There's no question that a competent, smoothly-running educational system is absolutely necessary for a well-functioning democracy. Such a system will instill in the youth of a country, among other things, critical thinking skills; basic scientific, mathematical and linguistic literacy; a sense of social obligation and participation; and a work ethic. Even more, a healthy educational system is necessary for a functioning capitalist economy. Ideally, students will receive the same basic education, regardless of socioeconomic status and background; this will give them all the same opportunity. They'll all begin the race at the starting line, not some a mile down the course and some two miles behind the course with no map.
Is America's educational system well-run and successful? Not really. How many people now have a sense of social obligation? The voter turnout Tuesday in Muncie was about 26.47 percent; federal elections rarely top 60 percent.
How many people are scientifically literate? About half of all Americans hold that humans were created specially in their present form sometime in the last 10,000 years.
How many people are able to think critically? About one third of Americans think the federal government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks; 16 percent believe the World Trade Center towers were brought down by planted explosives.
Even if you don't want to judge by the effects, you need only take a look at the state of America's schools. Schools are more segregated now than at any time in the past forty years. Children are differentiating not only according to race, but also according to socioeconomic status. Inner-city public schools face gang violence, drug problems, apathy and despair. Rich parents pull their children out of public schools and put them into obscenely expensive private academies. All the while, the United States continues to fall behind other G8 nations (i.e. Canada, France, Germany and others) in scientific and linguistic literacy.
To compound this, the entire public school system was founded and grew while the United States was very different from what it is today. The school system was designed to churn out blue-collar workers; now, it's simply an input into postsecondary education. Instead of preparing people to be factory employees, it's nominally preparing people to be college students. So in addition to chronic systemic problems and low performance, the system's not even being put to use doing what it was designed to do, let alone what it should ideally be doing!
There are, of course, some so-called "solutions" to our school problems that will not work, and have not worked. Take, for example, the No Child Left Behind act. Essentially, it punishes schools whose improvement is substandard by removing funding and eventually shutting them down. This, ideally, presents incentives for the schools to improve. Of course, the entire problem with this plan is that money is necessary for a school to improve: If a school hasn't got money, it definitely won't be able to improve. The No Child Left Behind act assumes that the educational system is essentially free-market in nature, which it isn't; it also assumes that the underlying systemic problems can be solved simply by giving schools an incentive, which is a huge leap in logic.
How, then, do we actually go about fixing this? The problems with our school system are gnarled and tangled, with their roots in deeper societal problems like urban decay, widespread apathy, and parental un- and over-involvement. The whole scheme is like the Gordian Knot; short of an Alexandrian solution, I really don't know if anything will work. If we can ever make progress on solving the problems with our school system, it will be by working to solve the underlying issues of poverty, social injustice, and apathy, not by implementing the tantalizing punishment of pulling money up away from those who need it most.
Write to Neal at necoleman@bsu.edu
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