A Teacher, a Student, and a Log

I shudder to think that Florida under Jeb Bush might be the bellwether of the nation, but coupled with this story (not to mention trends over the past couple of decades, mostly fueled by the "3 R's" right wing -- but not completely, by any means), I think we have a problem.

Schools from Vermont to California are increasing — in some cases tripling — the class time that low-proficiency students spend on reading and math, mainly because the federal law, signed in 2002, requires annual exams only in those subjects and punishes schools that fall short of rising benchmarks.

Given that Bush's education "reforms" are garbage at best, it's becoming more and more apparent that education in the U.S. -- where the government pushes faith-based science, sex education boils down to "just say no," and history is considered irrelevant -- is marked by a complete investment in the status quo. The fact that anyone felt that something like No Child Left Behind was necessary should be an indication that public education is in trouble, but to make the response more of the same strikes me as -- well, words fail me.

Anecdote: When I was two, my mother would sit me in her lap and read to me. Being a stubborn child, I insisted that she point at the words while doing so. By two-and-a-half, I was reading to her. (I've recently come across others who had the same experience.) Maria Montessori, in fact, discovered that children had what she called a "sensitive period" to reading at about that age. (That makes a lot of sense -- children begin to talk at about a year, so it would seem that linguistic development is very important during that period.) So the answer of the education establishment to low levels of reading skills is not to start teaching reading earlier, when it might do some good, but to focus on more reading after the sensitive period has waned. Good move.

The first question, of course, is what do we want education to be? The traditional view of the "educated" person, of course, is someone with at least basic knowledge in a number of fields, someone who keeps himself informed of developments in a variety of areas, and can reason effectively. Since the growth of federal involvement, an educated person is likely to become educated in spite of school. I'm cynical enough to think that instilling reasoning skills and a broad general knowledge base in the general populace is not a high priority for the politicians who are running things -- if people could actually reason in this country, most of those in government would have to go out and get real jobs.

The big problem, of course, is the acceptance of standardized tests as the benchmark.

But Lorie Turner, who teaches English to some pupils for three consecutive periods and to others for two periods each day, said she used some students' frustration to persuade them to try for higher scores on the annual exams administered under California's Standardized Testing and Reporting program, known as Star.

"I have some little girls who are dying to get out of this class and get into a mainstream class," Ms. Turner said. "But I tell them the only way out is to do better on that Star test."

The problem as I see it with standardized tests in education is what they don't measure, which is, simply put, most things. (Although to be perfectly honest, I don't hold that much confidence in their ability to accurately measure what they do measure. And in case you think it's sour grapes, I always scored very high on the tests, which frustrated the hell out of my teachers -- I didn't always perform that well in class.)

The social implications of this are what cause me the most unease. So, we now have children going to school where the majority of them study only reading and math, with a gym period. Then, to take the Florida model, they get to high school and are required to declare a major when they have vanishingly little knowledge of anything but reading and math (and I question if what they know of reading and math can actually be called "knowledge"). From the NYT article on Florida:

But supporters hope the state's dropout rate will fall and classroom achievement will rise if students can concentrate on subjects they enjoy. Majors could include basics like English and math or vocational fields like carpentry and auto repair.

Someone, of course, is going to say, "Why should an auto mechanic know anything about music or literature or history?" My response, of course, is "Why shouldn't he?"

This is not, of course, the whole story. There are many schools where students are doing just fine and the curricula are as rich as we could wish (as long as we can keep the religious wackos out of the science classes). I can't really say whether stories like my lead indicate a trend in the dumbing of America, or merely reflect the MSM's periodic wish to do its usual half-assed reporting job in another area. From what I've heard from teachers, though, NCLB is grotesque, and at least in general philosophical terms I have to agree: "educating" children to take standardized tests does not bode well for the society at large.

I'll leave the questions as to motivation to the conspiracy theorists, but the main consequence I see these trends pointing to is the deliberate, if not entirely witting, creation of an underclass. (If I thought anyone in government actually knew what they were doing, then I would be really worried.)

There's a lot more to say about this, but not today.