[Ed. note: Stephen Hunt is a local educator who is passionate about the challenges facing our education system. The following is the second of a two-part opinion article written exclusively for the Baton Rougean on this very issue. To read part one, click here.]

Probably the most important reform in the new public school paradigm is the concept of individual responsibility. This is not new to America — it is the basis for our very way of life. Just ask Alexis de Tocqueville, “The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.”^[1] Parents and students need to begin to take the responsibility for their own educations and their own futures. No matter how gifted a teacher may be, it is impossible to educate someone who does not want to learn. Those students who do not or cannot refrain from disruptive behavior have no place in the classroom with those students who wish to achieve. Parents who are unable to control their children’s behavior should not benefit from free “baby-sitting” services at the expense of responsible taxpayers. Public education is a privilege, not a right. Our Constitution does not guarantee a free education. The Declaration of Independence only mentions a “…pursuit of happiness” — not a right to public support. Americans have a history of taking responsibility for their own fortunes. The current public school paradigm has relieved them of that responsibility. In so doing, they have trapped the vast majority of parents and students who want to learn in school systems that are substandard by any measure.

Additionally, it should be the right of every student and parent to attend the school of their choice. The autocratic dictum that forces students to attend a school NOT of their choosing is Marxist at its root. It should not be the purview of any public official to tell parents which school their children must attend at the expense of their own tax dollars. Tax dollars for a child’s education must be tied to the child. Whether we call this a voucher system or give it some other politically correct label (scholarship, perhaps?) is not important. Private and parochial schools have a history of providing quality educations at a fraction of the cost of public schools. To ignore this fact flies in the face of common sense. Again, teachers’ unions are at the root of this economic injustice. The public goal must be to educate our young, not provide comfortable livings for outdated and lethargic marginal teachers and activist union organizers.

The emergence of illegal drugs on school campuses may be the most pervasive change to the ancient system. “… Almost 50 percent of 12th graders say that they’ve used drugs at least once in their lifetime, and 18 percent report using marijuana in the last month. Prescription drug abuse is high—with nearly 1 in 10 high school seniors reporting non-medical use of the prescription painkiller Vicodin in the past year.”^[2]  The drug culture has entered almost all our schools. While it affects some schools by a smaller percentage than others, none have been able to escape. In response, many athletic programs have taken the problem to task by forcing student athletes to submit to random drug testing. Perhaps entire student bodies should be obliged to submit to these same rigorous standards. Drugs do not belong in schools; no matter how “liberated” some parents may be on this subject. Educators are attempting to awaken students’ minds. Mind-altering drugs block this learning process. With few exceptions, no means that can remove illegal substances from the schoolyard can be too draconian. No student, teacher, staff member, administrator or unauthorized visitor who uses or sells illicit drugs should be allowed on our school campuses.

But if these changes are so obvious, why are we still laboring under a public school system advocated a hundred and fifty years ago by educators who found the Communist Manifesto to be a guide for society? Ask anyone on the street who their school board representative is — most voters cannot even tell you who represents them in the US Congress, let alone who represents them on the local school board. However, many parents have begun to vote with their feet. They are fleeing to suburban school districts where the public schools at least attempt to offer a quality education. Or they enroll their youngsters in private and parochial schools (as did the Obama’s) to escape the mediocrity of inner-city schools and the threat of drugs and violence. Elementary and secondary schools are privatizing in the face of a failed system. Parents may not know their school board member, but they are well aware that their kids are not being educated. Even without activity at the ballot box, public school systems are heading to extinction as they currently exist. What was it Margaret Mitchell said about the antebellum South, “…a civilization gone with the wind?” Some educators have begun to feel a breeze in America’s public school system and it signals change.

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[1] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/alexis_de_tocqueville.html
[2] http://www.drugabuse.gov/drugpages/testingfaqs.html

[Ed. note: Stephen Hunt is a local educator who is passionate about the challenges facing our education system. The following is an opinion article written exclusively for the Baton Rougean on this very issue.]

It has become apparent, based upon statistical evidence that public high school graduation rates are, at the very least, not improving. This is especially true in areas of high crime and poverty. The “No Child Left Behind” legislation has made some inroads, but the advertised rate of change has not been evident. As a high school educator who came to the profession late in his career, I believe several areas must be addressed before significant improvement can occur.

To start, public schools operate in an antiquated paradigm. The traditional school year is still based on the assumption that children need to have summers off to work on the family farm. While this may be true in some rural school districts, urban public schools must adjust to the modern industrial America that employs both parents. No private business would dare leave their assets idle for three months out of the year. The public investment in fixed assets (buildings, books, etc.) requires a higher rate of productivity.

The paradigm shift must also be evident in educational goals. The politically correct assumption that all students need to go to college must be scrutinized. While a college goal may seem attractive to many students, a larger percentage of the American high school student body cannot compete academically at the college level, nor is there enough demand for more college graduates, particularly those with degrees in liberal arts or ‘identity studies,’ where many marginal students would concentrate. Instead, many students may wish to pursue careers in a skilled trade, providing a potentially more lucrative career option than they might have with a marginal degree from a lesser-known college.

It would seem only common sense that the public high school would provide for these career alternatives. In recent years, many of the programs that once provided basic skills training have been dropped for lack of funding. If public dollars are not available, school boards could enlist private industry to provide this training.  Graduation credits should be awarded for this type of course work. The assumption that ALL students need to go to — or can succeed in — college is nonsense at the onset. Perhaps it is time for secondary schools to become more specialized. In addition to charter and magnet schools, why not trade schools financed with the cooperation of private industry?

The National Education Association, an organization which has manifestly failed in its duty to help produce students able to compete in today’s world, paradoxically profits from the current public school paradigm. “The National Education Association held its five-day annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., earlier this month. Ironically, the summit was heavily flavored with non-educational matters, including a wide range of political topics, according to various press reports. … Instead, the union used valuable meeting time to discuss everything from Medicare to foreign policy. Such political activism may lead many NEA members to wonder why they pay their dues…”^[1]Unions historically protect the marginal worker and that has been the case for both the NEA and the AFT (American Federation of Teachers). While teachers may need an ombudsman to protect them from an abusive or hostile work environment (or over-indulgent parents), personal injury lawyers have been very accomplished at providing this service over the last few decades. Teachers’ unions do not advance the goals of public education. They provide huge benefits for union organizers and marginal teachers, but they do nothing for exceptional teachers or for most public school students. Across America, school boards should institute incentive pay systems for all teachers and measure teacher performance based on standardized tests. If teachers strike to close the schools, hire those willing to return for wages above union scale who are willing to base their job security on objective measurements of educational progress. Only exceptional teachers will return and those not intended for the profession will find work elsewhere. 

Another point — the NEA lobbies aggressively to prevent people trained at much higher levels (e.g., engineers who want to teach math or science as a second career) from being able to move easily into teaching.  Instead, they force them into pedagogical curriculums that add nothing to their teaching ability but deter them from this career, which would help the students but would displace current teachers who aren’t as qualified to teach math or science. The requirement by state boards of education that teachers must be “certified” to arbitrary standards governed by the educational establishment allows teachers’ unions to control entry into the profession — a monopolistic practice in a free market economy.

With the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, we can safely say we now live in a post-racial America. That said all busing to achieve racial balance must cease. Racial balance was never the goal of Brown vs. the Board anyway. Brown argued for neighborhood schools, not for forcing our children to wait for a bus at 5:00 AM in freezing temperatures to be transported to another part of the school district to satisfy some ACLU lawyer’s concept of integration. Further, the expense imposed arbitrarily upon public schools (especially with rising fuel costs and increasing environmental pressures) is a flagrant waste of public tax dollars. Reference the results in the Kansas City, MO public school district, “…Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil—more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country….The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.”^[2] The notion that institutionalized prejudice can be camouflaged in the smoke screen exhaust of a yellow school bus has always been ill-advised.

As an aside, President Obama and his wife, Michelle, have chosen not to enroll their two lovely daughters in the Washington, D.C. public school system — by most measures the worst system in America. “D.C. spends some $14,000 annually on each child in its public schools. A lot of that funding comes from the federal treasury, which means all American taxpayers are subsidizing the D.C. public schools. That’s one of the highest per-pupil costs in the nation. Yet if the District were a state, it would rank 51st — dead last — in test scores.”^[3] Following the lead of the Clinton’s and their daughter, Chelsea, the Obama’s have enrolled their children in an exclusive private school — Sidwell Friends School — at a cost the Obama’s can easily afford, but which financially exempts most D.C. residents.

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[1]: http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=7848
[2]: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-298.html
[3]: http://townhall.com/columnists/EdFeulner/2009/01/09/school_choice_the_real_test?page=full