Education has to be a major component of any long range plan to preserve American international economic competitiveness and consequently its standard of living. There is little doubt that by many measures U.S. educational achievement lags behind the levels attained by many other industrialized countries. For the results of a recent comparitive study click here.
Education problems have certainly received considerable attention. The Bush Administration tried to address educational deficencies with the No Child Left Behind program. It laudably attempted to create a set of standards but unfortunately tied them too strongly to rote testing and failed to provide the funding needed to implement K-12 improvements or expand access to higher education.
The incoming Obama Administration has also stressed a commitment to education, mentioning it among its top five national priorities and promising innovative approaches, increased funding and a college-for-service program to increase access. Most promisingly, Obama himself has shown an interest in making achievement, service, public education and having a brain "cool" again.
The educational studies show a disturbing trend: American kids get off to a good start in reading, mathematics and science as measured in the fourth grade, but go downhill from there. By the eighth grade they are no longer ahead of the field and by the age of fifteen they are starting to lag behind other nations.
As a long-time educator I do not believe the causes for this pattern are principally to be found in weaker instruction at higher grades. I believe the roots of this declining performance are mainly cultural.
Culturally, I have noticed a strong anti-intellectual bias in recent years. We have witnessed a continual railing against "elites" and a culture war against science and fact-based discourse. We have seen the previous two presidential elections decided on the basis of perceived cultural affinity with the person "you would want to have a beer with" rather than on the candidate having the smarts for the job.
I also noticed a pernicious peer pressure during my middle school teaching days that sought to ridicule high academic achievement. It was clear that a good deal of this attitude emanated from some children's homes. Another distressingly high dose of it spews from the spigot of popular culture. There the shallow, commercial, reckless and narcissistic are glorified at the expense of ideals that actually matter.
The political effects of these cultural trends are quite clear by now and have been repudiated in this year's polling. The educational effects are no less deleterious. President Obama may have many good ideas for educational reform, but the results will disappoint if he does not devote much of his considerable powers of persuasion and inspiration to changing the cultural views that underpin societal attitudes about educational achievement in the nation. Cocky, ignorant and stupid are not cool. Openminded, curious and smart are. To the extent President Obama and indeed all our role models effectively make this case will U.S. students begin moving up the educational achievement ladder. Without them all the well-meaning reforms and new appropriations in the world will not accomplish squat.
3 comments:
You're right the problem is hugely cultural. Trashing NCLB ASAP would definitely help too. It shifts the entire purpose of the education system, as does the US being very much a credential society, but I don't think there's going to be anything we are going to do about that. And for the record, I'm still declaring the 2000 and 2004 elections undecided, because less people wanted to share a beer with Governor Bush than the numbers say.
I suspect fewer people would admit to having wanted to share a beer with the current occupant than said so four or eight years ago. :-)
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