New York Times editorialist Paul Krugman wrote last week decrying the willingness of governments to decrease spending on education in tough economic times. Krugman is correct that education (or more important, access to it) has played a major role in the development of the U.S. He's also right in lamenting that many hard-pressed state and local governments (those that fund education) are cutting back, firing teachers or chopping classes out of their curricula.
But I don't think he goes far enough in considering the roots of the problems we face in education. It's not just since the current economic downturn that education, in many parts of the country, has been neglected. That's part of a longer term trend that probably began shortly after the race to improve science teaching after the Soviets sent Sputnik into space. That was the last time there was a widespread American surge of interest in better education. It continued for a while, maybe through the 1960's but by the 1970's there were several trends working toward "dumbing down" the system. Let me hastily sketch out a few of them:
The concept of universal access to education (never fully realized) transmogrified into a universal right to education. Parents, educators, and government officials all came to believe that everybody ought to have a college degree. Over time, educational standards were lowered and egalitarianized so that all, or most, could meet them. The B.A. became the new high school diploma. The result is that we now turn out college graduates who can't write a decent English sentence, or aren't able to figure simple mathematical calculations in their heads. High school "honor rolls" that used to comprise the top 10% of students now encompass, I'm told, up to 30% in many schools.
Religion and politics got into the picture. In no area of society is the separation of church and state more essential than in education. Yet along with the growth and rejuvenation of conservative religious movements came attempts to define curricula according to religious dogma. From sex education to the theory of evolution (come to think of it, those are the same thing, really), efforts to water down what was taught, or to offer "alternatives," gained ground. Teaching history was complicated by revisionism and by simple political meddling.
Attitudes - of students, parents, and teachers - got in the way. Schools can hardly discipline their students for fear of loud complaints, if not lawsuits, from overprotective parents. Yet parents seem to expect teachers to do the job of education alone, not always accepting the role they need to play in motivation and assistance. Teachers' unions seem too interested in job preservation and tenure, and not enough in quality of education. Students themselves are often apathetic about their education.
None of this is to suggest that the right student (the one with a degree of native intelligence and a motivation to learn) in the right place can't be well educated. Only that more generally, the system fails too many of its more average learners. All of these problems need to be addressed. Until they are, I don't think Krugman's simple prescription of keeping the money coming -- even if he could tell us where the extra funds will come from, which he doesn't -- is going to produce much change.
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