U.S. Public Education at the Precipice

You may be expecting that this article is going to be another gloom and doom polemic on the dire condition of public education in the United States. That will not be the case here. Public education in the U.S. was one of the greatest creations in world history. It is an example of our striving to give everyone access to the basic tools to become well rounded citizens and productive participants in society. Our founding fathers did not believe that all citizens should be allowed to vote for their government representatives because they lacked the knowledge and wisdom to make those decisions.

Fortunately they and subsequent leaders had the excellent foresight to create our free public education system which allows everyone access to this knowledge and wisdom. It quickly grew to become the envy of the world and was soon copied all over the globe. Our public education system was preeminent in the world until recent times. The rest of the world began to catch up with us economically and one of their prime tools in accomplishing this was public education. We had become complacent in this area which had allowed our system to erode. I intend to examine our public education system in this article and I will offer my four prime ideas on how to restore the system to its former preeminence. The future of the United States rests on our succeeding in this endeavor.

The first aspect of U.S. public education that I will examine is the innovation of charter schools. These experimental schools have shown promising results as incubators of new and innovative education ideas and processes. The first charter schools law was passed in Minnesota in 1991 in response to poorly performing schools in that state. They were formed to give parents alternatives within the public school system. These new schools were also created to experiment with new ways to educate their children. California followed suit in 1992 and there has been a steady stream of states enacting these laws ever since. There are now over 40 states experimenting with these schools.

I myself am familiar with these schools in Newark, New Jersey by way of a program called TeacherNex. They are an organization that trains teachers for both regular and charter public schools. I applied for this program as an experienced professional entering the education field. I was tremendously impressed with the program along with the schools and my fellow prospective candidates. The pool of candidates was a mix of both education graduates and experienced professionals such as myself. There were approximately 300 people being interviewed for the program after the initial screening. Most of the candidates were young education graduates and they were a very eager and impressive group.

Approximately one quarter of the candidates were selected and unfortunately I was not chosen to be part of the program. But I came away from the experience extremely encouraged about the possibilities for our education future. I did not meet a single person in the program that I was not impressed with. The charter school that we interviewed at was also remarkable. The pictures, charts, and articles on the walls illustrated how the teachers engaged their students in interactive work and coaxed them to think critically about civic issues. This is the type of teaching that I believe we need much more of.

Students need to be taught more than simple memorization of facts. I wrote about this form of teaching in my TeacherNex application essay and I was pleased to see it being employed in this Newark school. These charter schools are allowed to implement their own teaching practices and curriculum. The state gives these schools guidelines as to what subjects must be taught and tested upon. But the charter schools determine how to teach these subjects . This is where the innovation in our schools is going to come from. The testing results from these schools in most states has been well above average. Hopefully these charter schools will be used more extensively in the future and these positive results will be increased. The new teaching techniques and practices must then be shared on a continual basis with the rest of the public schools to improve the entire system.

The next area that I would like to address is teacher and principal performance and accountability. I would like to make clear at the outset that I have the utmost respect for teachers and principals. I consider education to be the noblest of professions. The teachers that I have met and interacted with have all been remarkable and compassionate professionals. This includes teachers I had as a child and teachers I have met recently at TeacherNex. It also includes the teachers of my girlfriend's son. He is a 5th grader with ADHD and requires some extra patience and understanding which they deliver in abundance.

The problems begin in the school districts where student achievement is woefully deficient. Many of these problem schools and districts develop a culture of failure that builds upon itself. Accountability needs to be built into school systems that will identify the teachers and principals who are achieving both positive and negative results. The teacher unions and governing school boards must come together and reach a compromise on a new accountability system. One possible compromise is changing tenure rules while also raising salaries. Teacher salary increases should be at least partly based on performance.

The unions and administrators should also get together as part of a bargaining process and develop a fair and effective evaluation system for teachers and principals. Teachers should not become tenured until they have reached a sustained level of excellence. Principals should not be allowed to continue in their positions if their schools are failing or declining. The bottom line is that a new system of teacher and principal accountability must be developed otherwise sustained educational excellence will be elusive.

Next I would like to discuss improving the integrity of public education. This encompasses revamping curriculums and improving student testing. For too long curriculums have been pared down in many school districts either because of budget constraints or to concentrate on core subjects. We should always be teaching our children a broad range of subjects to prepare them not only for an occupation but to become thoughtful and well rounded human beings. Our children should all be taught a comprehensive foundation of subjects. They are mathematics, science, language arts, social studies, foreign language, music, art, and physical education. Different school districts will decide what mix of these subjects will be taught but all students should be exposed to these subjects each semester.

Comprehensive and fair student testing should also be reinforced into the public school system to ensure that our students are actually learning this curriculum. Essay writing should become a more important part of this testing. Often it seems we are graduating students out of our schools who have simply learned their subjects by rote without any real understanding or critical thinking. Essays will give test administrators the chance to see if the student can convey a reasoned argument. This will show whether our students can put the facts they have learned together and write creatively and persuasively. Teachers should also emphasize this more in their classes to teach their students these critical skills.

The final area I will address is educational support from parents, companies, and higher education. Teachers will have a very difficult time teaching our children if parents are not supporting them outside of school and inside. The nurturing of a child by their parents before their school years is crucial to a child's development. This holds true for parental support during their school years. A majority of a child's self worth and self esteem is wrapped up in their parents' approval and disapproval. Apathy towards a child's schoolwork and homework will lead the child to assess that this aspect of life is not that important thereby handicapping the teacher's ability to teach the child. All school districts should deploy any ideas and methods that they can devise to encourage parents to fully participate in their child's education.

Corporations and higher education institutions should also be heavily involved in the education of our children. The employees and college students of tomorrow are being developed today. Companies have the money to invest in their workforce of the future. Universities and colleges have the educational know how to aid our public schools in re-making themselves to once again be the premier public school system in the world. After all, our higher education schools are the envy of the world and they can play a critical role in transforming our elementary, middle, and high schools.

The United States public education system is on the decline but the decline is not so steep that we cannot resurrect it quickly. Some teachers and administrators have become complacent especially in poorer school districts that are failing. This situation can be dramatically and promptly improved through the innovation, accountability, integrity, and support that I have outlined in this article.

The charter school experiments throughout the United States are laying the foundation for the innovation which if implemented properly will revolutionize public education. These charter schools along with the other public schools must share new ideas to make this work.

The teachers and principals should be more closely held to account for student performance. They should also be heavily involved with the sharing of new innovative teaching ideas and methods no matter where they originate. This is educational accountability. Teacher advancement in the system and pay raises should be linked closely with student performance. Continual training should be utilized to maximize a teacher's talents. Those who fail to make the grade should eventually be dropped from the school system. Revamped comprehensive curriculums along with proper student testing will ensure the integrity of the public education system.

Full support from parents, corporations, and colleges are essential to assist our educators so that our children have all the tools necessary to improve their academic achievement and maximize their potential. These four processes operating together will ensure a turnaround in our public education system. They will also form a blueprint to maintain and reinforce a system of excellence for years to come.

Constant innovation and communication of new ideas throughout the education system will perpetuate this excellence. It is essential that we do not delay in putting these ideas and processes to work. Our public education system is slipping and we need to return it to its former preeminence so that it will once again be the model the rest of the world follows. Our children are our future and we must invest our ideas, energy, and capital in our public education system. It is in our children's interest. The future of the United States is at stake here. The time to act is now. We must not fail.