More pap from the U.S. Department of Education:
"On Saturday March 13, the Obama administration released its blueprint for revising the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. ... The blueprint provides incentives for states to adopt academic standards that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and create accountability systems that measure student growth toward meeting the goal that all children graduate and succeed in college." (Emphasis mine)
What is the most pressing problem facing public education today? Is it America's need to continue to increase math and science standards so that every child can "graduate and succeed in college"? Or is it the fact that year in and year out about one-third of every eighth-grade graduating class either settles for a GED or drops out of high school before receiving a diploma?
The two problems demand radically different approaches if solutions are to be found.
Here is a fact that, for some folks, suggests an answer. According to the "Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study" (TIMSS), U.S. fourth graders and eighth graders showed improvement between 1997 and 2007 and now score significantly above the international average. Even so, in both mathematics and science, the average American student scored between the 75th and 80th international percentile.
So if U.S. scores are improving but still not in the top tier, maybe the No. 1 problem facing American education today is indeed the failure of too many students to meet minimum standards. If so, maybe the progress that has been shown in the TIMSS study suggests that programs such as the original "No Child Left Behind" should continue to be the focal point of education reform. Maybe President Obama's initiatives are on the right track. In other words, maybe we should devote disproportionately more dollars to achieving higher standards so that "all children graduate and succeed in college."
Well, maybe. But maybe we are missing a key point. The P. C. Police might howl, but not all children have the intellectual skills or academic interests needed to succeed in college. Although many people would like to believe otherwise, there really is a bell curve. And what the bell curve measures is a person's aptitude for academics. The fact that one-half of all kids have IQs at or below 100 and one-sixth at or below 85 cannot be wished away.
When education policy is premised on the myth that all students can graduate and succeed in college it pushes a substantial portion of our young people ever closer to the back of the socio-economic bus. Higher academic standards are warranted, but not at the lifetime expense of the kids who are neither intellectually nor attitudinally equipped to succeed in college.
I spent three years on the Juneau school board in the 1990s and have studied education issues for almost 30 years. At no time has society focused enough attention on an appropriate education for students who have little or no chance of succeeding in college.
We do have special-education programs that cost a lot of money, but special education focuses on only a small portion of the students who need help.
The first step in righting this wrong is to accept the existence of the bell curve and the social worth of those whose needs are not well served in a college-oriented academic setting. The next step is much harder: deciding what to do with our schools. Please tell me that we can begin to address this imbalance.
David M. Reaume is a Washington state-based economist who was based for many years in Juneau. His opinion column appears monthly in the Daily News.
David Reaume
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