’s Kingdom’.”  By Kristina

Rizga.  Mother Jones, March/April 2017.