The New American Story: America Needs to Stop Being Too Cool for School

Bill Bradley in his book, The New American Story, knows not just that education in America is in serious trouble, but that education in America being in serious trouble threatens our economic growth and national security.  Still the details man he always was as a politician, Bradley offers a multi-point approach to fixing education in America, and while I agree, at least in some sense, with every single point on his action list, in my mind he doesn’t go far enough with much of what he has to offer, but then again, I’m not sure anyone could.

For background, you should know I attended private school from grades K-9, and because I disliked the culture of it, completed high school at a top specialized public school that requires testing for admittance.  I then attended a good, but not spectacular, private University, mainly because I was a slacker.  And as much as I wish it weren’t true, the simple fact remains that the best education I received was in that private school, and, outside of my major specialization, exceeded even what I learnt at college.

So – what worked there?  And what didn’t?  And how does it related to Bill Bradley’s vision?

For one thing, and Bradley implies this in his chapter in education, but doesn’t, I feel, say it clearly enough – I was taught not facts, but how to think and express when presented with facts.  I learned things like history and Latin, took classes in rhetoric and writing, and by the sixth grade had two hour essay examinations in every subject except mathematics (even science involved essays as well as equations and proofs).  How I conveyed my knowledge was as important as my knowledge – and this is, I believe, one of the critical lessons missing from American schooling today. 

I have many friends who teach at both the high school and college level, and they show me their students’ papers.  Almost without exception their students are poorer at expression as adults having completed a significant portion of education in America than I was as a fifth grader.  In fact, when I taught at Queens College as an adjunct in the journalism department, I was faced with students who despite being upperclassmen in a writing major could not properly use basic punctuation or consistently write in complete sentences with subjects and verbs.  To be frank, looking around Gather, it’s often clear to me these kids were not the exception to the rule.

The problem, of course, is that writing takes time, not just in the classroom, but after class when it comes times for the teacher to grade assignments.  I understand the unavoidable necessity of standardized testing, but while testing may be able to look at acceptable minimums in math and reading, it can’t speak at all to how we process information or how we convey it.

Testing, of course, raises the issue of standards.  And, as Bill Bradley says, it’s simple.  We have to raise standards.  We have to leave the self-esteem culture -- which recent studies have shown makes smart kids underachieve and all kids devalue hard work –- behind.  Social promotion is dangerous.  As is the notion that everyone is entitled to a college education; everyone should be entitled to as much education and continuing education as they want and can make use of, but it devalues a high school degree if people who can’t read are allowed to graduate, and it devalues a bachelors degree if people who can’t think critically or write clearly are awarded diplomas.  College has become the new high school, and it’s vastly unfair to our students of all levels.

Bill Bradley also talks about the need for the school day and year to be longer.  While I do not inherently disagree, I came from a school with a very short school year (about three weeks shorter than New York State public school) and week (Fridays were half days), and it was never an issue.  One of these reasons for this, I suspect, was that all of our classes did not meet every day.  Rather, our schedules were more like that of a college, forcing us to learn time management skills at an early age, but also allowing us to find what we loved and get excited about it, as opposed to feeling like we were stuck in the same boring routine for the duration of our schooling.

It is easy to argue that in an inherently broken educational system, students need to only focus on the basics, but the classes that seem the least relevant to many, are often the most valuable tools in learning.  Latin may be a dead language, but from it I excelled in two romance languages (French and Spanish), learned a tremendous amount about speech writing, and found out a great deal about politics and history.  Through music and art and dance I was able to learn about everything from mathematics to graphic design.  School must be more than drudgery if we want to produce students who want to learn and excel and grow into leaders and creators.

The biggest challenge I think we face in American education, though, isn’t just, as Bradley says, the need to throw a lot more money at it, improve accountability, make the teachers’ unions work better and make sure that the resegregation of schools is eliminated, but the need to change American attitudes about education.

Education is not a drudgery.  Nor should it be considered unfashionable, or, worse yet, immoral.  I will never forget when Dan Quayle railed against the “New England cultural elite,” just as I will never forget a young woman I met on Livejournal telling me she was glad she didn’t have a college education because she thought it would get in the way of her faith in God.  Faith involves being the absolute best we can be with the gifts our creator, if one believes in that sort of thing, gave us.  Patriotism is also, as Bradley says, about excellence and our better natures.

Time for all of America to stop thinking we’re too cool for school.