The Myth of Education Being in a State of Perpetual Existential Crisis
From Flickr - CollegeStudents360
An ongoing reality of education discourse in the United States is that education as a whole is in a state of perpetual and ongoing existential crisis. This is not true, even though education as a practice must become more nimble to respond to the pace of 21st century change.
SHOW NOTES
Americans love nothing more than a moral panic.
Sputnik Crisis
Eisenhower in 1958: "we need scientists in the ten years ahead...scrutinize your school's curriculum and standards. Then decide for yourselves whether they meet the stern demands of the era we are entering."
National Defense Education Act 1958: to strengthen math, science and foreign language programs; to identify gifted students (beginning of GT programs); Area Studies programs; technology for education
A Nation at Risk 1983
Report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education
"failing the needs of a competitive workforce"
"a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people"
The report surveys various studies which point to academic underachievement on national and international scales. The report said that average SAT scores dropped "over 50 points" in the verbal section and "nearly 40 points" in the mathematics section, during the period 1963-1980. Nearly forty percent of 17-year-olds tested could not successfully "draw inferences from written material," and "only one-fifth can write a persuasive essay; and only one-third can solve a mathematics problem requiring several steps." Referencing tests conducted in the 1970s, the study points to unfavorable comparisons with students outside the United States: on "19 academic tests American students were never first or second and, in comparison with other industrialized nations, were last seven times".[1]
In response to these and similar problems, the commission made 38 recommendations, divided across 5 major categories: Content, Standards and Expectations, Time, Teaching, Leadership and Fiscal Support:[3]
Content: "4 years of English; (b) 3 years of mathematics; (c) 3 years of science; (d) 3 years of social studies; and (e) one-half year of computer science" for high school students." The commission also recommends that students work toward proficiency in a foreign language starting in the elementary grades.
Standards and Expectations: the commission cautioned against grade inflation and recommends that four-year colleges raise admissions standards and standardized tests of achievement at "major transition points from one level of schooling to another and particularly from high school to college or work."
Time: the commission recommended that "school districts and State legislatures should strongly consider 7-hour school days, as well as a 200- to 220-day school year."
Teaching: the commission recommended that salaries for teachers be "professionally competitive, market-sensitive, and performance-based," and that teachers demonstrate "competence in an academic discipline."
Leadership and Fiscal Support: the commission noted that the Federal government plays an essential role in helping "meet the needs of key groups of students such as the gifted and talented, the socioeconomically disadvantaged, minority and language minority students, and the handicapped." The commission also noted that the Federal government also must help ensure compliance with "constitutional and civil rights," and "provide student financial assistance and research and graduate training."
Big problems with the report - the SAT score evidence didn't hold up to statistical rigor.
The problems with education in the US weren't actually ones in the classroom, they were political, related to spending and obsessive focus on cultural questions that have only accelerated.
The commission had only one teacher, no education experts and a bunch of businessmen, conservative activists and other tangential folks.
No Child Left Behind, 2001
standards-based reform; states required to develop basic skills assessments and give them to students to get federal funds.
Adequate Yearly Progress, and triggers to intervene if this isn't met.
"highly-qualified teachers" - set at the state level
Every Student Succeeds Act, 2015
diminished federal presence
Culture War in the States
No teaching of the factual realities of the history of the United States
Police-state tactics in Texas related to transgender youth
20 Reasons for Failure - Matthew Lynch, writing for theedvocate.org; former university dean and K-12 teacher
Insufficient parent engagement
Schools being closed
Schools are overcrowded
Screen culture / education as entertainment
Poor diversity in gifted education
School spending is inadequate
Poor innovation in teacher training
Graduates of American high schools are not prepared for the world that awaits them
School-to-prison pipeline
College gender-gap
Digital literacy isn't well defined
Current assessment practices don't accurately measure student progress
Poor education of boys of color
Social promotion
Anti-intellectualism in our society
Insufficient number of year round schools
Can't reproduce quality
Poor digital equity
Girls engagement with STEM insufficient
Educator-preparation programs don't teach neuroscience
Actual problems aren't being addressed - Robot-Proof - Joseph Aoun, president of Northeastern.
A "robot-proof" education, Aoun argues, is not concerned solely with memorizing facts. Rather, it fosters a creative mindset and the mental elasticity to invent, discover, or create something valuable to society—a scientific proof, a hip-hop recording, a web comic, a cure for cancer. In his book, Aoun lays out the framework for a new discipline, humanics, which builds on our innate strengths and prepares students to compete in a labor market in which smart machines work alongside human professionals.
