One of the most active debates in Texas today revolves around the state of our current education system. Voters want to know why spending more money on education isn’t fixing the problem. This is not just a Texas problem but one that is being considered nationwide. The University of Southern California has done an outstanding job creating a graphical representation of per student spending and performance in the United States versus twelve other countries. It is clear from the statistics that we do have a problem with our education system, but spending is not it. In an article, “School funding equity doesn’t lead to better schools” in Empower Texans, Robert Pratt takes a swing at the Robin Hood act. The Robin Hood act is used to allocate funds from districts with higher revenue streams to those with less ability to raise funds. I disagree with Mr. Pratt’s assessment that the act is ineffective. Funding is one of the issues both currently and historically that have affected education in lower income areas where performance is the worst. As a society, we are only now starting to make a dent in the sins or our past. Anyone who would argue that the “white race” did not oppress all other races to their own benefit and the great detriment of the other races, is not willing to admit an undeniable reality of America’s past. Keeping minorities poor is one of the ways white Americans kept their dominant position in society. However it is not the only way. As I dive into this issue, I will outline some of the problems with education outside of financing.
One thing I think we as a society have to confront is that we are wasting money on education. I know people think that cash is the answer to all questions, but it is not. In my work, we analyze an environment and use cost benefit and impact analysis when we choose what we will do to make the environment stronger. By analyzing an environment, limited resources such as time and capital can be pointed at the most concerning issues and yield the largest result. The way it works is to focus first on the biggest problems you have and put as much effort into solving that problem as you can. It is common in the IT industry to buy a tool to try to solve a process problem. If you have a process problem and you try to solve it with a tool, you will have limited success at best. Why do IT people try to solve process problems with tools? Because they are more comfortable using tools than improving processes. This is what I mean when I say we are wasting money by using it on the wrong problems.
There are two major issues that need to be addressed to fix education not only in Texas but in the United States. The problems are very controversial and poison to any politician who would speak of them. A few brave statisticians, economists and social scientist have tried to broach the subjects. Often these attempts are met with ad homonym attacks on the presenter to avoid addressing the real issue.
I will tackle the most controversial topic first. Poor American cultures do not value education. I have been a passive observer of both failing schools in poorer areas and successful schools in affluent upper class neighborhoods. Note that this is not a race issue but rather a culture issue. There are plenty of minority children in affluent schools with parents who have professional level jobs who do quite well. One race does not have an IQ advantage over another. Rather, the degree to which affluent people emphasize education is higher than in poor cultures. In these cultures seeking an education can even be seen as trying to be better than everyone else. I am not going to give a list of research, although I could probably dig some up, instead I will focus on my experience. My step sons both went to Pierce Middle School and Reagan High School. Both schools are on the razors edge of being shut down for their ineffectiveness. Both schools failed to provide a proper education to the boys. What I noticed over the years was a total lack of parental involvement. My wife and I would go to plays and sporting events and the stands and seats were practically empty. There was absolutely no parental involvement. When the schools are ready to be shut down, people come out of the woodwork. But when the hard work of making a better school for the kids, day in and day out is at hand, you can hear the crickets chirping. It isn’t because the school hasn’t tried. The administrators and educators in those schools are actually in my opinion, better and more dedicated than the staff at the prize winning school my daughter attended. The problem is that the parents and moreover the culture places a low value on education. This in turn, leads to low expectations of the students. Pedro A. Noguera and Antwi Akom have done an outstanding job describing this dilemma. In their article, “The Significance of Race in the Racial Gap in Academic Achievement” they outline this cultural flaw. Unfortunately, this issue will take generations to fix. Cultures do not change overnight especially those who have been so oppressed for so long. It is unrealistic to think that all people will value education. However, as more people from poor families are lifted up in society with education as their path to success, more children will begin to admire and emulate them and the society will see a permanent change. To make this happen, the parents must be incented to be involved in their children’s schools and dedicated to their educational success. The students must see themselves as future achievers and success stories. There are programs here and there working towards this goal, my opinion is that this is a key variable and resources should be dedicated to it.
The second sacred cow that has to be thrown on the chopping block is the antiquated teaching methods used in todays elementary and high schools. The same field trips, duplicate worksheets, and weekly readers are being used today that I used when I was in elementary over thirty years ago. Time is wasted as children are herded from one specials class to another. We have to face the facts that educators have lost their ability to adapt. My daughter is a 504 student. Basically what that means is she can’t learn the same way as other children. It isn’t that she isn’t smart; she has actually been tested and has a very high IQ. She has behavioral issues that take away from her ability to learn. It wasn’t until after we started weighing our options of public school versus home schooling that I became enlightened. After working with our “exceptional” school for two years and being very flexible, we decided to home school. We compared curriculum and schedules with homeschooling versus standard schools and were shocked at the results. Today’s curriculum in traditional schools is designed to leave no child behind. In other words, the least intelligent student in the room has to fully comprehend the material before the teacher is considered successful. Sure there are advanced placement (AP) programs but when you only have two slots available in a classroom full of children whose parents are all fighting for those slots, the majority of the students will not be able to participate no matter what their ability. Because the system has to be fair, an equal amount of AP slots will go to all schools no matter what the ability of the students in those schools. This means the next to smartest kids in the best schools may be able to understand the material on the first or second try, but must sit by and be quiet while the rest of the students work it out. How disheartening must it be to understand the material but be labeled a failure because you can’t sit still and be quite while the rest of the class comes up to speed? Ask my daughter, she can tell you. Our first home school curriculum was a computer based program that taught my daughter at her own pace. We were able to set and adjust learning times to meet our family schedule and dedicate less than five hours per day to teaching. We have also joined local home schooler organizations that take use to ice cream factories, museums, farms and many other interesting places. The training on the computer is outstanding. The videos and games help keep the interest of the student while providing them with the education they need. Imagine your favorite teacher teaching two or three of the subjects they most like to teach and sharing that with every student in the state. In college, we go to UTube videos and online resources created by other colleges. We use Wiki and Google to do our research. I do a great deal of my online reading for this class on my iPhone in the car during my lunch break. Good teachers are innovators and there are a lot of them out there. We have to take the shackles of school bureaucracy and teachers unions off of our best teachers and set them free. There will always be a place for the drone process that is our current education system, but unless we set our teachers free to bring forth the next ideas in education; we will never be as successful as we could be.
If we do not face the real problems of our education system and channel our resources in that direction, we will continue to receive the same results we have for years. The potential for real change is there, but the tough decisions have to be made. It is up to each parent and teacher to push this forward and make the change. You as a voter need to recognize when these parents need help and teachers need freedom. With the combined power of our independent thinking voters and innovative educators, we can once again become the best educational state in the best educational country in the world.
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