May 11, 2009--Fix the Schools!

Let me ask you a not-entirely rhetorical multiple-choice question:

Which represents the greatest threat to the United States and our future?

(a) Terrorism?

(b) The deficit?

(c) The lack of healthcare for 40 million Americans?

(d) Or, the failure of our public school system to provide a good education to one-third of our children?

If you answered anything but (d), you need social policy remediation.

There are about 45 million kids enrolled in our public schools and at least 15 million are falling further and further behind their classmates. But more significant, from a national perspective, they are not competing well with children from developed as well as developing nations.

This does not bode well for us as a nation as we try to remain the leading economic and political force in the world. And it does not reflect well on our national soul that these one-third who remain in dysfunctional schools come mainly from low-income, disproportionately minority communities.

This is not what America is supposed to be about. We have been that fabled land of opportunity for hundreds of millions where for decades the promise of a good education is available. Our founding myth promises that through hard work and developed smarts it is possible, within just one generation, to rise from poverty and become productive and contributing citizens. For too many, in recent times, the realization of this dream, mediated by an open and effective public school system, has turned out to be more rhetoric than reality.

There is no time in our history when this is more important to individuals and well as the nation’s security. In the past, when our economy was still largely based on manufacturing and agriculture, there were good options for work if young people opted not to get more than a basic education. They could work on family farms or in the steel mills, mines, factories, or auto assembly plants. We know that there are fewer and fewer of these jobs—most have been either mechanized out of existence or shipped overseas—and those jobs that remain and are likely to be created this century are going to require more and more, not less, education. And a decent one.

There is no better evidence of this failure to educate all of our children than the continuing disappointing results from the No Child Left Behind legislation that was passed during the first months of the last Bush administration. It was decidedly bipartisan—Senator Kennedy was an enthusiastic cosponsor—and he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the president at the signing ceremony that I was privileged to attend.

It was arguably the most sweeping piece of school reform legislation in decades. And it was “radical,” especially coming from any president much less a conservative, in that it focused exclusively on narrowing the achievement gap that gnawingly and persistently separated minority from white students.

All of us felt optimistic that it would produce good results because it, for the first time, taking on the teachers unions, shifted the focus of responsibility from children, their families, and the “culture of poverty,” to the schools themselves—they would be held accountable for the outcomes, which would be determined by achievement testing. Though many of us who supported NCLB had to swallow hard because we had questions about putting so much emphasis on high-stakes testing, we concluded that no piece of legislation is perfect, and that there had to be some way of holding school administrators and teachers accountable if there was ever going to be progress.

And there had to be consequences—if school districts and individual schools continued to “fail,” as there are consequences for students who persistently fail, they not only would just be held up to public scrutiny, but also they would no longer be eligible to receive federal money; they would be required to shut down the worst schools; and, key, parents would be allowed to withdraw their children from low-performing schools and enroll them in others that were doing well.

But now, the New York Times reports, the results are in and they are not good. Let me quote the salient paragraphs:

Between 2004 and last year, scores for young minority students increased, but so did those of white students, leaving the achievement gap stubbornly wide. . . .
Although Black and Hispanic elementary, middle and high school students all scored much higher on the federal test than they did three decades ago, most of those gains were not made in recent years, but during the desegregation efforts of the 1970s and 1980s. That was well before the 2001 passage of the No Child law. [Emphasis added.]

On reflection, the major reason NCLB did not work is because almost all the emphasis was placed on results—test scores. Very little was placed on methods—on those that generated real evidence that they worked with low-income black and Hispanic students.

Educators will not get good results unless they are required to employ effective methods. It was mistakenly felt that just to hold them accountable by testing kids every year would get the job done. But if teachers are allowed to teach in the same failed ways than in the past, we will see the same results. As we are.

Going forward, President Obama and his very pragmatic Secretary of Education Arne Duncan—former successful Chicago superintendent of schools—will be requiring just that: to dip into the bounty of money already available in the economic stimulus bill that Congress passed two months ago, there is the requirement that districts and schools will have to generate real data about student progress through high school and into college, and they will be eligible for money if and only if they come up with plans to use methods that have been proven to work.

Now, where have we heard this before—not so much the specifics, but rather that the schools are in crisis and we have to . . . fill in the blank. And what have we then seen X years later? That blank I do not have to fill in.

But this focus on real data and methods that work has a chance. At least let us hope so and work hard for it to turn out to be the case because, remember, the right answer to my question is (d)--The greatest threat to America, even greater than terrorism, is our failing public schools.