Where We Stand

Every presidential election is crucial, but the stakes this Tuesday are enormous. The man we elect will probably name three or four new Supreme Court justices. These appointments will determine the composition of the Court over the next quarter century and shape the society in which our children and grandchildren live in important ways. But most of us are also worrying about the decisions that will affect our immediate future.

Most people, when they make a decision, believe they will get good results. But they usually also look at what will happen if they are wrong -- at the down side of their decision. And sometimes the possible consequences of being wrong are so destructive that they change their minds about what path to take. 

When I was a youngster, we always celebrated Columbus Day at school, and we were told a simple story that mentioned only the good things about Columbus' voyage to the Americas. Now, there is another simple story that mentions only the bad things.

After decades of making speeches and writing articles, I've learned a few things. One of them is that the real tests for your arguments are not the people who are already with you or against you, but the ones who haven't made up their minds and those who might change their minds based on new evidence.

There's an old saying that every educational experiment is doomed to succeed. In fact, many are pronounced successes before they even get started.

There has been a lot of discussion about George Bush's reversals on various issues. One of his biggest flip-flops is in regard to using public money to pay tuition for kids in private and parochial schools. Now, Mr. Bush is a big supporter of the idea -- in fact, it is the centerpiece of his education program. Not so long ago, he strongly opposed it.

The Bush administration likes to tell us that everybody benefits when foreign trade restrictions are relaxed. For instance, when U.S. companies set up factories in low-wage countries, the workers there get the benefit of good jobs, consumers here get the benefit of cheaper goods and the companies make lots of money. What about the U.S. workers who lose their jobs? They are supposed to get higher quality jobs in new factories that will take the place of the ones we lose.

A number of political analysts have suggested that the Democrats used to win elections because they went around promising people all kinds of goodies. At the same time, the Republicans would throw cold water on the Democrats' proposals by saying that they'd cost too much. Recently, the Republicans have learned that they too can promise goodies, so voters are hearing lots of promises from Republicans as we get closer to November 3.

The  day after school opened, Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander ran over to Baltimore to give a "Breaking-the Mold" award for successful educational innovation to an outfit called Education Alternatives, Inc. (EAI). What has EAI, a private, for-profit company, done to deserve this kind of recognition?

Often, when I get into discussions about how well our kids are doing in relation to students in other countries, the poor achievement of our youngsters on international exams comes up. People have a number of ways of explaining this, but the diversity of our society is a frequent excuse. We can't expect to compete, these people say, because societies in our competitor nations are homogeneous and ours is diverse. This is dead wrong on a number of counts.

Arguments about some educational issues go on forever. Is it a good idea to hold children back if they haven't learned the year's work or should they be promoted with the rest of their class? Will kids learn more if they go to school on a year-round schedule or do they get just as much out of spending a summer with the family or at camp? People battle back and forth on questions like these for years. 

One hundred years ago this June, Andrew Carnegie had the workers locked out of his steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania. Carnegie wanted to run his mill without unionized employees, and there were no laws protecting workers against being fired simply because they belonged to a union. So Carnegie's deputy, Henry Clay Frick, shut the doors against the 3800 Homestead workers and tried to bring in replacements to operate the mill. 

The centerpiece of President Bush's plan to reform American education has always been vouchers -- giving public money to help kids go to private schools. But the President also has backed a competition to design "break-the-mold" schools embodying revolutionary new ways of educating our youngsters.

In the national debate over education, President Bush has taken the position that the U.S. spends as much as other industrialized nations -- and maybe even more. He's partly right but mostly wrong.

"Eager to Please, Bush Gets Facts Wrong," was the International Herald Tribune's headline about President Bush's misrepresentation of his voucher plan to a Catholic school audience in Philadelphia last week.

Most educational literature about raising student achievement zooms right in on the schools. How can we make them better so that students will learn more? But improving schools is not the only way of improving educational outcomes.

Every time the results of a national exam in math or science come out, people are shocked at how poorly our kids seem to be doing -- and no wonder. Recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) examinations show that only 5 percent of 17-year-olds can do what NAEP considers graduation-level work in math, and only 9 percent have attained a level where they understand and can use relatively sophisticated concepts in science.

Today's guest column is by Richard A. DeColibus, president of the Cleveland Federation of Teachers. It is excerpted from a letter he wrote earlier this year to State Representative Patrick A. Sweeney to protest a $3.7 million cut in Cleveland's school budget and a proposed law to use public funds to sent children to private schools.

Last week, President Bush launched his latest education initiative, a $500-million voucher plan that he calls the GI bill for elementary and secondary schools. GI bull would be a more appropriate name. The original GI bill paid the entire cost of a college education that former U.S. servicemen and women would not have gotten without it. The Bush proposal provides only $1000 a year to help pay for the cost of a private school education. Unlike the GI bill, which was an entitlement, this will go to a relatively small number of students, all of whom are already getting a fully paid-for education in public schools.

People from other countries are often impressed by the access Americans have to higher education. In fact, some countries have begun copying this distinctive feature of our education system. It's ironic, then, that millions of Americans who would benefit from this access have a hard time getting it. I'm talking about adults who are out of work or stuck in low-paying jobs, but who have the desire to go to college and the potential to succeed there.