The Atlantic has a piece by Matt Miller that made for some great plane ride reading last night. The article “A Modest Proposal to Fix the Schools: First, Kill All the School Boards,” gives a quick overview of Horace Mann’s desire to bring a Prussian system of nationalized schooling to America before lamenting the effects that the local control we ended up with have had on our educational aspirations.
Mann’s epiphany that summer put him on the wrong side of America’s tradition of radical localism when it came to schools. And although his efforts in the years that followed made Massachusetts a model for taxpayer-funded schools and state-sponsored teacher training, the obsession with local control—not incidentally, an almost uniquely American obsession—still dominates U.S. education to this day. For much of the 150 or so years between Mann’s era and now, the system served us adequately: during that time, we extended more schooling to more people than any nation had before and rose to superpower status. But let’s look at what local control gives us today, in the “flat†world in which our students will have to compete.
The United States spends more than nearly every other nation on schools, but out of 29 developed countries in a 2003 assessment, we ranked 24th in math and in problem-solving, 18th in science, and 15th in reading. Half of all black and Latino students in the U.S. don’t graduate on time (or ever) from high school. As of 2005, about 70 percent of eighth-graders were not proficient in reading. By the end of eighth grade, what passes for a math curriculum in America is two years behind that of other countries.
Dismal fact after dismal fact; by now, they are hardly news. But in the 25 years since the landmark report A Nation at Risk sounded the alarm about our educational mediocrity, America’s response has been scattershot and ineffective, orchestrated mainly by some 15,000 school districts acting alone, with help more recently from the states. It’s as if after Pearl Harbor, FDR had suggested we prepare for war through the uncoordinated efforts of thousands of small factories; they’d know what kinds of planes and tanks were needed, right?
When you look at what local control of education has wrought, the conclusion is inescapable: we must carry Mann’s insights to their logical end and nationalize our schools, to some degree.
I’ve been constantly amazed at the wide variety of emphasis different schools in different parts have when it comes to curriculum and assessment. Equally inconsistent, obviously is the way districts approach technology implementation and professional development and goodness knows what else. The lack of consistency you see when you travel around is acute, and on many levels, frustrating.
What continues to interest me, however, is that even though Miller states that a majority of people now agree we need a national curriculum with national standards, no where does this conversation (or anything close to it) show up in any of the presidential debates or party agendas. Anyone want to bet that education won’t be mentioned tonight in the Republican debate (which I’m steeling myself to catch since I can’t be in Philadelphia where the REAL conversations about schools are already starting)?
While I’m not a fan of testing, seems to me that if we gotta have it, we’d be a lot better off getting everyone on the same page in terms of where we want to get while letting individual districts have the ability to decided the best way to get there.
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The classic hubris of every generation is to think that our condition is unique compared to all of history. So while the Internet and a flattened world do present new challenges, I do not agree that that the fundamental principles of participatory government as best represented by local politics are at all obsolete. In fact, I believe that Americans (creators of this flattened world) are best positioned to take advantage of this new environment because of our innate sense of liberty. As Tip O’Neill once observed, all politics is local. And if you think about when government has benefitted you most personally, it is always local, not national.
I’m not saying state and federal government have no role in education; I just don’t agree that massive beauracracies can better educate my child than a group of my friends and neighbors.
even when that group of “friends and neighbors” believes the world is only 6,000 years old despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary?
And what makes us think that a majority of the federal government would not lead us to teach that the world is only 6,000 years old?
And what makes us think that a majority of the federal government would not lead us to teach that the world is only 6,000 years old?
And what makes us think that a majority of the federal government would not lead us to teach that the world is only 6,000 years old?
And what makes us think that a majority of the federal government would not lead us to teach that the world is only 6,000 years old?
And what makes us think that a majority of the federal government would not lead us to teach that the world is only 6,000 years old?
And what makes us think that a majority of the federal government would not lead us to teach that the world is only 6,000 years old?
And what makes us think that a majority of the federal government would not lead us to teach that the world is only 6,000 years old?
And what makes us think that a majority of the federal government would not lead us to teach that the world is only 6,000 years old?
And what makes us think that a majority of the federal government would not lead us to teach that the world is only 6,000 years old?
And what makes us think that a majority of the federal government would not lead us to teach that the world is only 6,000 years old?
I agree on the basis that many schools are not even addressing the National Standards let alone meeting or exceeding them. Why the State Standards exist (and do not coincide with the Nation’s) befuddles me.
Technology needs to be taught, but in order for it to be taught correctly, we need to train parents differently. That would allow technology teachers to teach the tools that are now available!
Would a nationally controlled school system be no better than the average school today? While it may help many of the schools that have not changed with the times to advance, would it also slow down those that are progressing forward. What makes you think that our national government would be any more successful in driving change?
Will, Immediately upon reading your post, I thought back to during my graduate studies in AT and how shocked I was when I found out about the synchronism in curriculum and instruction in countries like Japan. At that time, I was like, “Hey tts can help people with high incidence learning disabilities, how much does it cost, let’s do it nationwide.” I was the same way about excellent reading instruction. I had and still do have a hard time that there is not a quicker and more streamlined way to bring the good new things to the students and teachers.
Yet, I was in a very influential class this summer and remember the presenter, David Koppenhaver talking about how things change one classroom and then one school at a time. What is your vision for how to build the capacity that we so much want for our learners and their teachers?
I was a bit taken aback by the two excellent responses, previous to mine. There is something that rings resoundingly true about that point about the investment of that “group of my friends and neighbors.”
So, I surely don’t have it figured out, but I care. I think your point about working from the top is key. Yet, I think that having the ground swell of a program that works and can spread among localities and is freely chosen combined with the top level support is what will help us and our schools.
I guess that was my two cents, plus forty. : )
Oh… I see. This is by Matt Miller. Yes, he is good at writing out very rational proposals for solving difficult problems in a non-partisan fashion. Unfortunately, we lack the political capacity or leadership to pull these kinds of plans off, so on one hand, pragmatic and rational, on another hand, it might as well be a utopian fantasy, because it’s just not going to happen.
I home school my son in Montana, which has some of the least restrictive home schooling laws in the country, which is to say that I don’t even “submit” to “local control”. That said, more local control, not less, is needed. Our country grows more diverse by the day. One national system which reaches the needs of each individual learner is just not possible. The result of that course of action is a system that barely reaches the needs of the most capable learners. An individualized education is not possible with mandated curricula and mandated tests.
Our national education system must:
– promote a diversity of educational opportunities
– fund research that explores diverse educational possibilities
– share (not force) those opportunities and possibilities with schools and citizens
– give schools and citizens the freedom to choose and create their own learning environments
– make it very easy to create and accredit your own public school
– promote standards, eliminate mandates
How should a national education system “help” schools and individuals that “clearly” need help? That’s the rub. Mandating is not the answer.
Here’s an impulsive, half-baked answer… the Socratic method. Challenge a “failing” school’s methods and assumptions. Prompt them to ask their own questions and seek their own answers. Connect schools with a diversity of independent resources.
Diverse possibilities already exist. Unfortunately our current system prohibits and retards them.
As usual, I’m left with more questions than answers to my own rambling thoughts. Thanks for provoking me Will.
There are many interesting sides to this conversation. I admit that I am torn myself as to what is best.
I teach in a small town in South Dakota. The problem with the school boards in my area is this, they often run for the school board with their own agenda. This agenda may or may not be in the best interest of the students. Aside from that, the majority of people who place a high value on education leave the community to persue their educational goals. Not many return to this small town.
When I was student teaching, a piece of advice that I heard has stuck with me these many years. The old teacher said, “Be good to your C and D students, they’ll be your parents… and school board.”
I am at the same time scared of more brokered laws like NCLB and school board members with vendettas.
Hmmm… I’m a bit confused by this train of thought. Up here in BC, Canada, we have a strange system where the Federal government controls part of the school system (a very small part), the provinces control most of it, and the individual district based school boards control part of it. What happens is very often hard to follow, but seems to work for keeping everyone accountable.
The key system for accountability in BC is the Provincial exam. Our students take these exams in Grade 12, and there is one for each core subject. There is also one for English, Math and Science in grade 10, and Social Studies in grade 11. These exams are worth 40 percent of the student’s grade.
The end result? Everyone in the entire province has 40% of their grade for key classes determined by the same test. Which makes sense, because what is taught is also determined by each province.
These tests are used for many things. First they stop grade inflation from happening because a large part of the grade is determined by the Province, and also teachers are usually required to have their grades be similar to what their students receive from the provincial exams (eg: there’s a problem if a student gets and A on the provincial exam but fails the class, or vice versa). They also give the province a way to ensure that all teachers teach the curriculum mandated. They also serve the same purpose as the SAT, helping universities determine between students for admissions.
Where do the school boards sit in all of this? They hold the purse strings for the individual schools.
So you see putting more power in the Province (or in your case the State) may be the answer. That way each state could make determinations on things like testing, and that way ensure that the proscribed curriculum is taught.
It’s a bit more complicated than what is above, but it seems to work here.
On a side note, I don’t think that a test focus is the best way to do things, but I suppose it does work, and having gone through them my self I found them to fit in quite well with what was taught. They never seemed to be out of place, or imposed.
Will,
I, too, am concerned with the fuzzy “standards” that many state and local curriclua are founded upon, localization of education, and the deep divides our curriculum system creates between affluent communities and rural and urban systems. Once a proponent of locatiozation and local control, I read E.D. Hirsch, Jr.’s THE KNOWLEDGE DEFICIT. He makes a strong case for national core curriculum, particularly in the rimary grades. I suggest that your readers look to the Core Knowledge Foundation’s blog: http://www.coreknowledge.org/blog/.
Interestingly enough, NJ will soon release it’s white paper on “Redesigning High Schools”. The project is driven by the NJ High School Redesign Steering Committee; a committee of more than 15 members representing the teacher’s union, NJ businesses, NJ colleges, and concerned citizens. In a nutshell, they are proposing a Regents style of testing in the high schools – exit exams at English 2 or 3, Algebra 2, and Biology. The committee holds public information sessions around the state to inform the public what they want to do. The immediate implication is that the state will now mandate an English, Algebra, and Biology curriculum. The end of local control over these core subject curricula.
For more information on the NJ High School Redesign Steering Commitee, meeting times, presntations, press releases, and background, you can visit: http://www.njhighschoolsummit.org/index.asp.
Great post Will. I am also saddened that our presidential candidates have nothing to say about education (other than to keep or abolish NCLB). What they fail to articulate – and maybe even recognize – is that the problem is not solely NCLB… it’s the structure, leadership, and ideology of American education.
The changes to NJ seem like a good idea to me. I actually find it odd that the local districts have so much leeway in what they teach. Shouldn’t everyone in the state learn something similar? That way you can move to the other side of the state and not be behind or far ahead.
The concept of independent, automous School Boards, operating under their own ‘curriculum’ standards, must create a real ‘night mare’ for any child who moves to a new district.
Just a note about the following statement quoted in this post:
“The United States spends more than nearly every other nation on schools, but out of 29 developed countries in a 2003 assessment, we ranked 24th in math and in problem-solving, 18th in science, and 15th in reading.”
Eliot W. Eisner in his book, The Educational Imagination, notes that the United States is a big spender on education, but only if you include higher education in that figure. If you look at K-12 spending, the United States spends much less than most industrialized countries (p. 20).
Interesting to think how things in our schools might be different if our K-12 spending was on par with most other industrial nations.
I am not ready to give up on the local school board idea yet. However, we really do not have autonomous school boards that can lead districts into the future. Local control is preety much an American myth. The problem is all the regulation local school districts have to cope with. School boards are loosing their ability to lead and are becoming coping instruments for state and federal policy. This has come about do to the public’s instance on having local control while state and federal officials have sought to advance their political careers by passing legislation that must be funded locally. It is a win-win for them since they appear to care abour our children and are not responsible for tax increases. Indeed, I believe this is part of a larger problem with our demicracy – rule by perception rather than substance. In today’s government, objective reality does not matter as much as the public’s perception of it. For this, we thank ourselves, as educators, for not properly educating the the electorate in the first place.