Numerous critics complain that American schools are failing. Are U.S. schools as bad as critics suggest?
No. Perhaps the schools are not all that the public wants them to be—but neither is this public what the schools deserve!Critics throw data like confetti, comparing U.S. schools to those in other industrialized nations. But what other nation's schools take all comers—from every social and ethnic group, speaking a variety of languages? Some American students from immigrant families take SATs they never prepared for in their native country, while clinging tenaciously to a culture their teachers have never experienced.What other profession demands five years of college for a near-the-best beginning salary of $24,000, then asks its members to face 150–225 students each day and take their production home to evaluate? What other profession sees its workload increased by 50 percent, with no increase in pay, while the standard for quality remains the same?Do the critics encourage their brightest offspring to be teachers, when teaching ranks below fire fighting and farming on the "occupations most admired" list, according to researchers Patterson and Kim? Do critics with children in public school ask them how they like their teachers? Most people like their local schools; it's those deprived children in another town or state who are woefully undereducated.Are our teachers and schools good enough? Never, but neither was last year's model of anything. When the public decides to be part of the solution, not part of the problem, schools will improve.—John Dean is Superintendent of Schools, Orange County Department of Education, Costa Mesa, California.
No! U.S. schools are not as bad as critics portray them—not by any stretch of the imagination. The negative rhetoric of critics reporting how awful schools are just will not hold water when the cold, hard facts are analyzed.The Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and the Education Research Service recently summarized data showing that many of the criticisms of American K–12 education have been based on faulty and misinterpreted data, or myths. The data reveal that the rate of graduation has held steady and students are scoring higher on most tests, at a time when more students are attempting post-secondary education and society is demanding that schools meet more student needs.Schools are woefully underfunded. Critics who contend that schools are costing more and producing less fail to take into account the added responsibilities assigned to schools by courts, reform efforts, various state and federal requirements, and other special programs. Most of the increase in education spending over the past 20 years has gone for special education. Considering that schools alone have been asked to respond to all the ills of an ever-changing and increasingly complex society, the results aren't that bad.—Edward Hall is Assistant Superintendent, Talladega County Board of Education, Talladega, Alabama.
Negativism about schools in America is easy to come by. Press stories concerning education are more often negative than positive. Consequently, it is not surprising that poll data show the public thinks that schools in the nation are worse than the ones in their own communities.But are schools really worse today than they were a decade ago? The data are mixed.By some standards—increased teacher salaries and total school expenditures, decreased pupil-teacher ratios, declining dropout rates, greater proportions of students taking advanced placement courses—things are definitely better. By other standards—student achievement levels, equity—things are not better.The nation has been very good about achieving its goals, when it makes them clear. The goal of reducing dropout rates is being accomplished, but possibly at the expense of real learning. Schools have found ways to make students stay in school, but sometimes by watering down the curriculum and standards of achievement. People in business and industry tell horror stories about high school graduates who cannot read or write.One is tempted to surmise that far too many educators simply do not believe that all students can learn, so passing students through the system takes precedence over ensuring that they know what they should as graduates of American high schools.Until the nation sets goals for student achievement, the question of whether schools are improving will continue to be an ambiguous one, with many different answers based on what criteria one chooses to use.—C. Emily Feistritzer is President, National Center for Education Information, Washington, D.C.
Today, public schools do better by more students than at any time in the past. (Of course, the golden era of U.S. public education that contemporary critics like to evoke never existed. As late as 1950, fully 50 percent of white students and 75 percent of black students dropped out before earning a diploma.) But the question we should ask is, "Are the nation's schools as good as they need to be?" and the answer is clearly, "No."Traditionally, public secondary schools have given an academically rigorous education to only a fraction of their students—the gifted and the privileged—while offering watered-down fare to the rest. Yet the lesson of the past decade of reform in American education—a lesson that educators have been slow to heed—is that the low-skill, high-wage jobs that sustained the American middle class for much of the 20th century are disappearing. Only higher educational standards will qualify U.S. workers for the high-skill, high-wage jobs that are essential to preserving the nation's traditional standard of living.So, public schools today face the challenge of educating a wide range of students to a level that in the past was reserved for a few. One measure of the magnitude of the task: only 18 percent of 12th graders were ranked "proficient" or higher on the 1992 NAEP math assessment.—Thomas Toch is the education correspondent at U.S. News and World Report and author of In the Name of Excellence.