Do Believe the Hype
Now that everyone is knee-deep in post-election analysis, I want to call attention to…Tom Friedman.
Friedman’s last couple of posts have been from New Delhi, the capital of India. In one, he quotes from a piece by Nayan Chanda, the editor of YaleGlobal Online, in the Indian magazine Businessworld:
It is the Silicon Valley revolution which enabled the massive rise in tradable services and the U.S.-built telecommunication networks that allowed creation of the virtual office. … But the US seems sadly unprepared to take advantage of the revolution it has spawned. The country’s worn-out infrastructure, failing education system and lack of political consensus have prevent it from riding a new way to prosperity.
In another, Friedman asks:
What if – for all the hype about China, India and globalization – they’re actually underhyped? What if these sleeping giants are just finishing a 20-year process of getting the basic technological and educational infrastructure in place to become innovation hubs and that we haven’t seen anything yet?
In both of these pieces addressing America’s place in the world, Friedman mentions education. In one, America’s failing education system. In the other, newly developed educational infrastructures in China and India. In one, education is to blame for a nation's fall. In the other, education is key to the rise of a new world power.
Now, I don’t believe that our education system is failing—or at least, it’s not failing everyone. There are certainly struggling schools, and struggling students within other schools. There are also great public schools all across the country. But the greater question remains—can our nation thrive if we are not dedicated to building up our educational infrastructure?
We all know that education plays an extremely important role in our economy. But our country is struggling. And we have tough choices to make. We need more, and better, jobs. We have a lot of debt, and we need to bring that down. And in the flat world, we have to compete harder than ever to stay on top, in whatever the measure happens to be. Few would disagree with those statements.
But in times of fiscal crisis, we must remember that we should not attempt to reduce our debt or create new jobs at the expense of education. Some analysts are predicting that given the new make-up of Congress after Tuesday's elections, the federal government will be spending less on education in the future. States, too. And voters themselves rejected some ballot measures to increase funding our schools. But hopefully, as new players come into our political arenas, they will recognize the role of education in strengthening our economy—and our country in general—and fund it accordingly.
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"I don’t believe that our
"I don’t believe that our education system is failing—or at least, it’s not failing everyone."
This seems pretty contradictory to me. Schools can be fine. Students can be fine. Large swaths of the population, easily identifiable by morally arbitrary factors (poverty status, race, geography), are under-served. This is essentially the definition of systemic failure.
The fact that there are many suburban school districts that are doing just find the way things are and some bright spots in some urban and rural settings is NOT evidence against a systems problem. I recently saw a graph (and I'm sorry I can't find it) which shows that Connecticut's white, non-FRPL students are performing near the top on TIMSS and PISA while black, male students in Connecticut are literally second from the bottom.
A successful system should work for nearly all people under nearly all conditions, not systematically breakdown for many people under many conditions.
New DelPhi? Not only are we
New DelPhi? Not only are we lagging behind in math, science and engineering, we seem to be trailing in the world-controlling spelling and geography race, too.
"Good to Great" author Jim Collins talks about confronting the brutal facts as necessary for moving to greatness. So, it is always amazing to me the extent to which some will go to deny the brutal facts about public education in the U.S. Just exactly how bad does it have to get before public education is "failing?"
Commenter _ : Thanks for the
Commenter _ : Thanks for the catch on the spelling.
JB (and this does apply to _ as well) - I had a couple different thoughts in replying to you.
First off, you are talking about "systemic failure," and I am talking about a "failing system." Are those synonymous? I think arguments could be made either way. I personally would argue that they are not, but you may disagree. But assuming that they ARE...
You define systemic failure well. Many seem to agree with you. You point out that schools and students can be fine, and I would strengthen that to point out they can be good or great. And that is always good for the educators in those schools to hear, since they can feel under attack when the blanket statements such as "schools are failing" or "public education is failing" or "the system is failing." They are a part of all those things. It can get demoralizing. And it disrespects the work they do, lumping them in with the bad teachers that are out there.
I think I just may not agree with your use of systemic failure here. I do agree with your claim that "a successful system should work for nearly all people under nearly all conditions, not systematically breakdown for many people under many conditions." But I don't think a system has to be either completely successful or failing.
When I consider the American public education system on an A - F scale, I absolutely would not give it an F. Maybe somewhere around a C. Of course, individual schools and districts are another story. But that is not the system. You are absolutely right that there are certain groups in certain areas that are underserved, such as black males in Connecticut, and there are changes to the system that should be made to support those groups. I would never argue that there are no problems with the system, but those problems do not mean that the entire system is failing.
And Commenter _ : Confronting the brutal facts is necessary to move to greatness. And the brutal facts are that there are incredibly successful public schools and incredibly successful products of the public school system in America. There are also serious, serious challenges with the system. I'd turn your question around and ask, how good does it have to get before public education is "passing?" Maybe once we figure that pass/fail line out, we can have more constructive conversations as a nation.
I agree that education should
I agree that education should not be cut at all. I think this is the quickest way to destroy our county both financially and technologically. Other countries are zooming past us because they place a high importance on education.
ya ofcouse high importance is
ya ofcouse high importance is given for education....
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