Inside Our Schools: The elephants in the living room

      Today (11/15/09) on “Meet the Press,” the unusual trio of civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of the House, were interviewed to discuss their findings and ideas about the problems with public education and what to do about them. Gingrich and Sharpton had  recently toured the country visiting local schools in order to find out what was actually happening in the classrooms of the United States. Their suggestions, although well-meaning and relatively non-partisan, were a list of wishes more than concrete suggestions for solutions.

       Some of the statistics presented during the program were grim. More than 1.2 million school-age students drop out of high school each year. Specifically, in the Washington D.C. schools, only 9% of high school graduates finish college. And in terms of students who choose to enter the teaching profession, a former dean of education observed that when he began his teaching career in the 60’s, students choosing teaching came from the top third of the graduating class; now they are coming from the bottom third. To remedy this situation, the Obama administration has already begun to receive suggestions for educational innovation and reform from 48 of the 50 states in response to the “Race to the Top” initiative and the $4 billion in support funds for those “best practice” ideas that will lead to better student learning.

       Among the issues Duncan, Gingrich and Sharpton found were what seemed the reluctance of the teachers’ unions to ferret out poor teachers so as to replace them with good ones; the need therefore, for greater “accountability” of teachers as expressed by Michelle Rhee, head of the Washington, D.C. schools; and greater rewards and recognition for outstanding teaching. Sharpton also emphasized the importance of young learners having “responsible parents.” All of these issues need to be addressed, but they are symptoms of a much larger problem

       The Elephants in the Living Room,  those issues that are fundamental to improving the quality of teaching and learning in public education were not even touched: racism and poverty. Several of the discussants cited school success stories where expectations for students were high, there was good discipline, and, in one inner-city school, the graduation rate went from 25% to 86% in three years. But, unfortunately, the exception doesn’t prove the rule.Over the last twenty-five years the United States has gone backward in racial integration in the public schools , among the worst offenders being NYC (I intend to explore the issue of public school segregation in NYC in future columns.). The effects of poverty, the gross economic inequalities in the nation as a significant factor in limiting student learning, were not even hinted at by the panel.

      Today, many good teaching practices are being implemented all over the country. They’ve been around since John Dewey’s books on education almost 100 years ago. But for these successes to be nation-wide requires a fundamental rethinking of the workings of our economic system and I doubt that any politician would dare to deal with remedying that.