My letter to the editor on "Why American Education Fails"

The recent issue of Foreign Affairs magazine  (Volume 92 Number 3 , May/June 2013) carries an article titled, Why American Education Fails and how lessons from abroad could improve it by Jal Mehta.  I was irresistibly drawn to this for reasons that should be obvious, if you regularly visit this blog.

Here is my letter to the editor of Foreign Affairs, which I am sure will never make it into a printed version.

Dear Foreign Affairs,

I love your magazine and turn to it eagerly for the world of ideas and for the intelligent, nuanced discourse found there.

I read Jal Mehta’s article on the epic fail of American public education with great interest.  I thought that Professor Mehta identified many of the problems accurately.  But I found it disturbing that in 4,000 words (yes, I counted them) the word parent was not used once.  Not.  Once.  How does anyone pontificate on education AND fail to mention parents?  Have we severed the American child from a parent-based world so thoroughly that parents are not even worthy of a casual reference in connection with the value of a kid’s education?  Big omission.

On the plus side - I loved the criticism of No Child Left Behind.  Billions down the drain AND American kids fell further behind.  A smart business person would fire every barbarian whose fingerprints could be found on that vile legislation.  I am still waiting for some kind of repercussions ….or maybe a refund on my tax increase?

I do think that more could have been said about the inevitable deja-vu that Common Core Standards Initiative represents.  Ten years from now and billions of dollars later, the governments will have MORE control, the CCSI will be an epic fail, taxes will go up, and America will slip behind far enough that it will no longer be taken seriously on the global education stage. 

Professor Mehta compares America to Finland, Canada, Japan, Singapore and South Korea.  Of course, we pale in comparison to these nations.  Most American kids would be hard pressed to find these nations on a map, much less out-read, out-math, out-science or outsmart them in any way shape or form.  BUT, these nations all have the manageability that homogeneity delivers.  All the kids are very similar – ethnically and socioeconomically similar.  These nations simply do not have the same burdens that American schools have.  Also, I think it is intellectually misleading to suggest that America emulate homogenous nations with a strong welfare state, especially when America’s insolvency is already a pox on its people.  And what about the fact that the NEA , the largest, most powerful union in the country,  has a creepy, anti-freedom agenda, and consistently acts out of self-interest and against the beleaguered population of students and parents it should be helping.  Why isn’t this in the first paragraph?

The article skips from one illusion to another because like so many in academia, this author does not once contemplate a redo on the FAMILY level.  It seems that all answers to the education problems that plague us must come from the Wizard of Oz in DC.   Why is the squalid state of American politics being relied upon for anything at all ?

Finally, how can any well-educated researcher in this field make this statement WITHOUT suggesting that the US Department of Education take a hike?  “Not only does the field (US education) lack knowledge; it lacks the resources and infrastructure needed to produce it.”   What the heck are we paying for? 

To his credit, Professor Mehta does allude to schools and teachers turning to commercial and nonprofit institutions for help.  But, seriously, here he is swatting at a lion seal with a handkerchief.  He would get much more attention and support if he just stated the obvious, just spoke the plain truth.  The Department of Education has utterly failed.  It should stop robbing US children of an education, admit that it is nothing more than a costly train wreck, stop taxing the life out of American families, and hand education over to private industry.  Then American families would be free to find a true education. Believe me we would then begin to find our greatness once more.  We would become the self-sufficient innovators of yesteryear.

Know this  -  The problems in public education in America are Big Government, One Size Fits All, Big Taxes, Big Union.  So, axiomatically, the solutions cannot be Bigger Government, Bigger Taxes, Bigger Union.   Professor Mehta is right in that we need a redo.  American public education has spoiled.  But, we simply cannot put the sour milk in a bigger, more expensive fridge and hope that tomorrow it is going to smell better.  

SJ Magazine: "New Jersey's Failing High Schools"

This article left me weary and worried.  Read it and weep....

http://sjmagazine.net/2013/failing-high-schools/

Like so many commentaries on the shocking state of education in NJ and elsewhere in this
once- upon-a-time land of the free and home of the brave, it states the problems clearly and then dives enthusiastically into the bottomless pit of fictions that we have manufactured to divert ourselves from a painful, ugly reality.

In the first few paragraphs, the author states a few tragic facts:

1.  70% of New Jersey's high school graduates need remedial coursework in order to be college-ready.

2.  Students who begin college by taking remedial coursework have only a 25% chance of graduating from college.

Heaven help us.

But even more shocking than this scandalous truth about the value of public education in NJ, is the fact that the outrage is omitted!  Friends, you have been robbed!  How much of your annual tax bill supports the public schools?  Demand a refund !!  In no other industry could there be such gross neglect without dire consequences. If you were this derelict in your duties at your job, you would be canned.  If you are a law abiding citizen who pays taxes without complaint and your kid has graduated from high school but needs to take pre-algebra at the community college - You. Have. Been. Robbed.

You paid for your kid's education with prodigious taxes and now you have to pay for the same coursework - again - but this time with after-tax dollars, that warm and fuzzy double whammy.

But instead of howling with outrage, shock, and righteous indignation, the author begins the equivocations and idle talk of common core standards, 'partnering with high schools', Student Success Summit, task forces, proficiency testing, blah, blah, blah.   She tells us the public schools are falling short and then suggests .... more of the same !!  What??

Is it because I have not sent my kids to schools that I feel such umbrage and have an overwhelming desire to grab every parent by the shoulders, shake them hard, and bellow, "Snap out of it !!"

None of the task forces, partnerships, committees, study teams, testing cultures and revised standards have worked. Standardized test scores continue to drop; they are at record lows!  It has all been for nothing.  The whole system is quicksand.  Once you are in it, the more you struggle, and the deeper you are pulled down by it.  What else needs to be said?

The exasperation I felt after reading this article was palpable.  Into what hermetically sealed chamber has the collective common sense of American families been forever ditched?  Unless parents snap out of it and demand a refund or walk away, nothing is going to change.  The fiction will only grow more Leviathan-like around the dark chambers of the public education stage until the specter-like whispers of truth evaporate altogether.  Meanwhile, taxes will go up, America will slip further behind its international peers, and citizens will decry the outsourcing of jobs.  Friends, the madness really must stop and only you can make it stop.

Lest you think that I believe teachers are bad or guilty, think again.  They are saints.  The union?  Not so.  But teachers are creative, caring individuals who really want to help.  But the entire system is built upon a lie.  Mass, group education is a bad idea.  The minority of students who succeed would succeed even if you dropped them on a deserted island.  They are determined to learn, and they'll do it no matter what.   Mass education does not produce a good result for the majority.  That's really the only truth that needs to be absorbed by the collective consciousness of the American public.

Is the Ethnicity Box obsolete?

Diversity practices in the college application process are a very touchy topic.  The reasons are obvious – we mourn for errors past, we bid all strife and discourse cease, we strive for equality in opportunity and hope never again to witness the terrible sadness of a scalded soul.  Amen, amen and amen.

But, diversity practices are getting complicated - hard to manage and harder yet to explain.

Russell Nieli, a Princeton professor and admissions adviser to Princeton freshman, uses an interesting phrase when analyzing the practice.  He calls the diversity targets  "identity groups".  He describes it well in this article:

http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2010/07/how_diversity_punishes_asians.html

An identity group is an ethnic identity which is viewed, generally, as challenged, discriminated against, or somehow not given a fair chance in life. Most would agree that the "identity group" practices in colleges aim to get at this thing: They want to help kids who have been oppressed, kids who still suffer from the sins of our country's past, or kids who have no access to good teachers or good classes.  They want to give these kids a leg up, a second chance, the benefit of the doubt, etc....  Very few would argue against this most worthy goal.  But there is a  problem here.  Color, race, ethnicity and exotic roots are poor barometers of the social conditions in which a student strives to succeed.

Remember - the positive promotion of "identity groups" in universities all over the country is not hidden.  It is not the topic of furtive whispers.  It is out in the open.  It is the subject of scholarly essays and it is widely acknowledged.  But, it is increasingly being challenged in the courts.  And, now, science also seeks to turn it on its head.

The era of the ethnicity box may be coming to an end.

Today, it is possible for any person on earth willing to part with $200 to have their ethnic roots known with certainty.  I’m not talking about ancestry.com; I’m describing DNA analysis through the National Genographic Project.  The results are guaranteed to shock.  My family just did this.  We are about as boringly white as white gets (or so we thought), with grandparents all hailing from Ireland, Scotland or England.  Our DNA tells a different story.  We are only 29% northern European.  We are 41% middle-Eastern and 30% western Asian (area now known as Turkmenistan and Iran).  WHO KNEW?   Now, these results go back thousands of years.  And, when any one of us goes back this far, we ARE going to find Asian, Mediterranean and/or African roots.  All of us.  Interesting, huh?

The ethnicity box says nothing at all about the prospective student’s life experience or social condition, which is the real information it seeks to get at.  Since there is just no way to quantify the cultural experience, we settle for a mostly irrelevant reporting of   a) the color of your skin, or  b) the most exotic soil on which a parent or grandparent was born.   That seems rather shallow.

Here are some scenarios in which the ethnicity box fails miserably.  By the way, I do not know the answers to any of these questions…..

A child from an impoverished area of South America, but adopted as a baby by an affluent white couple and raised happily in a Bryn Mawr mansion - what box should he check? Should this college applicant seek advantage?  All of the adopted Chinese children who were raised in the average white American household – what box should they check?  What if the adopted Chinese baby is raised in an African American household - what box does she check?   Is it fair for a Puerto Rican student with a neurosurgeon dad and a lawyer mom to gain the advantage of an "identity group" applicant?  How about a rich white kid who steps over his father’s drunken body on the bathroom floor every night so he can brush his teeth?  Is there a box for him to check?    Most would agree that it really is the cultural conditions, rather than ethnic roots, which can truly augment or impair a kid's chance for success in life and that  "challenged life" should trump "ethnic roots".  But, see how messy this is?

Add to this the fact that DNA analysis is going to be as commonplace as an app for your iPhone and soon, very soon, we are going to be faced with the fact that we ALL have exotic roots. What, then?

In this era making generalizations about someone's lifestyle and social condition based on their ethnicity is downright offensive. In every day life we know better than to do something this coarse.  We work hard to NOT generalize.  Yet, when it comes to college applications, we lose our sensibilities.  Now, we want people to make generalizations based on race. And, regardless of which box you check ...even if you check  "I prefer not to disclose", assumptions and generalizations have instantly been assigned to you.  That's kind of weird.

Another problem with correcting admissions for diversity is the collateral damage to merit.  There are other identity groups who face discrimination of a different type.  If you are Chinese, East Asian,  Jewish, or Korean and you have perfect SAT scores, perfect GPA, high achievement in the arts, sciences or music, you are faced with a disproportionate chance of rejection.  Your hard work, your sacrifices, your determination and your tenacity are punished.  What is to be said about this?  What words sound right to explain this Kafkaesque condition?  Doesn’t it seem un-American to bypass excellence, much less punish it ?

On the topic of punishing excellence, I have this interesting anecdote:

My daughter recently applied for a scholarship.  Initially denied the scholarship because it did not ‘appear’ that she needed it, the committee looked over her achievements and, to their credit, they asked her to appeal it with an essay about why she deserved it.  She did.  It made her so happy to be able to put into words her deep frustration with "the system".   I do not think she will mind me quoting her a little bit .....

"What does my father's tax return have to do with me?  I've worked like a dog all through high school.  Whether he made very little or quite a lot, it has nothing to do with me. I chose to seek excellence.  My sweat, my sacrifices, my hours of studying, my choosing to do what is hard over what is easy again and again, should stand on its own. Does anyone ask an Olympic athlete how much money their dad makes?  Focus on parent income defiles the effort of the student and kills the incentive to excel.  Either I am the best student for this scholarship or I am not.  That is all."

She got this scholarship.

I think there are many college applicants who want to scream out similar words, who want to have their efforts evaluated independent of ethnic heritage or economic status, and who decry the death of meritocracy. 

My daughter's experience underscores the deeply challenging question that American universities and American families must ask themselves.  What exactly are we trying to achieve?  Is it even possible to tease out the information we seek, in order to even the playing field and thus sleep better at night? 

Finally, faced with the ethnicity box’s inevitable fall from grace, I do wonder what will happen next.

Twilight is falling over the sea,
Shadows are stealing dark on the lea;
Borne on the night winds, voices of yore
Come from the far off shore.

The Educational Ecosystem

I overheard this striking aphorism the other day; words spoken by one battle-weary parent to another:
"You are only as happy as your saddest child."
Wow.  Think on that.  It packs a punch.  Those of us with multiple kids know - we are buoyed up by one child's success only to be brought down by the other's struggle.  At the end of the day, the plight of the troubled child is the last thought, the last words in our sleepy prayers for answers... for guidance.

This got me thinking about the ecosystem of families.  No family event, no family issue, arises in isolation.  Everything touches and changes everyone.   In nature if you take away something as simple as ants or bees, it can cause a collapse on a grand scale.  Correspondingly, the tragic tendrils of one child's misery can reach into every corner of family life, challenging even the most casual kitchen conversations. As parents, educators, providers, and cruise directors, we have to strike an absurd balance here.  Specifically, the task is to maximize the well-being of all family members so the ecosystem infrastructure does not rupture and so that all thrive. (This is the ancestral birthplace of heartfelt prayer!)

Thankfully, families have the ultimate superglue - love.  Love finds solutions where all else fails.  But, it is a formidable task, nevertheless.

If you think family ecosystems are complex, what of educational ecosystems?  Is a class only as good as its worst student?  Is a course only as effective as its least contributing, least interested student?  Maybe.

Ask any teacher and they will eagerly describe their trials and tribulations in the classroom.  If they have students who don't want to learn or who are disruptive, little can be done.  Like a drought or a monsoon on fertile fields, uncooperative students change everything:  the classroom atmosphere, the speed with which material can be covered, the teacher's mood, the motivation of the other students, and, of course, the learning outcome.

It is true in public schools, private schools, and home schools.

As home educators, we have checked out of the group-learning, school model, only to desperately recreate it at every turn.  We have homeschool-schools, co-ops galore, small group learning, and clubs.  We are not immune to the educational ecosystem challenges.  With the alacrity of an inborn, genetic predisposition we rush together and embrace the new ecosystems we create and all the concomitant complexities.

The metaphorical question is - how to treat an invasive species?  In nature, if long-horned beetles are spotted in a woods, the big chemical guns come out, treatment is aggressive, and many other beneficial insects and organisms are sacrificed in an effort to spare the trees.  This is imperfect but it does save the trees.  Measures like this (metaphorical only) don't work in schools.  The goal is to educate all, control the wayward, and keep everyone there ....whether they want to be there or not.  So, the invasive species is really part of the landscape, forever.  The weeds must be welcomed.

Home educators would be foolish indeed if they became saddled with the issues germane to group education.  We need to work just as hard at striking the ecological balance in our home schools, as we do in our families.  It helps to frequently revisit why we started on this journey in the first place.  For excellence, Godliness, familial ties, and freedom of choice - when we find ourselves in grave conflict with our original vision and our educational ecosystem is unbalanced,  it is time for a change.

"Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand."
Thoreau

Home Education in the News ....again.

It seems that every few months, New Jersey newspapers are destined to churn-out same old, same old articles on home schooling. Very few of the reporters take the time to dig deeply.  I think I know why.

A week ago I was contacted by a reporter who wanted to talk to someone about home education for an article he was writing.  I responded with a long and detailed email of at least 300 words.  Buried in the email were these words ...."For the record, I think that home educators should not be regulated.  Ever."  Of course, these are the only words that made it into the article.  I had no idea I was being quoted in the article, until a friend emailed me about my name appearing in it.  Imagine my surprise.  Here's a link:

http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20130430/NEWS01/304300036/Medford-mom-do-not-think-home-educators-should-regulated-ever-?nclick_check=1

Why do we continue to have the same discussion over and over again?  When people ask if home schooling works or if it is good for kids or not, they might as well be asking if we are sure the Earth is spherical and not flat.  Lord, it really is time to move on.

This is the article that should have been written.....

When you see the Scripps Spelling Bee and the Math Counts Competitions trying to finagle ways to limit participation by home school students, you know we have succeeded.  Yes, home educated kids have to sign a special form developed by Scripps in which they promise not to study too hard or too long.  I am not kidding.  Also, a home school parent may not start or run a county level bee.  Burlington County has not had a sponsor for several years, hence NO student in Burlington County can participate in the Scripps Bee because there is no feeder bee.  I could have fixed this and offered to do the work,  but was barred from doing so because my kids do not attend the local state conditioning centers.  Huh?  Translation:  Parents and Hollywood got angry when so many home schoolers began winning at Scripps.

Math Counts has also demonstrated their respect for home educated kids by barring them from forming teams.  Why? Well, because they would then have all the smart math kids on their team.  But, when the local school puts together a team, do they choose the football players?  I think not.  They choose their best math students.  And they are permitted to do this and, of course, would be fools if they did not.  Not home school kids.  No teams permitted there.

These examples of discrimination could be viewed (by those of us who do this hard job of managing our own kid's educations) with bat-crap crazy rage, but are better viewed as an institutional bow of respect.  We win. Lots of people do not like this.

Everything the government does to interfere with parental rights leads America to greater mediocrity.

Fact:   Home education is the ONLY educational outpost of progress on this blue planet.
Fact:  The media and the political spin doctors will never stop looking for ways to maintain their tragic fiction.
Fact:  Home educated kids, regardless of their religious beliefs, are independent thinkers who will never be walking in lockstep with the masses.  They have not drunk the Kool-Aide and thus are still original thinkers.

That, my friends, is why the trite ,hackneyed, fluff articles continue to circulate.  For, as long as those who remain in the US Dept of Education trance can cast a shadow of doubt on the stunning success of the home education movement, they can continue to feel good about their own choices.

Race to Nowhere ??

Have any of you seen this documentary?  Race to Nowhere is a film about the pressure to succeed in high school in order to gain admission to a competitive four year college. It's primary focus is on the super-testing atmosphere and the demands of AP classes and extracurricular activities on the students and their families.

I watched it twice.  Each time I came away with the same impression.  The families and students interviewed seemed utterly unprepared for the competition they were in.  My 16 year old daughter watched it and had the same impression, stating quickly that most or all of the students interviewed extensively in the movie never should have been put into the pressure-cooker in the first place.  Her words:  "These kids are not equipped for high performance and should not have been put into AP classes or told they could get into Harvard or Stanford or UC Berkely, in the first place!"  I do agree.

The problem is NOT too much homework, as the movie suggests.  The statistics bear out the opposite - most kids in high school watch 4 hours of TV per day and play video games on top of this ....daily.  The problem is one of goal setting.   For example, my youngest child is not the athletic type.  Outdoorsy - yes.  He'd much rather be outside, no shirt, playing for hours, running and carrying on.  But give him a basketball or a baseball and bat?  It is not a pretty sight.  Would I ever put this kid in a competitive sport with a ball that had to be bounced, kicked, caught or hit with a racquet?  Never.  I have different goals for him - reasonable goals for him in the realm of sports.

This same kind of reality check needs to be done all over the country, when it comes to college preparation. After I sat through this whiny vignette a second time, I asked myself why in the world these parents were doing this terrible thing to these perfectly nice kids.  I have met kids who can do 4 hours of advanced algebra without complaint and then turn to the memory work needed to prepare for five different AP exams.  They are calm, driven and gifted.  I have also met kids who are completely lost (academically) most days.  Not only are they unable to handle the intensity of AP level work while balancing other commitments, they also have no idea why they are doing it.  They lack the big picture, they are not playing to their strengths and pushing these kids up the Ivy hill is just wrong.  But, I blame the parents, not the schools for this tragic error of goal-setting.

I thought the entire move reeked of this and it could have been more aptly named ....The Injustice of  Erroneous Goals.

I found this Washington Post article illuminating:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/why-race-to-nowhere-documentary-is-wrong/2011/04/03/AFBt27VC_blog.html

The reason these kids are sick, distraught, overwhelmed and failing is that most of the parents (not all of them) were oblivious.  The parents were all watching a train wreck take place in their kid's lives because deep down inside, they want their kids to keep up when they really should have encouraged them to slow down.  Then they blamed the system, the homework, the AP classes, the unforgiving and unrelenting testing.  But, parents ALWAYS have a choice.  Parents ALWAYS have the freedom to walk away. The movie was about the 'system' so I did not expect to see much coverage of home education.  But, to not mention it even once as a viable alternative?  It was an odd omission.

The Chosen Few

This is the season when high school seniors find out who got in and who got injured; college admissions is a full contact sport and not for the faint of heart.  For the past two weeks, I've been hearing reports from both the happy and heartbroken in this take-no-prisoners game and I was reminded of T. S. Eliot's modernist epic poem, The Waste Land, because it begins this way ....

"April is the cruelest month ..."   The poem is 434 lines long, so I won't inflict the entire thing upon you in this blog.  (I love this poem and spent a full year studying it - not because I had to - just because I loved it.)

There are legions of disappointed high school seniors who would agree that April is the cruelest month.

I read the open letter from Suzy Lee Weiss printed last week in the WSJ and titled ...."To all the colleges that rejected me ...." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324000704578390340064578654.html

More interesting than the writer's sprightly message to the Ivy League schools that rejected her were the reactions from casual readers.  Some were deeply offended, some thought it hilarious, and some were alarmed.  I had almost no reaction to it because I have seen so many similar essays and articles in the past.  I remember racing over the lines in the article and thinking, 'yada, yada, yada.....'    The young lady does not cover any new territory.  She merely shines a light on the same old-same old.   If we hate what we see ....is it because we hate it (in fact) or is it because it is true?  I do not know.

I do know that gaining admission to a very competitive four year college is a vulgar game where the stakes are high.  I would never pretend otherwise. Still, I play it.  I do this because in the past 5-10 years I have witnessed a huge national decline in well-paid middle class jobs.  Median American wages are stagnant and I think they are going to stay that way.  There is a shocking concentration of wealth at the top (America's richest 1% now possess almost as much net wealth as the bottom 95% combined.)  And it is only getting worse.  I do not begrudge the 1% their millions.  Kudos to them.  Also, I do not think that money can solve all of one's problems.  But, as I tell my kids, money will solve all of the problem caused by not having money. And, God will take care of the rest, if you let Him.

This article on the $$ value of an Ivy League education is a good read:  http://business.time.com/2011/11/09/an-ivy-league-education-money-wasted-or-money-well-spent/#ixzz2PGB9n82I

Here is a quote from it:  "Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are among the most expensive universities in the country, yet their graduates are among the five colleges with the least student debt.  This is the case primarily because grads of these institutions find good jobs and make enough money to pay their loans back.  In other words, degrees from these institutions are terrific values in the long run, even if they cost a pretty penny upfront."

I do believe that a degree from a very good university will keep paying off years down the road.  Additionally, these institutions are pipelines to power.  Don't we, as Christians, want to see more Godly men and women at the very highest echelons of society?

Schools with admission rates below 15% are not for everyone.  But, regardless of your student's aptitude, I urge you to reach for the best possible school within his/her reach.

My husband and I have four kids to get into college.  The first one made it through the eye of the needle.  Most importantly, he is happy.  He loves UPenn.    Next year, we'll see if my daughter's dreams will come true.   Regardless of where she goes to college, my husband and I know she will thrive.  She knows what hard works feels like and she is not afraid of it.  And, most importantly, she loves to learn.  Still.

So, although it occasionally distasteful,  I will keep plugging away, planning and seeking out unique experiences and opportunities, looking for ways to challenge.  And I will fall asleep and awaken each day with a prayer of thanks on my lips.

Final thoughts from  The Waste Land ....

And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.