AMERICAN EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS

by

Aldo S. Bernardo, PhD

Never before has American education been in as precarious a situation as it seems to be at present. For over ten years now we have seen three presidents, two governors' summits, and a host of commissions, committees, panels, unions, boards and business executives trying to warn citizens that American schools have become dysfunctional and are in dire need of repairs. And for over ten years the results of student performance have worsened despite the billions being spent to stop the downward trend.

Perhaps the time has come to stop and try to examine the problem rationally. It is not the first time that American education has reached a threshold at which only radical solutions seem to be called for. The early part of this century saw a similar situation which ultimately led to the progressive theories of John Dewey whose experiential approach proved too burdensome for the schools, and the situation eventually got back on track by realizing that the old tracks were perhaps not as broken as believed. Later attempts at reforms dealt with teaching methods rather than the total picture. Once again, such novelties as new math and open classrooms simply did not work, and so education returned to previous reliable approaches.

This time, however, reformers are calling for a systemic reform, a complete rethinking of the very concept of education. This may be seen in the Congressional bill that ultimately resulted from the efforts of Presidents Reagan and Bush to initiate the reform movement. Known as Goals 2000, it was signed by President Clinton in 1994 under the title "Educate America Act," but it was subtitled "A Strategy for Reinventing Our Schools." Unlike President Reagan's report "A Nation at Risk"(1983), which warned of America's students lagging behind those in other countries, to President Bush's America 2000, which contained the recommendations of American governors on how to repair what seemed broken, President Clinton's Goals 2000 calls for a complete restructuring, a "new paradigm."

As politicians, educrats, academicians, psychologists, sociologists, and CEOs entered the fray, the well-intentioned movement became murky and increasingly chaotic. It soon became clear that the reformers truly intended a clean sweep of what education had meant to Americans. The acquisition of knowledge for its own sake, the study and appreciation of great works by outstanding minds and artists, the acquisition of communication and mathematical skills, the objective search for scientific knowledge, the analysis and assimilation of ideas and ideals that enabled western civilization to serve as a beacon for the rest of the world, all of this was suddenly declared superficial, politically motivated, artificial, and unneeded. The new education was to turn from such academic trivia to preparing the new person for the 21st century, a person aware of the leading role that was to be played by the new technology which in some way would for the most part take care of the 3Rs and all the other academic "frills" that had marked the progress of the old education, the education of the past. The search for truth, which was at the heart of the traditional academy, was to be replaced by the promotion of the social and emotional growth of the individual while preparing him or her for the demands of the "real life" to come in the 21st century.

As a result, a bevy of "researchers" and educrats started scurrying around for a system that would accomplish this. A gold mine seemed to be struck when a group of sociologists and educrats, with the assistance of politicians and business executives, came across a program that had been around for some time and that had close connections with Dewey's "progressive education." Known as Outcome Based Education, it called for a much greater emphasis on the affective dimension of the educational process at the expense of the old academic rigors. Basing itself on the conviction that "it's a disproven theory that children must first learn basic skills before engaging in more complex tasks," the stress was now to be placed on the "more complex tasks." The educational process was to move from concepts to facts rather than vice versa.

This called for a complete revamping of teaching methods. Instead of the teacher being an authoritative figure in the front of the class, he or she was to be a "coach" or "facilitator" helping the class to discover knowledge in small groups working on one or more projects. Working together in groups would prepare students for the team approach used by industry. It would also "level the playing field" so that the disadvantaged would have the same opportunity as others in the learning process. This brings us to the two dominant mantras of the new education. One is that it must foster self-esteem; the other that "it takes a whole village to raise a child." The first requires that students must acquire the attitudes, values, and feelings that would lead to a smooth, painless transition to the "real life," as defined by experts; the second requires that the child's entire community participate in defining his or her education. As for assessing the results, standardized tests are out for the most part. Whatever testing is done must be supplemented by portfolios containing a student's work record that follows him or her throughout his or her schooling and beyond. Failures must be avoided, remediation encouraged, the disabled must learn alongside the able, grade levels must be blurred, reading and writing must be "expedited" through the use of "whole language," and all subjects must be somehow connected with career interests. In short, primary emphasis is placed on the student's ability to process information rather than to acquire and to retain knowledge of content material or a discipline.

All of this and much more is contained or implied in Goals 2000 whose effects have spilled over into state programs that merely repeat and expand on the federal proposals. While Goals 2000 repeatedly assures the states that its programs are strictly voluntary, the millions of dollars deriving from it have made 90% of the states fall into line. Whereas America 2000 was a call for educational reform, Goals 2000 offers a prescription for "reinventing" our schools. The general movement is from academics to behavioralistic concerns, from the cognitive to the affective domain.

The sharp contrast with "traditional education" is obvious without going into further detail. Since the results so far can only be called dismal, should we not mark time for a while to see where we are going? Should self-esteem be the ultimate goal of education? Should the "whole village" be involved in defining a child's education? Should schools be involved in "raising" a child? Should the idea of knowledge acquisition defer to the acquisition of skills for the new technology? Has the concept of education become so controversial that it calls for a new definition?

The two great revolutions that shook the world, the French revolution of the 18th century and the Industrial Revolution of the 19th, tried in vain to redefine education. The passage of time inevitably justified a return to the time-tested concept of the educated person developed by the ancients and the European Renaissance. The latest example of this occurred shortly after World War II when the Soviet Union suddenly seemed to be outpacing us in the new technology with the launching of Sputnik in 1957. No less than the commander-in-chief reponsible for the defeat of Hitler agreed that rather than have American education turn to the wholesale training of technical experts, it should continue stressing the liberal arts and the development of well- rounded citizens. The payoff came not too long ago with the fall of the Soviet empire. It has also come in the form of the amazing continuation of Americans winning more Nobel prizes than the rest of the world combined.

In a significant book recently published by two professors with impressive credentials, we even find the incredible thesis that the entire substructure supporting the current educational reforms is based on faulty and unsubstantiated research and statistics. Entitled THE MANUFACTURED CRISIS, (Addison-Wesley, 1995) the study challenges the notion that American schools are failing and are inferior to European schools. Referring to the intiatives of the Reagan and Bush administrations, as well as to the criticisms of such prominent figures as William Bennett and Allan Bloom, the authors ask how Americans could possibly have escaped the conclusion that education in this country is in a deplorable state, "given such an energetic and widely reported campaign of criticism, from such prestigious sources, attacking America's schools? To the best of our knowledge, no campaign of this sort had ever before appeared in American history. Never before had an American government been so critical of the public schools, and never had so many false claims been made about education in the name of 'evidence.'" (p.4) The authors are convinced that the hype surrounding the reform movement is doing far more harm than good since it is all based on false information. They are convinced that "it is not necessary to destroy faith in the public schools because some people believe that schools are not doing all that is necessary to prepare for the next century. Directing the schools toward a different set of goals would certainly be appropriate - if we were truly wise enough to predict the future." (p.12)

The authors then proceed to present statistics supporting their conclusions. Even granting that their handling of the statistics has been seriously questioned, the main thesis is still valid. Does the success of American education over the last two centuries justify the sudden storm of criticism directed at our schools? The call for a complete overhaul and "reinvention" must certainly be approached with great care. Such a radical approach may well affect not only the general direction but the basic philosophy of an educational system that has given our country the leadership in almost every area of human endeavor.

We thus come to the basic question that must be asked. What should be the basic purpose of American education? Is it to prepare for adult life, and, if so, what do we want adult life to consist of? Or is it to fulfill the promise contained in our Declaration of Independence: the guarantee of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Could it be the ancient adage of Know Thyself? A Renaissance sage considered virtue the only constant in mortal affairs because she alone "can make blessed those who embrace her and wretched those who forsake her." He defined virtue as the capacity "to feel rightly about God, and act rightly among men." Given the recent interest in the teaching of character, should virtue be education's primary goal? Can any or all of these be summarized in the concept of wisdom? And don't most or all of them fall in the category of what has been considered "academics" since the days of Plato and Socrates?

The extent to which we have departed from these goals or purposes may be seen in a recent (Feb. '96) poll conducted by Public Agenda, a research group founded by Daniel Yankelovich and Cyrus Vance. The survey of public school teachers shows that computer literacy, citizenship and basic skills are more important than learning Shakespeare or Hemingway. Less that 25% of ll64 teachers listed classic works from Shakespeare and Plato to such American authors as Hemingway or Steinbeck, as "absolutely essential." At least 70% of the teachers ranked the 3 R's, the value of hard work, citizenship, computer skills and U.S. history and geography as essential. As one group official explained, "Computer skills emerge from the pack because the teachers connect that with survival in the real world." The teachers placed "an excellent academic education" a distant third, with only 21% saying it is the most important factor. Similarly, a May, 1995 survey by the same group found that only a quarter of the general public ranked the classics or American literary works as "absolutely essential."

The jump from the classics to computer skills that will help "survival in the real world" is perhaps the key to the problem. As essential as computer skills are becoming, isn't there something wrong with the picture? Even with acquisition of the 3 R's and knowledge of US history and geography, what will computer skills accomplish without the user's having been exposed to the great IDEAS that had created the modern world? This is what made our founding fathers capable of pinpointing "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" as the ultimate goal of a civilized society. Will computer skills help young people to grasp the meaning and importance of this goal? As one teacher in the poll pointed out, "Schools are trying to do the parents' job and, in some cases, [neglecting] the school's job of teaching a body of knowledge and thought needed to have thinking educated people. If we valued the classics and history and advanced math and science, and gave kids those concepts so that they would be thinking and knowledgeable, they could learn about computers later." And as Chester Finn observed concerning the poll, "I think teachers have been brainwashed by the political-correctness crowd to think that anything associated with 'classics' is tainted as 'dead, white, European male' imperialism." Vice President Gore gave a general summary of what has occurred so far by stating that the online revolution "will forever change the way we live, learn, work and communicate." We must now stop and ask, "Can computers really improve the quality of people's lives without interfering with the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?"

We are deeply concerned that the recent National Education Summit may be buying into these recent trends. The fact that most governors and an equal number of CEOs joined by representatives of the NEA and the education community in a meeting called by a governor and the CEO of IBM and held on IBM property gives credence to such concern. The suspicion that what emerged from that meeting was the result of Big Government and Big Business, abetted by a Big Union and other self-serving interests interfering with what is ultimately the province of the family, parents, and local school districts is probably justified. Now that the first five years of the reform are over, it is essential that we measure what progress has been made before proceeding.

We therefore respectfully urge the leaders of future Summits to use their influence to make certain that the radical programs being thrust upon schools in an attempt to "reinvent" education nationally be carefully reexamined. Schools have already been overburdened by the intrusion of social services, health services, special interest groups and the attempt to make them all-purpose community centers. We must not blur the distinction between "schooling" and "education." Any Summit that does not take into account the opinions of those parents, taxpayers, and citizens who are rightfully sceptical of what has transpired in the first five to ten years of the reform efforts is bound to create further tensions and misunderstandings that could lead to the crippling of the American school.

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