The Hypocrisy of Education Reform (in Texas)
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…compulsory learning never sticks in the mind.
-Plato
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
-Thomas Jefferson
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act – $100 Billion in Funds) was signed into law by President Obama on February 17th, 2009.
While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill-little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
-John Adams
The resources come with a bow tied around them that says ‘Reform.’ Our basic premise is that the status quo and political constituencies can no longer determine how we proceed on public education reform in this country.
-Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s chief of staff
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
-Thomas Jefferson
Much educational change is akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
-Anonymous
Education reform in the United States is forever burdened by two realities. One, the word itself, “reform,” implies that a systematic change is required before students can achieve and succeed. And, two, that anyone who has attended any school at any time in their life, from Bill Gates to Al Sharpton to your neighbor down the street, are suddenly experts as to the wrongs of our American education system.
The current trend is to place blame squarely on the teachers’ shoulders. But in reality, teaching was taken away from the teachers in the early 1980s. Ross Perot led the charge insisting that students in Texas need to be challenged by state-controlled achievement tests.
If ever there was a more damaging concept to learning and teaching, it was this idea of state-prescribed testing. The State decided that it knew better than local school boards and local citizens how to determine they way local children should be educated. To be fair, Mr. Perot also proposed some much needed ideas on education, especially as pertaining to pre-school education, unfortunately, all the gain would later be lost in the all powerful “test.”
So what is wrong with testing our children?
Nothing, if done correctly and used strictly as a guide to evaluate the learning process.
The State of Texas, however, decided that the “test” would not only measure the students, but the teachers and the schools as well. Monies and jobs were suddenly on the line with the “test.” It only took a year before the schools figured out, that the best way to meet the state standard was to abandon the process of education and “teach the test.”
The problem?
Students were (and are) learning only what the State would have them learn. This is a very scary concept. Children continue to be drilled to the answers on the test and not allowed to step outside the State’s learning dictate. We have, with Mr. Perot’s reform, effectively created “parrots” who can mimic and regurgitate the State’s test. Simple activities such as daydreaming and play, both vital in the development of imagination, have been put aside.
Forced learning can never be a substitute for willful learning. Ever.
Learning should be an adventure. Learning should be fun. Learning should never be about the regurgitating of a legislative-prescribed idea list.
The purpose of any school is to “teach” children how to seek knowledge throughout the course of their lives. The process is actually very simple and once a child is allowed to pursue knowledge without pressure and drudgery, the school has done its job. Children flourish when they are allowed to enjoy learning, and teachers flourish when allowed to teach.
Prior to 1982 and Mr. Perot, how in the world did our schools manage to produce students who later landed men on the moon, conquered polio, transplanted hearts, introduced desktop computers, and made the laser a reality of everyday life? One of those students even founded a company, Electronic Data Systems, with a thousand dollar loan and later sold it for $2.5 billion.
How?
For starters, “back then,” educators realized that not all children walked or talked at the same age and not all students learn the same things at the same age. The education system of that age promoted reading and writing, two basics for all future educational development. Today, once again, we promote reading by “lists” of what the child should read. Reading, the basis of all learning, should be about enjoyment. Students should be encouraged to read about things they like. Once a student finds enjoyment in reading, they will read more. The more a child reads, the more intelligent they will become.
Our schools should always be places where students learn because they want to, not because they have too. Gathering ones own information and the joy that goes along with finding that information is addicting and ensures a high rate of successful citizens.
If government truly wants to “measure” the success of our schools, then it need only check on where a school’s students are in their lives five years after graduation. That it is the only true measure of a school’s success. Ask any teacher how many times students have returned years after graduation and confessed, “I didn’t really understand what you were telling me about that subject during school, but today I understand what you meant completely.” That discovery, the “ah ha moment,” is what makes a teacher go to work each day.
So what is so difficult about educating our children now?
Nothing really.
Unless you allow government to become involved …unless you allow government at any level to “dictate” the education process. Once the government steps in, the endless bureaucratic search for accountability begins, and shortly thereafter, the education process is turned into a whirlpool of stress and emotional strain.
So what is the hypocrisy of educational reform?
It is that we changed what worked all along, that we didn’t improve the system with technology, but instead revamped the platform entirely, simply because people like Ross Perot forgot what it was like to be a student before ‘prescribed tests . . . simply because people like Ross Perot forgot how they themselves once learned.
Mike Kearby is a novelist and a sought after guest speaker about the history of Texas. Mike has garnered praise for his Free Anderson/Parks Scott trilogy. The third book in the series, Ambush at Mustang Canyon was a 2008 Spur Award Finalist.Visit Mike Kearby!
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