Doing the Numbers on Public Schools Adds Up to Zero
by Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal
What with Americans being such an opinionated people, it isn't often that
an issue of public policy ever arrives at the steady state of national agreement.
Even as skulls were brought up from Saddam's torture chambers, e-mails still
rolled in from the war's opponents to re-argue the wrongness of the effort.
So imagine how surprising it was to discover this past week that there is
one subject about which the people of this country are in about as much agreement
as statistical science ever achieves: America's public schools. They are
widely and deeply regarded as awful.
Public Agenda, a New York-based nonprofit that does opinion surveys on a
range of issues, compiled an analysis of a decade of polling on public education,
and news reports about the study were eye-catching. Mainly the message was
that while accountability matters in the public mind, what really upsets
people is the generalized disorderliness in public schools. Having opinions
of my own on what caused many schools to shift from being temples of learning
to temples for having-fun-with-my-friends, I thought the Public Agenda report,
"Where We Are Now," deserved a closer look.
Please join me for a tour of the second circle of hell. George Bush has a
plan of action called No Child Left Behind, but if Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction were sufficient reason to invade Iraq, he should now send in
the Marines to occupy and reconstruct the nation's dysfunctional public schools.
Teachers, principals, parents, employers, college professors and students
all have a uniformly low opinion of what's going on in our schools. Unless
bracketed, the language here is taken largely from the study's own wording
of questions and results:
Some 71% of respondents believe most public-school students do the bare minimum
to get by; 83% of teachers say parents who fail to set limits and create
structure at home are a serious problem, and 81% think parents who refuse
to hold their kids accountable for behavior or academic performance are a
serious problem. Of teachers, 43% say they spend more time keeping order
than teaching. Instead of more pay (12%), 86% of teachers said they'd rather
have a school where student behavior and parental support were better.
TEACHERS WOULD PREFER:
A school where student behavior and parental support were significantly better
86%
A school that paid a significantly higher salary 12%
Don't know 2%
Some 61% of African-American parents think inner-city kids should be expected
to achieve the same standards as wealthier kids. Priorities: 82% of African-American
parents think the biggest priority is raising academic standards; 8% want
more focus on diversity and integration. Nearly all parents, 92%, think you
should have to pass a standardized test to be promoted -- and, if you fail,
you should have to go to summer school or repeat the grade.
Employers who think local public schools are doing a good or excellent job:
42%. Some 59% of college professors rate public schools as fair or poor.
Professors who say a high-school diploma means students have learned the
basics: 31%. [In the 1970s, a friend who began teaching at the University
of Texas told me most of his freshmen thought they were A students; "they're
not."] Only 47% of professors and 41% of employers think public-school graduates
have the skills to succeed in the work world. About 74% of employers and
professors think public-school graduates' writing skills are fair or poor;
same number for grammar and spelling. About 64% say graduates' basic math
is fair or poor; 69% of employers feel personal organization is fair or poor.
Only 19% of teachers say parental involvement is strong in their school [parental
involvement is one of the established keys to a successful school]; 87% of
teachers think parents ought to limit their kids' TV time or should check
their homework [clearly the inference is most parents do neither].
Disrespect is pandemic.
Of all Americans surveyed, 9% say, "The kids I see in public are respectful
toward adults." Only 18% of teachers and 30% of students say, "Students treat
each other with respect in my high school;" 19% of students say, "In my high
school, most students treat teachers with respect." Americans who feel their
schools have a serious discipline problem: 76%.
Any stairwell of public-school hell we've left off the tour? Oh yes, we've
left off the politics from hell.
Asked why talented teachers quit, school superintendents say: low pay and
prestige -- 5%; politics and bureaucracy -- 81%. Sixty-seven percent of principals
wish they were able to reward good teachers and remove bad ones [that is,
they can't do either now]. Over 80% of principals and superintendents say
they have more new mandates and responsibilities than they can handle. Eighty-four
percent of superintendents say they spend too much time on special ed., and
50% say they spend too much on legal issues and litigation.
A wag might ask: If we're so stupid, how come the U.S. earned an A in technology
and human performance in Iraq? Short answer: The armed services don't let
stupid people enlist anymore. The army now provides its own education, which
is largely what most employers do as well today. A job is now a re-education
camp for many public-school grads.
How the schools got this way -- how respect for teachers died, disorder rose,
basic learning fell, bureaucracy rose, why the best teachers quit, parents
stopped caring and why professors think freshmen are academically delusional
-- is a subject for another column and maybe another lifetime (it takes more
than one paragraph to explain how Supreme Court Justices with high IQs render
legal decisions reflecting no common sense).
But for now, amid the overwhelming agreement found in the Public Agenda surveys,
I have one small, recurring question: Tell me again why we're supposed to
think charter schools and school choice are bad ideas.
Updated May 2, 2003 1:42