Some facts and simple truths about the American Education System in the 21st Century

The things I’m writing about today are probably going to make more than a few of my readers angry, but hopefully they will make others thoughtful.

I don’t mean to step on any toes, but I am going to directly challenge a few philosophies. These issues need to be addressed, and addressed now. So, here I go!

I look back in time and see all the great things we as citizens of the United States have accomplished together when the odds were against us. 

From our very beginnings, when our founding fathers took on the challenge of creating a new nation and challenged Great Britain for the right to exist, we’ve fought prejudice and preconceived notions about our rights to be a nation and how to live our lives, but we prevailed and now stand alone as the only super power in the world.

When war was thrust upon us in December 1941, we were wholly unprepared but, as a people, we rallied to the challenge and prevailed.

On September 11th 2001, we were unprepared for the surprise attacks on our country, but as a nation we came together and did what had to be done.

In the early part of the twentieth century the world faced epidemics of polio, chicken pox, measles and tuberculosis.  Our doctors and scientists rose to the challenges and for the most part, we have eliminated those diseases as a major threat to humanity.

Now we face new epidemics.  These epidemics are ignorance and complacency.  In many ways these epidemics are worse than any we’ve faced as a nation.  Thomas Jefferson declared “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be”.

If we can’t find a way to fix our education system, and fix it soon, we will face repercussions that will make disease, war and terrorism seem like minor problems.  

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Can the education system as it exists today even BE fixed?   I doubt it.

Fact:  The education system in this country is broken.

Fact: Very few people know what to do about it, and no one wants to listen to the ones that do.[i]

Fact:  As long as it’s broken, charlatans and opportunists of all kinds (politicians and big businesses included) will take advantage of the situation in order to stuff their pockets with our ever shrinking budget monies.

Fact: There is no such thing as a “magic bullet” that will fix our education system.  Most professional development designers create a general program without knowing the needs of the district, school or even the classroom, and say “Here you go; this will fix all your problems!”

Fact: Train the trainer programs seldom work, especially if done on a one time basis.  How can you honestly expect to send someone to a workshop and learn in a few hours what it took the presenter YEARS to learn and refine?  Imagine taking a few people off a busy street and telling them that they are going to be put into a flight simulator, and that when they come out after say eight hours, they will be qualified to teach airline pilots to fly passengers all over the world![ii]

Fact:  The factory model schedule (which is pervasive in our educational system) is obsolete and probably even our enemy!  Virtually all schools in the United States have some variation of the schedule.  Usually six to nine class periods per day.  On average students change classes every 45 minutes, disrupting what they were doing and having to change “mental gears”.  Research has proven that the typical classroom schedule and fragmented curriculum and instructional strategies hinder rather than support learning. 

Simple truth:  ANYONE that says if you follow these simple, easy steps, your students will (add whatever buzz words you want here, i.e. be motivated, get better grades etc. etc.), amounts to not much more than what our grandparents called snake oil salesmen.  They are out for your money and nothing more! 

Simple truth:  There are NO easy fixes, NO programs with 10 steps (or any other number of steps for that matter) that will bring your class, school or district, into the 21st Century! What works for one school or district may not work for another.  

Fact: For professional staff development to work, it must be designed to fit the needs of the school/district/community.

Fact: Our education system no longer fulfills the needs of the students, or for that matter our nation.  Statistics show that we are graduating students that are not prepared for life academically, socially or economically, and it shows when we look at the state of our economy as well as the social problems in our country.  As Tony Wagner said in his essay Educating the Next Steve Jobs, most of our high schools and colleges are not preparing students to become innovators.  To succeed in the 21st-century economy, students must learn to analyze and solve problems, collaborate, persevere, take calculated risks and learn from failure.[iii]”  While Dr. Wagner was making reference to innovators, I believe this applies to all students, in all grade levels and disciplines.  Yet our education system fails to address it.

In order to fix our education system, we must first identify where the problems exist.

First, our education system is obsolete and has been for nearly a hundred years.  It was based on the early factory model during the industrial revolution.  Our society has evolved far beyond the culture that created our education system, but for the most part our education system has remained stagnant, frozen in time.  As Darwin once stated, “those that fail to evolve face extinction”.  

Second, our education system has been both ignored by politicians and the public as well as used by them to prove one point or another, usually by twisting the facts and damaging things even more, all the while ignoring the needs of the system.  Our education system has been robbed of its budget and regulated by the federal government until it’s nothing more than a source of income for textbook and test companies and an impediment to actual education.

So, to put it simply, WE are the cause of the problems in the education system.  WE have caused the problems we have today because WE failed to plan and adapt to the changes that have been happening right in front of us.  

WE continue to be a part of the problem because WE refuse to change.  WE refuse to stand up and say “Enough is enough; it’s time to do what has to be done!”  

WE keep electing politicians who, once in office, ignore their campaign promises, cut our education funding and then try to blame whoever is in the White House for causing those problems.

Have we forgotten our history?  Have we lost the will to fight for what is right?  Have we decided to cheat our children out of the education they need and deserve in order to succeed in the world today?

There are actually a few exceptions to the first and second facts that I mentioned.  The education system in this country is indeed broken and needs to be replaced with something better, but there are people out there that have decided to ignore the traditional, junk the traditional schedule and do what has to be done in order to meet the needs of the students.  

Examples include High Tech High in San Diego, California, The School for Environmental Studies (often referred to as The Zoo School) in Minneapolis, Minnesota and The Edible Schoolyard, in Berkeley, California.

These schools face the same challenges that every school in this country faces, but they’ve chosen to take those challenges head on and overcome them.  All of these schools exceed every criteria laid down by the federal government for test scores, and they do it without the traditional schedule and “teaching to the test”.  All are public schools and have the same budgetary problems that “mainstream” schools have, but they still excel.  Why?

They have excelled because they have identified the problems that they had to overcome and designed a curriculum that is “real world”, “relevant”, and “meaningful” to their students.  In other words, their curriculum engaged the students, inspiring them to not only succeed but exceed all expectations.  And they did all of this without the standard multi-period classes, without the “we can’t do that” attitude and without huge budgets.

Why can’t all schools do this?  Because the attitudes of the administrators, teachers and in many cases the parents prevent it.  

Administrators often prevent change because they believe that changing the system will lead to chaos, loss of budgets and a reduction in “test scores”.

Teachers don’t want to change because we are now in the third generation of teachers that know only the “teach to the test” philosophy, and they don’t know any other way to teach.  Of course there are some exceptions out there that know there is a better way and are actively looking for it.

Parents often prevent the changes because they don’t understand how the changes can improve their child’s educational experience. 

Nations around the world are realizing that the “factory model” of education is failing the needs of their students.  Malaysia, China and Turkey, to name just three, are actively working on bringing their entire education systems into the 21st century.  If we don’t do something, and do it soon, we will be so far behind these nations academically that we will never regain our place in the world economy.  WE will become a member of the proverbial third world!

I don’t know about you, but I don’t ever want to see that happen!

It’s time for each and every one of us to join this fight head on and make a difference.  It’s time to start making the changes that have to be made.  They aren’t going to be fast, easy or cheap to do, but if we don’t make them, are we willing to suffer the consequences? 

Watch our blog for updates on what you can do to help solve the problem!  In the meantime, what are your ideas for improving the education system?  Send us your thoughts!

Jerry Self
Executive Manager
21st Century Schools
[email protected]


 

[i] For example, Anne Shaw of 21st Century Schools, http:www.21stcenturyschools.com; Sugata Mitra, Ph.D. , of “The Hole In The Wall Project” http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/News05.html;  High Tech High, Larry Rosenstock, www.hightechhigh.org/about/team.php#LarryRosenstock; Matt Schlein, Founder of The Walden Project www.willowell.org/programs/the-walden-project/walden-introduction/

[ii]http://www.atpflightschool.com/intro/commercial_pilot.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=commercial%20pilot%20schools&utm_campaign=adwords&gclid=CP_a8Na0ybACFUZeTAodpSa2Mg

[iii] A version of this article appeared April 14, 2012, on page C2 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Educating the Next Steve Jobs.