Betsy DeVos to Lead Public Education--But to Where?

Well, I started this project six months ago and got busy with other things. A lot has happened in that six months. We have a new President here in the United States, who in turn has appointed a new Secretary of Education, Ms. Betsy DeVos.

Her appointment has been heavily criticized among educators from both major parties for numerous reasons. The most obvious one is she has never worked in a public school system in any capacity, and certainly has never led a classroom of students, in the endeavor of learning.

Beyond that, she appears to be a one-trick pony whose sole mission is to provide families publicly-funded vouchers for getting their children out of the public schools and into a variety of private alternatives. She is, in fact, not a fan of the public school system, eschewing its goals in favor of educational efforts that "advance God's Kingdom". This Christian motivation is an obvious source of concern, given the nonnegotiable standard of separating church from state.

What's more, the fear is that parents accepting the vouchers--the financial source of the vouchers is the the funding line appropriated for public education--will thus be decreasing the financial resources for public education.

While it is obviously the choice of parents to educate their children in the manner they see fit,  one can surely question whether the general public should pay for those choices. That is especially true when the purpose of those schools might be antithetical to the goals that taxpayers deem valuable and appropriate.

While mainstream parochial schools seem an innocuous enough alternative, especially in areas where the quality of the local public school system has been allowed to decline, the fact remains that funding such alternatives is a slippery slope to funding educational endeavors so far beyond the pale, that no sound-minded taxpayer would endorse them.

Does the public want to fund schools of any and all religions and sects? Or for that matter, home-schoolers whose curriculum choices could range from antisocial to anti-American. The Ku Klux Klan Charter School anyone? Or perhaps a school based in some extremist version of Sharia Law? Would Ms. DeVos support a charter school actively promoting atheism?

This is something that should concern every American, whether you have children in the school system or not. Education lays the foundation on which future generations will stand. Education forms the sensibilities of the populace. Our values, attitudes, and beliefs are in no small part born and nurtured not only by the (ever more busy working) parents, but by our schools.

The public education system of the United States has long served our nation well in developing good citizens and the intellectual exceptionalism that has driven our progress and success as a nation. Limiting its resources while promoting alternative educational experiences is unwise and potentially threatening to national unity and public safety.

And yet, in some locales, the status quo in American public education is simply unacceptable. The U.S. News and World Report rankings of March 7, 2017 list the United States as number 7 overall. Other ranking systems are far less laudatory. In math and science rankings we don't even crack the top 10, despite being among the leaders in funding public education. A 2015 study conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development ranked nations according to results of 15 year old students' performance in math and science. The results found the U.S. at #29.

Clearly our education system needs improvement. Ms. DeVos' plan simply abandons the public school system in search of local alternatives. This will disadvantage those who cannot afford to pay tuition--even with a voucher--while only supplementing those wealthy enough to afford private tuition in the first place. Most importantly, it will hurt public education as a whole.

All this to say, I think Ms. Betsy DeVos was not a wise choice to our head up the Department of Education, and her one big idea a poor one. Be that as it may, we are still confronted with the challenge of how to improve schools that are not fulfilling their mission.

My ideas on this will be the subject of subsequent blog posts in this forum. I welcome comments and questions.

Thank you for reading.

Welcome

Everyone is for better education for our youth. But what does that mean? What does a better education look like? And when we take into account that we are training our youth to succeed in an uncertain future—a world that hasn’t happened yet-- with technology speeding up creating brave new worlds for current and future generations, these questions are all the more important to find answers to.

First, a few distinctions.

1.       Resources. Resources are not an education. Often the two are erroneously conflated. As many have learned –and some still haven’t—throwing money at the “problem” of education does not necessarily result in better educated people. Resources are tools (eidetic and empirical) and materials that will help students learn to thrive in the coming decades. Some resources are essential. Others remnants of a bygone era and less than efficient teaching tools. To what degree are people resources? And what qualities or knowledge must a person possess to be an effective teacher?

2.      Purpose: What is the goal of a good public education? What are we trying to accomplish? What is our “finished product”? This is the most important issue because it drives the whole process.

3.       Curriculum: Given a well-defined and agreed upon Purpose, we must examine what information will be shared with students. What must they learn to fulfill their purpose? What does an “educated” person need to know?

4.       Means of delivery: How can we most effectively get a diverse student body to internalize the curriculum? To what role can technology supplant people in the learning process? And to what degree can tech NOT supplant people in the process

5.       Standards: The ideal and acceptable levels of curriculum internalization. What percentage of mastery will constitute success? Will grades (A B C D F) be used, or some different paradigm?

6.       Testing: the means of measuring student’s internalization of a given concept(s)

7.       Assessment: Examining the degree to which the educational process is working, reinforcing success and eliminating any degree of failure in the process itself. Are our students internalizing the curriculum? Where are we coming up short and what can we do to fix those areas to achieve better results.

With these terms understood, we are ready to start to answer all those questions listed above. Future blog entries will attempt to do just that, and more. Stop back soon.