Americans are keenly cognizant of the necessity for a proper education, not only for themselves and for their children, but also for their neighbors. So much so, that in every local, state and federal election, as some public policy issues wax and wane, education is a constant. And with good reason, as it is without question that education today in the United States is in a state of crisis. More pointedly, the federal educational complex that has risen through the decades is like ten miles of bad road, full of potholes, built on a swamp.
It is now evident, more so than ever before, the potholes are sinkholes and the very nature of the swamp cannot be changed by merely addressing the symptoms and implementing the quick fixes that are always at the center of debate. However, rarely does the discussion turn to substantive deliberations on the root causes of why education is in such disarray and how to fix them.
Americans have become creatures of habit not to solving problems, but rather to confounding them by masking and dealing with their symptoms. Evidence of such behavior abounds at every turn in our society. If you have a cold, what do you do? You run to the doctor, who in turn writes a prescription for an antibiotic to kill the germs, thereby relieving your symptoms. Filling a prescription for a cold relieves the symptoms, but does not cure nor prevent it from reoccurring. The effect is that treatable illnesses with the prescription of antibiotics become more and more difficult to treat and manage as the illnesses develop immunity to the antibiotics because of over prescribing. In this case, the symptom has been treated, the problem has not been solved and unintended consequences have been created.
Similarly, the symptoms of the educational crisis in America range from poor test scores across the board to low literacy rates upon completion of K-12 education. The misdiagnosis of the symptoms range from an average pupil to teacher ratio that is too high to an overall lack of funding. The quick fix solutions generally revolve around the drive for more federal control (Goals 2000 and No Child Left Behind) and greater spending to reduce class sizes. These alleged solutions only mask and confound the true causes and create unintended consequences, such as educating students to meet the national standards on test scores, while ignoring other important studies. Thus, any effective change for the betterment of this nation, specifically education, must stem from the understanding and the treatment of their root causes, not their symptoms.
Tomorrow, I'll take a look at federal spending on education over the past three decades as the cure-du-jour for America's educational ills.
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