Category: Government

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Are America’s Schools Failing?

students-classroomA headline in the December 2013 issue of The Atlantic claimed that American schools compared to the rest of the world—the members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)—were “expensive, unequal, bad at math.” Their conclusion was based upon American student performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment in 2012. Far East countries such as China, Korea, and Japan were top performers, while most European and Scandinavian countries ranked higher than the U.S. as well. Even the country’s former Cold War competitor, the Russian Federation, ranked higher than the United States in the assessment.
 
At the same time, Universitas 21, a global network of research-intensive universities, ranked the American higher education system—its colleges and universities—as the best in the world in 2014, a rank it has retained for years. It is also the reason that foreign students flock to the United States from around the globe.
 
So what is the truth about the American school system? Is it a success or a failure? What should we expect from our schools, and how can we improve them?

History of Public Education in the United States

Contrary to popular belief, the right to an “education” is not mentioned in the Constitution. In the early years of the republic, public education was considered important to the nation’s progress as evidenced by the granting of more than 77 million acres of public domain to the individual states for the support of public schools. At the same time, the responsibility for education was delegated to state and local governments. The Federal Government was not heavily involved in the administration of public education until the end of the Civil War, establishing the original Office of Education in 1867.
 
It was not until the 1960s and 1970s that the Federal Government assumed a dominant position in the administration of education, primarily stimulated by racial discrimination. A second driver for the Federal Government’s increased role was the perceived failure of the state-run schools, especially in science and math, compared to national rivals. The passage of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was in direct response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik as a consequence of the general perception that “American schools and colleges were not producing the quantity and quality of scientific and technical specialists necessary to keep pace with the Soviet Union.”
 
As a consequence, the first federal student loans capitalized with U.S. Treasury funds for college students in science, math, and foreign languages were instituted. Since that time, financial assistance has alternated between direct loans capitalized with U.S. Treasury funds and loans from private parties secured by federal guarantees.
 
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Technology & Society – The Consequences

robot Technology has been both a boon and a curse throughout history, upsetting the apple cart of the established order with new opportunities for some and great losses for others. Consider the impact of the automobile, first on the horse and buggy industries, then on railroads. Television almost destroyed the movie business until the more creative people adapted. eBooks currently threaten longstanding bookstores and traditional publishers. The pace of technological advance has accelerated during the last half-century, challenging cultures, societies, and individuals to adapt to the new environment.
 
The benefits of technological advances are disproportionately enjoyed among the world’s communities, exaggerating the differences between those countries with stable, modern economies and those yet to develop. Even within a single economy, the benefits generally accrue to those who are better educated, more flexible, and less invested in the status quo.
 
In the past, technology primarily leveraged or expanded man’s physical and mental skills. The coming advances have the capability of replacing those skills, eliminating the need for man’s labor or direction. Simply stated, machines are capable of replacing much – if not most – of the jobs in our industrialized societies.
As the transfer occurs, how will cultures, economies, and political systems adapt? Will the future be the long-sought utopia, or the beginning of a cultural apocalypse, the societies depicted in science fiction novels such as “1984,” “The Hunger Games,” or “Soylent Green“?
 
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United States of Texas – The US Under Tea Party Influence

texasflagFew people are aware that, in 2008, Igor Panarin, dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats, predicted that the United States would break into four separate countries in 2010. He believed that the national and regional effects of the recent recession, and the people’s dissatisfaction with the status quo and the Federal Government, would result in the creation of five distinct, autonomous, political regions.
 
Panarin divided the U.S. into these new republics:

  • 1. Californian Republic. Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and all continental states west of them. Panarin predicted this group would fall under Chinese influence.
  • 2. Central North-American Republic. He expected all states between Montana, Colorado, Missouri, and Ohio to be absorbed by Canada.
  • 3. Atlantic America. Panarin believed the region from Maine to South Carolina and Tennessee would join the European Union.
  • 4. Texas Republic. All southern states, plus Oklahoma and New Mexico. Panarin predicted this group would either become part of Mexico or form its own government.
  • 5. Alaska and Hawaii. Panarin also believed that Alaska would become part of Russia, and Hawaii part of Japan or China.

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    While Panarin’s prediction was wrong, or perhaps premature, he was right in identifying regional clusters of dissatisfaction, and their desires for change. For example, California voters are considering a proposal by venture capitalist Tim Draper to split the large state into six smaller units, so that “people will be closer to their state governments.” If implemented, the region would have 10 more senators.
     
    Another venture capitalist, Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, has funded the development of floating cities in international waters off the coast of California which would assume a libertarian form of government completely outside U.S. control. In Thiel’s view, these cities would be free of regulation, laws, and moral conventions. They would provide no welfare, impose no minimum wage, and have loose building codes and few restrictions on weapons. While such efforts may be considered extreme by some, they reflect an underlying sentiment that is very real.

    The Lone Star Loophole

    While California would need congressional approval to divide into smaller units, Texas may not actually have that same restriction. Some people argue that within the terms of annexation, when the Republic of Texas joined the Union in 1846, there exists a right reserved by the state to split into five smaller states. This theoretical transformation would allow the resulting region to have 10 senators, rather than two – and eight more electoral votes.
     
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    How to Maintain Civil Discourse – Understanding Political Division

    argument“Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for it is a sign of a tractable and commendable nature: and in all causes of passion admit reason to govern,” thus proclaimed George Washington in his “Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation,” written sometime before the age of 16. In the heated, often rancorous season of political contest, we Americans often forget that our fellow citizens are more similar to each other than dissimilar, our goals and ambitions more analogous than antagonistic. As a consequence, our public and private discourse has become intensely personal, focused on differences rather than consonance, so that friend, family, and work relationships are frequently in peril.
     
    Civility, to most people, is simply being polite, reasonable, and exhibiting respectful behavior. When people disagree, discussion becomes personal attacks; instances of rudeness for other people are common in grocery stores, city streets, even between neighbors. According to the 2013 Civility in America: A Nationwide Survey, most Americans believe that this era of incivility is “harmful to our country’s future,” and is likely to erode further in the future.
     
    The findings include:

    1. – 95% of Americans believe we have a civility problem in America
    2. – 81% think uncivil behavior is leading to an increase in violence
    3. – 80% agree that the level of civility will not improve until our government leaders act more civilly
    4. – 71% believe civility is worse compared to a few years ago
    5. – 70% think that incivility has risen to crisis levels

     
    The same survey indicates that one of three workers believe their workplace is uncivil, leading to job dissatisfaction, burnout and stress, and workplace aggression as evidenced by the number of employees and ex-employees who return to their jobs to exact revenge and commit mass murders. It is also expensive, slowing production, limiting employee participation in company projects, and higher turnover with one of four of employees who quit their jobs attributing it to incivility in the workplace.
     
    Dr. Gary Namie, psychologist and co-founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute, notes that lack of civility and bullying go hand-in-hand, asking, “How in the world can we stop bullying in schools, in the workplace, in politics, when it is so close to our national character right now?”
     
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