The Failure of Public Schools

I was at first view amused by the latest Rob Lowe commercial for Direct TV entitled “Peaked in High School.”  Upon reflection and further exposure to the ad I grow ever sadder and madder.  I know far too many adults for whom the title of this ad is the reality of their lives.  Worse, many of the “peaked in high school” crowd sit on school boards working hard to ensure that the next generation of students also peak in high school with an overemphasis on extracurriculars and a diminished emphasis on academics.  If as I approached mid-life the highlight of my life was advancing to the state semi-finals in football while I was in high school then those in public education have committed a terrible disservice to me and other students. 

 

But that is not the biggest failure of public schools.  Such misdirected emphasis, resources and energy are but symptoms of the larger failure of our school systems.  Much as the current reform movement which includes the characteristics of high-stakes standardized tests, value added teacher evaluations, so called school choice are other symptoms of our greatest failure.  Electing state officials who are clearly anti public education and pro shifting public dollars to the private sector and wealthy families is another symptom of our failure.  I believe none of these trends would currently hold such sway in education had we done a better job in public schools of teaching certain basic concepts.  Having failed to teach these concepts we are reaping what we have sown.

 

A simple concept that many students fail to grasp and apply is the difference in fact and fiction or fact and opinion.  I would expand that to say the difference in knowledge and belief.  Without this simple skill falsehoods are perpetrated without scrutiny, without research, and tend to be accepted by those who failed to master this concept.  Fox News very frequently broadcasts opinions as though they were fact, and when caught misstating the facts life goes on without consequence.  Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity deserve far worse than Brian Williams, but to know that one would have to research the issues.  Obama is a Christian and an American citizen despite multiple repetitions of falsehoods to the contrary.  Believing that trickledown economics, or supply side economics works is a belief that flies in the face of the facts.  We know that Herbert Hoover’s, “What’s good for business is good for the USA,” led to the Great Depression.  We know that Reagan’s supply side economic theory created a huge national debt.  We know that Bush’s efforts to deregulate business, especially Wall Street, led to the 2008 financial debacle.  And yet, we have just elected a Congress hell-bent on repeating these errors from the past.  We know the earth orbits the sun.  We know the earth is billions of years old.  We know the theory of evolution is confirmed on a daily basis.  We know dinosaurs once roamed the earth.  And yet, there are those among us who believe the earth is 6,000 years old, dinosaurs are a myth, etc.  That is OK until such folks want their belief system to be state supported contrary to what we know to be true.  We know charter schools perform no better and often worse than public schools.  We know a voucher program simply provides tax dollars to pay private school tuition for the wealthiest parents.  We know measuring student learning via a once-a-year high stakes standardized test diminishes our ability to teach concepts such as this one, and yet we have Legislatures and Departments of Education who still look to such strategies as an improvement tool.  Worse, we have political demagogues and billionaires who support such nonsense.  Why isn’t the nonsense more obvious?  Why can’t we see the emperor is naked?  We have failed to teach the concepts of fact vs. opinion and critical thinking.

 

Had we done a better job of teaching the concept of fact vs. opinion and knowledge vs. belief I believe we would have much less ridiculous policy based on fictions, opinions and beliefs, and those who personally benefit from the promulgation of such falsehoods would not be held in esteem but would become fodder for laughter.  The problem, of course, is that those who benefit from the lack of critical thinking are those who are the strongest supporters of presenting only one side of each issue – their side.  If one only hears one side how will we teach students to think, to weigh, research, decide and evolve to critical thinkers?  I say this as our own Lt. Governor waged war on a curriculum system because it encouraged students to, for instance, look at the Boston Tea Party from the British point of view.  I see the Oklahoma Legislature considering the abolition of AP History because it promotes critical thinking in similar areas.  I see the resignation of our state education agency science leader over the requirement that we support intelligent design over evolution.  These same opponents of critical thinking, fact vs fiction, knowledge vs belief scream for these censorships out of fear that we are “brainwashing” our kids; and then they set about ensuring that our kids only hear their side ensuring that they are, in fact, brainwashed.  Public education has failed to teach this concept in the face of political pressure, fear, falsehoods, and insistence on only one source of information and one “true” basis for belief and opinion.  In other words, we have failed to be an educational institution and have emerged as a political pawn suffering today for the lack of critical thinking skills on the part of our current leadership while ensuring the next generation lacks the same skills.

 

Another concept we have dramatically failed to teach are the conceptual foundations of democracy and our brand of free enterprise.  Many assume the two are the same when they could not be more different conceptually.  Though there are many worthy scholarly works on these philosophies allow me to simply summarize by saying that democracy is based on what is good for the people, the people rule, and all people are equal with certain civil liberties.  Free enterprise is based on competition which is only good for the winners, rewards efficiency, rewards innovation, and values financial success of the few over the quality of life for all. 

 

Public education has been required in Texas to only teach one side of the free enterprise system, guaranteeing that we are not actually teaching the conceptual base.  Our state law requires us to teach, “Economics with Emphasis on the Free Enterprise System and Its Benefits.”  Read that to mean a teacher better not teach the shortcomings of a free enterprise system.  Those who lack the ability to think critically probably just had a stroke at the very thought that free enterprise has shortcomings, much less that it might be in our best interest to educate our students on both the benefits and failures of the free enterprise system.  I’m on a roll now about economics so I will finish this train of thought then return to democracy and then highlight the differences.

 

Free enterprise operates via a “market” wherein producers of goods and services and consumers of goods and services meet to transact.  Consumers give producers money for the goods and services they want.  Producers supply consumers by making those goods and services.  The ongoing process of the market results in a market price that is determined by the demand of the consumer and the ability of the producer to produce in a cost range that consumers are willing to incur to purchase the good and service.  If iPhones could only be produced at a cost of $1 million per phone, few would have iPhones.  On the other hand, not every American consumer can afford an iPhone so they are not universally owned.  Cost effective producers earn more money.  People employed in areas that are in high demand earn more money to spend on the goods and service producers make.  Marginal producers expire.  Marginal earners come close to expiring.  The market weeds out the winners and the losers, the goods and services we demand and are willing to pay to procure.  How noble.  How pure and simple.  Adam Smith should be proud.

 

The problem is the market is immoral.  It operates on the consumer principle of getting the most for your buck and the producer principal of receiving the most bucks for your product.  Nowhere in that formula does anyone ask moral questions:  Is this the right thing to produce?  If we can produce a product cheaper and generate more money should we be concerned with collateral damage to health and the environment?  If as a producer I can keep any of my costs of production lower, like labor, why shouldn’t I do so?  Do I have a responsibility to consumers that supersedes my personal desire for revenue?  If I desire a certain product and have either the income or the credit making the purchase possible, should I purchase this product?  If it costs more but serves to improve humanity, should I buy it?  Do we have a moral obligation to the producers to ensure they do not fail?  Do we have a moral obligation to consumers to ensure they do not go without the basic necessities? 

 

These questions highlight our dilemma with the market economy.  Our foods are pretty safe to eat because we have learned that if the government does not monitor and regulate food production we will end up with edibles that might kill us or make us sick because it is cheaper to produce foods that way.  Same is true of our tap water.  Same is true of the safety and environmental impact of our vehicles.  We insist that a product is what a producer says it is because we have learned from too many snake oil salesmen and PT Barnum’s that false claims help producers and hurt consumers.  It is not surprising that producers hate the monitoring and regulations because it diminishes the revenue they could generate if they could ignore the moral questions.  We have returned to “what is good for business is good for the USA” philosophy.  As we wring our hands about the decline in the middle class we have turned a blind eye to corporate production moving overseas to avoid high labor and taxes.  Is it moral for a corporation to do that?  Our courts have said that corporations are people and may spend money in elections dramatically changing election outcomes.  Is it moral for those who profit the most to be able to influence elections more than the majority of consumers?  If you are a corporate winner, is it ok to gobble up your competition so that you hold an unassailable position in the market?  Is not the result of all competitions the eventual sole winner?  Is that what we want?  Do we want corporations so large that should they fail we all fail?  The most interesting development since the economic collapse of 2008 to me is that those very same corporations that most resent regulation and oversight, that have worked the hardest to consolidate their position in the market, and have spent the most money in an effort to influence elections were the very first entities to come to the government with their hands out when it appeared that they might fail as a result of the free market.  It appears that the only supporters of competition are the winners.

 

Necessity may be the mother of invention and it must be said that if there is a demand for a product or service there will be a supply.  Hence we have illegal drugs, pornography, prostitution, etc., etc.  If producers operated on moral ground the goods and services available in our economy would be markedly different.  On the other hand, invention also serves as the mother of necessity.  Who knew we needed smart phones and microwaves and desktop computers and even calculators until they were invented?  Yes, there are huge problems, huge shortcomings, and huge issues in a free enterprise system.  Failure to teach such concepts places the next generation in a poor position to evaluate proposed legislation regarding our economy and fiscal policy.  It comes as no surprise that such thinking opposes unions as they organize labor to better influence corporate decisions.  It comes as no surprise that it is corporate concerns that most strongly support teaching only the benefits of the free enterprise system while seeking, once again, to banish any other discussion under the rubric of brainwashing.  Public education again failed to teach the core concepts behind our economic system in ways that future voters might be encouraged to weigh the moral impact of governmental decisions, monitoring and regulation of our producers.

 

And what of democracy?  What of the basic notions driving a governmental structure that is truly a radical, liberal structure when compared to most of planet earth both today and historically?  Do we share with students that prior to John Locke, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson virtually every government on the planet was based either on divine right, that is God chooses the king, or on military might?  Kings came and went based on lineage, each arguing they were divinely chosen and the citizens were stuck with whomever “god” choose.  Or, someone with power and usually military backing assumed control via a revolution and force of arms.  Dictators came and went based on who had such might.  Though the Greeks toyed philosophically with both direct and representative democracy, it was with the Constitution of the United States that a new radical form of government was established.  A form of government that was not determined by birth right or who you are, nor was it determined by force of arms and fear and revolution.  This was a form of government where the citizens actually made decisions about their government!  Wow!  No King, no dictator, no special lineage, no designation of royalty, aristocrats, commoners and peasants.  All people were involved in the decision-making.  (Well, that is not quite true.  For years only white males, property owners, etc. were allowed to vote.  Then African Americans were allowed to vote, then women.  There has been a slow and sure progression to include more and more humans in the “people rule” group, at least until recently when we have seen concerted efforts to make voting by some groups more and more difficult.)  There has not been a more liberal expansion of the respect and rights of individuals in government than the establishment of the American democracy.  And even that notion we do not teach.

 

So, we have a new liberal form of government prescribed as a democracy where all men (sic) are created equal and have certain rights.  The government’s task is not only national defense, but to secure the ability of the people to pursue happiness.  Wow.  And, we have an economic structure that relies on a market place, but producers of goods are always trying to influence that market by gobbling up competition, opposing oversight and regulations, seeking to bust up organized labor.  There are no equal rights in the market.  Winners are rewarded with dollars and losers either barely hang in or go belly up.  And the rules of the American market place are written by the economic winners.

 

Worse, the economic winners also want to write the rules for the democracy side of the equation.  They want to dictate how to structure public education so that more tax dollars are shuffled their way and public schools look worse and worse based on an accountability system they developed.  Why do we sit around and let this happen?  We have failed to promote critical thinking skills because the economic powers do not want us to think critically.  Nor do they want our kids to clearly know the philosophical differences in democracy and free enterprise.  To teach either of these concepts requires looking at things in new ways, and we surely do not want that to happen.  Worse, educators would absolutely be burned at the stake if they shared facts with their students like America does not have the highest standard of living in the world, we do not have the lowest infant mortality rate, while we do have the most homicides by fire arm and the greatest gap between the wealthy and the poor. 

 

I stand in awe of our founding fathers who were able to look at governments and power in new ways and structure.  I am so disappointed in those who wrap themselves in the flag and oppose most of what the founding fathers stood for.  Only in the USA is it ok to be a minority, to speak out against the government, to hold different views from your fellows, and know that your core civil liberties will be protected.  We do not have the right in this country to shape our government just to reflect our own values.  We must always protect the values of others.  We must always be diligent against a tyranny of the majority.  If we do not demand the enforcement of civil liberties for racial minorities, religious minorities, sexual preference minorities and political minorities we are no different than Putin.  Given the option of protecting civil liberties for all or the ability of the few to make large profits I will always land on the side of civil liberties.  That is really the only thing that sets us apart from other nations.

 

I deeply regret that we have failed to teach these concepts to the graduates of the past 25 years or so.  We can claim we were hampered by those who only wanted their kids obedient rather than thoughtful.  But that is an excuse.  We should have taught kids how to think.  We are reaping the rewards of a generation of non-thinkers now and I am deeply saddened.

 

But then, my greatest memories and sense of success did not occur in high school and I was blessed by an educational system that taught me to look at issues from both sides.  As the Texas Legislature gears up it is clear who supports public education and who supports teaching only one side of the issue and who supports shifting tax dollars from a democratic effort to a free enterprise effort.  So sad.  We must allow teachers to teach.  Preparation for high stakes standardized tests all but eliminates teaching students how to be critical thinkers on a macro scale.  Passing a test is not the same as being educated; bubbling an answer document is not the same as thinking.  Give me an educated thinker any day.

 

And I apologize for not promoting the development of such thinkers in public schools.  We should have.  The current leadership could only exist in a climate where Fox News and Survivor are believed to be real.