By Sam Matlack
The following piece is the first in a series aimed at addressing the broad issue of American education but more importantly evaluating education here in Anne Arundel County.
When was the last time you asked yourself what the purpose of education is?
Since August 24th, over 74,000 public school students in Anne Arundel County have been filing into their classrooms five days a week (minus holidays). Those of us for whom the experience of school buses, work sheets, hallway chatter, school lunches and bells is now but a memory might remember that every so often we used to ask ourselves what the point of it all was. Somehow many of us “grew out of” asking, maybe because the answer we received was always the same.
On behalf of Annapolis’ young people, I insist on asking the question again. Because what students rarely, if ever, get to hear is that there might be more than one answer out there to the question – and that could make all the difference in their lives and the future of our city.
So let’s talk about the standard answer to “What is the purpose of education?”
In June of this year the Baltimore Sun reported that 98 of Maryland’s 185 public high schools earned a spot on Newsweek’s top 1,600 high schools in the country, which is the highest percentage for any state nation-wide. Eleven of those 98 are Anne Arundel County schools, including Broadneck High and Annapolis High. Likewise, Education Week’s Quality Counts report as well as the College Board for AP performance ranked Maryland top in the nation this year.
We must be doing “well,” right? State Superintendent Nancy Grasmick and Gov. O’Malley have repeatedly lauded the success of Maryland schools. But what makes a school successful? More to the point, what is the intended purpose that Maryland schools are successful at achieving?
Apparently, our schools are successful at doing whatever leading state politicians, administrators and many journalists think schools should be doing.
Jay Mathews, who creates Newsweek’s list of 1,600 best high schools, takes the number of AP tests, IB and Cambridge tests given at any school and divides it by the number of graduating seniors. If there are at least as many tests given as there are seniors, resulting in a score of 1.0, the school gets a place on Newsweek’s list. “To send a student off to college,” says Mathews, “without having had an AP, IB, or Cambridge course and test is like insisting that a child learn to ride a bike without ever taking off the training wheels. It is dumb, and in my view a form of educational malpractice.”
Based on Mathews’ system, it seems that the point of high school is to go to college, and in order to do that a student needs to get ready for it by taking “advanced” (i.e. AP, IB, etc.) courses and tests.
Mathew’s standpoint by inference must work in reverse as well: the ultimate point of first grade is to eventually get to high school, and then to college. But then what is college for? We’ll pick that question up again at a later time, but first let’s look at what other authorities in education have to say about the purpose of education.
The Common Core State Standards Initiative, which was launched in the fall of 2009, is a state-led initiative to standardize expectations of what students are supposed to learn across America. As of now, thirty-five states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Common Standards. Maryland joined on June 22 of this year.
Its mission statement is worth quoting:
“The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.”
Finally we have a statement that defines “success” or the goal of education beyond going to college. According to the CCSS, the ultimate point of education is to compete in the global economy. Could it be that Sputnik still haunts us, now economically rather than technologically and militarily?
When Russia beat America into space in 1957, America nervously launched a new science education program with the National Defense Education Act and over a billion dollars of federal funds. Public education was essentially drafted into the service of the nation. Today, the world’s greatest economic power has again targeted the young to prepare them to help meet its own needs and ends. Don’t believe it? In a speech delivered at the University of Texas on August 9, President Obama stated that “education is the economic issue” and “… if we as a nation offer our children the best education possible from cradle through career, not only will American workers compete and succeed, America will compete and succeed.” According to our president, America is depending on the economic utility of our students.
Moreover, it seems that Anne Arundel County is following suit. In its 2010 Legislative Program we read that “the fundamental and essential building blocks for the county’s and the city’s healthy economic development, successful workforce development, and the expansion of the county’s commercial tax base are fundamentally embedded in the quality of our public schools.” It isn’t beyond reason to infer that the people who are judging the quality of our public schools are also the people who are judging the quality of our economy (such as politicians) – most of whom are not child psychologists, teachers, parents, learning theorists, or students themselves.
So you might be thinking, why does it matter that the stated goal of our public schools is primarily a healthy economy?
Neil Postman in his The End of Education tackles the issue straight on:
“Any education that is mainly about economic utility is far too limited to be useful, and, in any case, so diminishes the world that it mocks one’s humanity. At the very least, it diminishes the idea of what a good learner is. Sad to say, some of America’s most important political leaders believe that one who learns how to be useful economically will have learned how to be an educated person.”
It almost looks as if the same leaders who have determined that the goal of education should be economic health have tacitly confirmed Marx’s criticism that capitalism views humans fundamentally as economic beings – as commodities. What’s worth learning? The answer from our government seems to be “how to be economically useful.”
The current result of educating for economic productivity is that students themselves become products manufactured by a process of standardization and conformity. Sir Ken Robinson, who was knighted in 2003 for his reforming work in education and the arts, likens this process to fast food production. How a Big Mac and fries get on your tray is controlled by company-wide standards. The quality – or lack thereof – is nearly identical no matter which McDonalds you get it at.
The reason for our educational system’s failure in teaching children, Robinson argues, is not that the standards aren’t high enough (as politicians and other leaders make us believe), but that human development is too dynamic and diverse. In his 2010 follow-up to his now famous TED talk four years ago on schools killing creativity, he argues that “human communities depend upon a diversity of talent, not a singular conception of ability.”
Along the same lines, Alfie Kohn, education scholar and outspoken critic of standardized tests and rewards in schools, wonders how we ever came to expect that children’s minds should all develop at the same speed and in the same way.
But standardization and its alternatives for holding teachers accountable for doing their jobs well is a topic for another discussion in the near future. Postman reminds us that How we teach and learn (or even measure educational success) has to come second behind Why we educate in the first place. Without a good Why, any How is pointless.
What purpose do our schools have if not to make sure America produces more than China? Or is that a good goal to have after all? Stay tuned for part two of this article, which will explore some alternatives to this perspective. Until then, any suggestions for answers to “What’s the point of school?” are most welcome.
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hmm. could we rephrase and ask What’s the point of childhood ? You know kids don’t even get to go to nursery schools, they have to go to Academies as in Fluffly Bunny Acadamy, or My Child is Gonna Get More Done Sooner then Yours Acadamy ( albeit with minimal comprehension) —luckily my young ones are hand raised by me and are able to play in the mud, go on long walks in the woods, and thumb their noses at the other 2-5 year old kids coming home exhausted with homework in their embroidered polo shirts and khaki pants.
My poor children are doomed to St. Johns College and a life of pondering.
Government-funded education is an investment from which the government hopes to gain a return. The return on government’s investment is taxpaying citizens, preferably taxpayers who don’t question authority.
Why should we be surprised that gov’t schools churn out submissive, easily a-mused robots who go to work and pay taxes without requiring accountability? That’s the purpose of the whole system. Education is too dangerous and too costly.
@Benj: If that is the case, it raises some questions about what “public school” means. Is the public school system a system that is run by the government (which constitutionally would have to be the state, not the federal govt.) in such a way that gives the government the liberty to design the system for its own ends? Or does public school refer to a system owned by the public who in fact funds it and whose constituents (teachers, administrators, parents, students) decide its ends and means? Or something else or in-between? To phrase the question differently, what does the “public” mean in “public school”?
Benj is right. Down with the Moloch schools. Thomas Sowell observes, “The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is.” And as long as the government monopoly on education continues, the schools will remain statist drone factories. The great government school experiment is a complete disaster on multiple levels. Any “reform” is like polishing brass on a sinking ship. If we do not abandon ship, we will sink with it.
Dear Sam,
A sterling introduction to a subject taken for granted except when we hear about: (1) school “rank” and (2) test scores, which lead to (3) governmental funding. And Benj’s point seems dead on–government expects a return on its investment (although this seems to be more true of internally allocated funds than federal international aid).
I might add (as a teacher) that the more the “higher-ups” control the educational agenda, the more time teachers have to spend proving that they have met the criteria, and the less time they have for the reading, sitting, and thinking required in order to teach well.
Thanks!
Fred
@Dan: Do you propose an alternative? Even John Taylor Gatto, who agrees with your standpoint, admits that the most likely alternative (beside home-schooling and small de-institutionalized schools), namely a free-market system of public schools, is a highly unlikely option for the poor and low-middle classes. Chances are that no matter how dissatisfied we are, government-funded public schools will continue, which brings me back to the question: what do you suggest, if change is in fact necessary?
Sam, I’m not an egalitarian, and so I see no problem with people being “left out” (whatever that means). Anything else is better than what we have now. Also, socialism is legalized plunder. Period.
Anything is better than what we have now. Mises writes, “The rearing and instruction of youth must be left entirely to parents and to private associations and institutions. It is better that a number of boys grow up without formal education than that they enjoy the benefit of schooling only to run the risk, once they have grown up, of being killed or maimed. A healthy illiterate is always better than a literate cripple.”
@Dan: I’m not sure I see the exact link between egalitarianism in education and socialism. European countries, for instance, tend to have much of the latter in an economic sense, but rather little of the former; their education system is by and large more what we would call “elitist.” By contrast – and that I suppose is what you are highlighting -, one of the paradoxes (not necessarily in a bad sense) of American culture is that between its simultaneous emphasis on individuality on the one hand and on equality/conformity on the other. And in the field of education we have certainly seen much more of the latter than of the former; conformity at the expense of individuality and even individual talent.
As far as being “left out” (or rather “left behind”) is concerned, I think the problem with abolishing the public school system would be that the line between the haves and the have-nots in education would end up being the same as it is in consumership/money, meaning that schooling would become an economic commodity, which would quickly turn our society into an aristocracy and quite likely to intellectual oppression of the poor. This is not to say by any means that education does not happen outside of school. Most education does and should. But schooling of course still affords countless privileges (for better or for worse) that the best out-of-school-education may not give. But this might get us into another issue, namely that of our obsession with academic degrees and their inflation as a result…
Sam, your presuppositions are: 1) egalitarian, and 2) ethically consequentialist. You said, “I think the problem with abolishing the public school system would be that the line between the haves and the have-nots in education would end up being the same as it is in consumership/money, meaning that schooling would become an economic commodity, which would quickly turn our society into an aristocracy and quite likely to intellectual oppression of the poor.”
I would argue that your consequentialist-egalitarian worldview is faulty.
@Dan: My presuppositions and worldview are not the focus of the discussion. The question I explored in response to your earlier comment was what would happen if the public school system were abolished. I suggest that such an exploration is a worthwhile (at least interesting) tangent for the conversation at large, even if it didn’t inform our decision about the existence of public schooling. But more importantly, since, and as long as, public school does exist, the question of what its purpose is or could be is on the table. If you suggest a better formulation of the question, I’d be glad to hear it.
Sam, my apologies for the confusion. My intent was to show that this issue is a matter of worldview. My suggestion, again, is the privatization of education. People find this proposal outlandish mainly because they presuppose the egalitarian worldview. But inequality is not a problem in my worldview (i.e., the Christian worldview).
Again, I am with Mises: “There is, in fact, only one solution: the state, the government, the laws must not in any way concern themselves with schooling or education. Public funds must not be used for such purposes. The rearing and instruction of youth must be left entirely to parents and to private associations and institutions.” (Mises, Liberalism, 115).
The point of education should be the development of students’ minds and personalities which challenges their strengths and builds up their weaknesses. The whole point of gathering students into larger community groups with many teachers, rather than home-schooling, is to have an exchange of a broader range of ideas, perspectives and experiences which challenge the students’ thinking processes. Unfortunately, this rarely happens in regular public schools, where conformity and the status quo of power structures controls the agenda. Perhaps in charter schools or private schools, real education happens more often.
Hi all:
1) It seems like one of the causes of the problem that Sam is pointing out might be the way our American government is set up. We Americans, for good reason, decided to have a limited government that wasn’t allowed to have its own goals and opinions about things like art and literature and value-judgments and interpersonal relationships, but these sorts of things are very important to the education of a whole human being. Maybe when politicians get up and talk about the economic usefulness of our schools, it’s because they’re the government, and we’d boo them off the stage if they started talking about the value of poetry and music for a child’s personal development.
How can we let our schools have goals that are different from the goals of our government? Does that necessarily have to mean that government and schools can’t have anything to do with each other?
2) @Dan: By your criticisms of Sam’s “egalitarianism,” do you mean that equality is not a good goal for humanity in general? If so, why not? Is it simply a complaint against striving toward equality for equality’s sake, or does it somehow reflect your view on the equal or unequal value of human life? (Your comment that this relates to a Christian worldview also intrigued me because it struck me as a rather non-traditional correlation. What are your thoughts behind that?)
3) All: In response to the question, “What is the point of school?” What do you think of this?: The point of school is to foster the general well-being of children and society by striving to give them the opportunity to realize the fullness of their own human experience.
Katie,
Yes, equality is an unethical and unnatural goal for humanity. This helps to explain why Leftism and ethical consequentialism go hand in hand. The Leftists must always use the means of force (violence, taxation, etc.) in order to reach their (supposedly) ethical goal of equality. From the Christian perspective, then, both the means and the end are unethical.
In regard to our subject of the purpose of education, we must first ask ourselves the question, “Is it possible to discuss educational and pedagogical issues without first addressing the issue of epistemology and worldview?” The heart of our problem is this idea that knowledge and education can somehow exist in a moral or presuppositional vacuum. Americans must come to the realization that it is impossible for education to be nonreligious or “neutral,” excluding the basic questions about life and the meaning of the universe. Moreover, it must be acknowledged that is impossible for education to be nonreligious and morally neutral because it is impossible for man himself to be nonreligious and morally neutral.
Let us consider the thoughts of Dabney here. In his essay on the impossibility of secular education, Dabney writes: “The instructor has to teach history, cosmogony, psychology, ethics, the laws of nations. How can he do it without saying anything favorable or unfavorable about the beliefs of evangelical Christians, Catholics, Socinians, Deists, pantheists, materialists, or fetish worshippers, who all claim equal rights under American institutions? His teaching will indeed be “the play of Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet omitted.”"
On the question of origins, Dabney asked if a scientist could give the “…genesis of earth and man without indicating whether Moses or Huxley is his prophet?” His point is simply that key worldview assumptions must ALWAYS be made.
Having stated the impossibility of neutrality, we must finally ask ourselves, “From which worldview should we then teach?” I suppose the answer to that question would have to be decided by the academic institution itself provided that it has the option to do so.
Lastly, I would like to say that knowledge of the Creator God, as He infallibly reveals Himself in Scripture, is the necessary prerequisite for properly understanding reality and the universe. The Bible teaches that the “fear of the Lord is the BEGINNING of knowledge” (Prov. 1:7; cf. Job 28:28). We must first acknowledge the Creator if we are to understand His created order aright. Only in Christ can we find “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). Only the biblical worldview can answer the fundamental questions regarding ourselves, truth, reality, epistemology, ethics, justice, nature, beauty, meaning, and the history of the world in which we now find ourselves.
I liked your article. Those are good questions, but I don’t think this nation is ready to ask them yet. Schools of education at the university level are revenue-generators. They are not interested in meaningful questions. They only research what will yield new products, trends, and salable “resources.” They are interested in measuring and packaging education, not redetermining it. In a word, the universities are completely incapable of helping the current state of education because they make too much money off of it.
Schools on the elementary and secondary level don’t have any say in what they do at this point. So you will not find anyone with a critical eye or an ability to respond well to your questions at this level either.
The politicians might give answers, but they don’t know how to ask the question. There is no good reason to question or change the Why at this point. “Oh, so you want to produce adults who can think as well? Fine, but school and tax dollars don’t need to be responsible for that.” (This is along the lines of what Benj posted.)
In short, I am not sure that universities, schools, or politicians are capable of responding to your question at all, and even less capable of looking critically at the answers that they might give. It’s clear that small communities and families can respond to the question, but homeschooling and charter-schools are more reactions to a problem than responses to a question. Preaching worldview might change the way school looks, but it sidesteps the question for everyone else.
It’s all really very difficult. And I am a very tired teacher unable to compose a full response.
@Fred Putnam.
In Mississippi, we call No Child Left Behind the “No Tree Left Standing” legislation, because of all the paperwork. But “No Teacher Left Thinking” has a nice ring to it.
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