A new school year is beginning, and as students (and teachers) at all levels return to the classroom, a debate resumes over how best to assure the outcomes everyone wants from our educational system. So widespread is the concern for education that this month has seen no stranger bedfellows than Newt Gingrich and the Rev. Al Sharpton coming together to support a new charter school proposal.
Some perspective always is helpful. The alarm over public education in the United States now is more than 50 years old. We have seen a gamut of proposed solutions. We have increased spending. We have reduced spending. We have seen proposals for voucher systems, and charter schools have been established. Always the aims remain the same: “accountability in the classroom” and, from both Republicans and Democrats, the determination to help students escape from “failing schools.”
Because I teach at a university, I have a luxury unavailable to my colleagues who teach K-12: No law compels my students to be in school — they have chosen it. Still, the lack of motivation I see routinely would surprise most people. I sometimes ask my classes two questions. First: How many of you think I should be held accountable as your teacher to be sure that you learn? Every hand rises. Second: How many of you completed the reading for today’s class? Perhaps two or three hands remain up. I suggest that if this rather glaring disconnect between what students expect and what work they are willing to do exists so perniciously in a university, where no one is required to attend, the problem must be far greater at the K-12 level.
I mean to say this: Solutions to the crisis in education — a crisis whose existence I do not dispute — inevitably focus on the failures of teachers and schools, and we have seen many proposed solutions come and go. I do not dispute, either, that there are bad teachers and bad schools. Yet experience tells me that teachers do not enter their profession because of the great wealth and social prestige it offers. Instead, most teachers genuinely want their students to succeed, and work hard to try to help them while enduring the many sacrifices that a career in education demands. The massive failures we see in education are not because of a lack of teacher effort or dedication. They come from someplace else.
There are several studies I would recommend to anyone’s attention. One of the most sobering, conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts, tells us that 65 percent of college students read for pleasure less than one hour per week. My experience does not suggest that the reason is that they are reading for class. Instead, I know from interactions with students that very few young people enjoy reading. And if college students are reading less than one hour per week, it would be fair to assume that non-college students probably read less still.
The arguments Mr. Gingrich and Rev. Sharpton are using can tell us something. They focus on education as a key to economic opportunity, as well as on the need for a well-trained workforce. This sort of focus actually is part of the problem. It places emphasis not on learning but on the usefulness of learning. Of course learning is useful. Yet we should not be surprised when students cannot be motivated by far-off prospects of future wealth or American competitiveness. We must recover, instead, a sense that learning itself is the goal. And that begins at home.
There are very serious problems in public education. But before we gather ’round to flog the teachers again, I wish to propose a constructive and inexpensive alternative to American parents: Take away the cell phones and video game systems. Turn off the television. Read to your young children, and encourage your older children to read. Be an example for your children, in your own life, that learning is valuable and fun.
Trust me. The teachers can take it from there.
