One Million Reasons For Radical Education Reform

June 11, 2008

One Million Reasons For Radical Education Reform

More than 1.23 million high school seniors will fail to graduate in the class of 2008, according to a new study conducted by the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center. Now that the drama over the Democratic nominee has subsided, the presidential candidates must return to issues that threaten to hobble America in a global economy: namely, millions of future adults who are not acquiring the skill sets that will enable them to compete.

Results for the class of 2005, the most recent year available, show a national graduation rate of nearly 71 percent, an increase of about half a percentage point over the prior year. According to the report, that figure drops for historically disadvantaged groups: 58 percent for Hispanics, 55 percent for African-Americans, and 51 percent for Native Americans. Males in these groups fare especially poorly.

Iowa, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Vermont lead the nation with graduation rates of more than 80 percent. The District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, and South Carolina lag the nation with rates under 60 percent.

The new data are highlighted in a report, "Diplomas Count 2008: School to College: Can State P-16 Councils Ease the Transition?," which explores the graduation crisis for every U.S. district and state. "The nation and many states face severe challenges in graduating students from high school. The crisis disproportionately strikes poor, minority, and urban youths. With the graduation rate rising less than one percentage point annually in recent years, we still have much work to do," says Christopher Swanson, Director of the EPE Research Center.

What reports overlook, and all the political rhetoric during the presidential campaign will miss, is that high school graduation rates are tied to a stable family life, a sense of self-efficacy, and moral agency, rather than to money spent per pupil or the number of standardized assessments given from kindergarten through grade twelve.

Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school as their classmates who live with two parents. Children whose fathers are absent consistently score lower than the norm in reading and math tests.

When I taught high school, I noticed a trend semester after semester for years: students from the most stable families and loving communities usually were the most successful. I lamented the fact that some of my brightest students were not free to perform well because of chaos at home. Kids from abusive homes and children of divorced or absentee parents did not normally perform well regardless of aptitude. I had students who regularly received low marks but would score high on aptitude and IQ tests.

Self-efficacy is built when a child believes that his or her life has meaning and that he or she can make a difference in the world. What better incentive to learn about the world and learn a skill set than the knowledge that someday one will make a contribution to making the world a better place? Materialism and consumption as motivators eventually fail to provide incentives for struggling kids to persevere. A high school student who is depressed, abusing drugs, suicidal, and nihilistic couldn't care less about the threat of "flipping burgers" for life.

Moral agency refers to a kind of maturity, the capacity of a child to exercise virtue by making good decisions in his or her interests. Agency often requires a long-term view of the world cultivated from the wise counsel of parents, and other supportive adults and peers, who seek to direct children to the best long-term holistic health. Struggling adolescents making decisions that sabotage their own progress will not make it.

Regardless of race or class, education reform will only be successful in concert with other needed reforms. Family, self-efficacy, and agency work in concert like one of Bach's Brandenburg concertos. We have over one million annual reasons to stop playing rhetorical political games and ignoring the fact that educational success is forged outside of the classroom.

Comments

Karen: kweber@acton.org

GREAT ARTICLE, ANTHONY! There is plenty of proof that more money will not improve education! Real question is how do we help rebuild the families of our poor so they can reclaim their God-given dignity, bring themselves out of poverty and claim the American dream? Cudos to Lori for her thoughtful analysis. Real reform is needed and it has nothing to do with money!

Loriluangel: lorihass@aol.com

I thought this was an excellent article, and with all due respect to your opinion Chris M, I feel that you have managed to both miss, and yet also prove the point Mr. Bradley was trying to make in his article. I can't help but shake my head in sadness and chuckle in disbelief every time I hear someone say that raising taxes on the wealthy, and throwing more money at social problems will fix them. I am making an educated guess when I say you are probably an Obama supporter. My only advice to you in that respect is to make sure you understand, and are very careful about what it is that you are wishing for. Year after year we have spent more and more money on "education", and year after year our overall aptitude test scores have only gotten lower. Let's think about the bottomline for a minute. Whose fault is it that children are not learning basic math facts and calculations in grade school anymore? Whose fault is it that children are not learning correct grammar usage, spelling, or sentence structure? And why are some so surprised when these same children grow up not being able to balance a checkbook, manage a household budget, or fill out a job application? Whose "job" is it to teach these children how to take care of themselves and become self-sufficient ? Whose "job" is it to teach these children to be responsible, productive members of society? Do you honestly believe the problem with educating our children is that we haven't spent enough money on desks, chalkboards, or text books? Or could it possibly be that educators have exchanged tried and true teaching methods of learning for what's known as "outcome-based" education, with its "new math" and "inventive and creative spelling" teaching techniques? For the most part, individual achievement is discouraged, and working cooperatively within an assigned group is what is stressed. The message conveyed is that it is more important to do average work within a group than it is to succeed on your own. The two words that come to my mind are "social conditioning". Or just maybe, could the real culprit be the people who carelessly bring children into this world and then neglect their responsibilites as parents? You can't play tag on the playground anymore because someone might feel bad if they are "it". You can't have sport try-outs anymore because someone might feel bad if they get "cut". When I was in school we worked hard and practiced to make the team and survive the "cut". It was both exciting and rewarding when they posted the names of the players that made the team and you saw that your name was listed. If you didn't make the team and it was important to you, you just practiced harder and tried again the next year. Now, anybody and everybody gets to be on the team just because they want to. It doesn't matter whether they have the skills or not, and it doesn't matter if they spent time and put forth any effort in improving their skills or not. They get to be on the team just because they want to. Too bad life isn't that easy. The "New Deal" and the creation of numerous "welfare" government assistance programs has created a codependent generation that refuses to take personal responsibility for their quality of life and/or standard of living. The prevailing philosophy today is if it feels good, do it, and the rest be damned. As long as my life's okay, who cares about the rest of the world. It's not my fault I have no ambition or conscience, and I refuse to be held acccountable for my actions. It's either society's fault because I'm being discriminated against or it's my parents fault because they didn't spend enough quality time with me as a child and I was spanked when I misbehaved. There isn't any black or white, right or wrong. The world is gray, and if you start talking otherwise you will be labelled intolerant. Social safety nets and the this feeling of entitlement have ultimately removed the motivation for people to work for what they need or want. Why should I work hard every week to put a roof over my head and food on the table if I can achieve the same result by not working or doing much of anything at all? I also personally believe the safety nets society has provided are the primary reason we have so many single young mothers today. Think about the following scenario, which is unfortunately all too common. Imagine you are a 13-16 yr old girl who hasn't done very well in school and doesn't get along with her parents very well. Your parents do work, but they barely make ends meet every month and they are always arguing about money. They are constantly complaining about life in general, but as long as you don't cause them any serious trouble, or cost them too much money, you can pretty much do as you please. You have an on-again, off-again boyfriend who you can't bear to lose, and you don't know what you want to do with your life. You are afraid about what the future holds. and you are worried about how you will take care of yourself. You want freedom and independence but yet you don't want to work, or continue your schooling and education. What do you do??? It would probably take a whole 15 minutes of concentrated thought to come up with the perfect solution. Get pregnant and have a baby! If I have a baby I'll have it made. It might make my boyfriend love me more and maybe we'll get married. School won't expect much from me anymore, and my parents will for sure help take care of me and their future grandchild. Besides that there are also government programs that will help me with food, formula, diapers, housing, clothing, and medical expenses. Life will be perfect. Right?? Wrong!!! If they haven't even learned about personal responsibility, how can they be a positive role model and teach it to their children? This safety net supported "lifestyle" has become a perpetuating cycle that only a real change in policy and the public mindset can stop and reverse. I for one, will not be holding my breath waiting for it to happen.

M.A.:

Chris,you are spouting the same old attitutes that have helped get us where we are today! Raising taxes on the wealthy has been the battle cry since the income tax was first begun in 1916. It didn't work then, it doesn't work now, it never will. We already spend more on per-student education than ANY nation, and our test scores clearlys how it's been wasted money. Taxing the rich won't heal what's ailing us.

1. The poster who commented on our welfare system was dead-on: we get what we pay for. Our present system punishes men who take responsibility for their families, and punishes initiative.

2. Chaotic family lives prevent students from learning. Too much of that chaos is a result of #1.

3. As far as improving substantially American schools, THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE: Do as the Europeans do. LET THE MONEY FOLLOW THE CHILD INSTEAD OF THE CHILD FOLLOWING THE MONEY!! As it is now, children are required to attend the school the authorities tell them to, because that's where the funding is sent. Parents have no say, and no control. There is no incentive for schools to do a good job, and thanks to teacher's unions, it's almost impossible for them to improve anyway. WHEN THE PARENTS choose the school, schools will shape up. Underperforming schools will close, poor teachers will be fired, and innovation will flourish. As long as teacher's unions are in control, schools will be seen as employment agencies rather than places of education.

Jenni Plaster:

I agree that the erosion of the family is one of the most direct links to poorly educated Americans. The number of single (never married) moms is rising startlingly, while the numbers of single parent households in general continues to climb. It is difficult for these families to survive and rare for them to thrive, yet divorce and the disenfranchisement of the father is all but an American norm. At the same time the structure of the family and of marriage is being undermined by public educators teaching gay agenda to elementary students, and the courts in California who refuse to support the will of the people and instead legislate these family destructive "marriages" from the bench.

Family matters, dads are important in a child's life, and until Americans can learn to put family first more than education will suffer. Morality, not money, is what we are so impoverished in.

Scott Beaver: scott.beaver@ceoexpress.com

Chris,

Your premise that "poverty and financial instability result in unstable families" is false. The availability of welfare, and regulations regarding its distribution, have wreaked havoc on family unity. Many benefits are available to single mothers only. It is well documented that these requirements have driven fathers to stay away from their homes (to prevent be "discovered" by social workers) and ultimately to abandon their families altogether. There is an economic disincentive for fathers to remain in the home. In other words, the trillions we've invested in "a better social safety net" has worsened, rather than improved, the situation for poor families. This reality argues against the simplistic notion that spending more money will improve society. The law of unintended consequences in action.

On another point, government intervention such as wage controls and "banning outsourcing" will not improve the plight of the poor. These regulations, while they may "produce higher wages," will also increase production costs. These costs will be passed along to the consumer, resulting in inflation. The worker would have more money, but that money would not necessarily allow them to purchase more goods.

Ken Wiseman: kenwiseman@yahoo.com

Being firmly entrenched as a member of the educational establishment I nevertheless have to agree (as do many of my peers) that educational success is indeed influenced by factors outside the classroom. Obviously, one major component is the student’s family environment. This is something that cannot be ignored, yet is hugely elusive in terms of intervention. Public school by merit of constitutional restraints cannot invoke religious/spiritual morays. It isn’t just these morays that by and large would strengthen families, but a real, down in the core of their being kind of relationship with God. This is outside of the public education purview and something that the church could and should act on.

Bob: rpromm@pacbell.net

Chris Manes -- and the trillions of dollars spent since the inauguration of the "great society" have done what other than to make those on welfare to be more dependent??? You get what you pay for and if you pay for sloth and immorality you'll get it in spades.

The problem is a moral problem (or lack thereof) and as far I can tell morals are not a purchased commodity.

John van Doodeward: ormu6@hotmail.com

Excellent article! For children to succeed in society regardless of race, they must be nurtured and raised in a loving home. The parents must be their role models, showing by example. Discipline within the home is an absolute must, and must be exercised through true love. This can only be done in the fear of the only true God as he reveals Himself in His word the Bible. To know and serve God is the foundation of all wisdom! If we want our children to succeed, teach them to be law abiding responsible citizens, not always asking what's in it for me? But rather how can I contribute to society, and thereby in the process helping themselves and others succeed.

Martin Van Dyk: awtfell@yahoo.ca

Change in education is indeed necessary. Thanks for the necessary reminder. When I taught, I encouraged the children to teach me. In so doing, they taught themselves. It was a wonderful experience.

Often we strive to meet the needs. Why do we not strive to erase the needs? Perhaps we ought to discuss change as per asset based community development, and not politically prod the government begging for money. Permit ourselves to work with what we have, instead of working with what we don't have.

On another note, yet connected, should we entertain the thought of... "Stop going to church, and start being the church" ?

Chris Manes: lokicsm@aol.com

Ironically this is an argument for a better social safety net (which is exactly what Acton constantly rails against).

By raising taxes on the superwealthy, and spending that money on education, health insurance, and an economy that produces higher wages, the result is a more educated, more prosperous, more stable American family, which as the author points out, is the basis for an effective education system.

But it is amazing how the author missed the point of how this is at odds with the market evangelism of Acton. Poverty and financial instability result in unstable families, stress, divorce, violence and substance abuse. We need policies that help families prosper, rather than having to worry endlessly about whether they can afford health care for a sick kid.

And the starting point of that is raising taxes on the top 1% and allocating that to policies that produce general prosperity (like banning outsourcing, increasing teacher salaries, and universal health care). Are you with me Acton?

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