Where We Stand

Last year, a national survey of 3,000 businesses reported that companies hiring young graduates pay very little attention to their high school achievement. This was not exactly news. It simply made explicit the weak link in the U.S. between school and work that some people have been worried about for a long time. But when researchers did further analyses of the survey data, they found something else. Whether or not businesses ignore it, there is a solid connection between a company's productivity and the education of its workers.

Should children in Alabama learn a different kind of math from children in New York?

The education summit held last month gave a big boost to the idea that we need to raise standards of student achievement. Business leaders and governors talked about what is expected of youngsters in other countries and agreed that it is unacceptable for U.S. students to lag behind. But there was a gap in the discussions.

Today's guest columnist is Romy Wyllie, an interior designer in Pasadena, California, who is writing a book about bringing up a son with Down syndrome. Her article also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, February 26, 1996, and in the Chicago Tribune, March 8, 1996.

Consumers will be able to recognize Rugmark rugs by a label that only they will carry.

The murder of lqbal Masih, a year ago this week, forced many Americans to look at a problem they would have preferred to avoid; child labor in developing countries. Iqbal was a world-famous human rights activist. He was also a young Pakistani boy whose mother had sold him to a rug maker when he was four. Iqbal eventually freed himself, and by the time he was murdered, at the age of twelve, he had helped free 3,000 other bonded child laborers. That is probably why he was murdered. But many millions of children in Pakistan, India, and other developing nations continue to work as gemstone polishers, glass blowers, and makers of matches, fireworks, clothing and hand-knotted rugs, often in conditions that are unspeakable.

Students are unlikely to take learning seriously if we present them with English courses based on standards like these.

To say that the "Standards for the English Language Arts," which came out a few weeks ago, miss the mark is a colossal understatement. It would be more accurate to say that they lack any real target. Like the other "national" standards that have already appeared, they were originally intended to guide states and localities in upgrading their curriculums and assessments to meet world-class standards. But good luck to anyone who tries to use the new English standards in that way!

Higher standards are the foundation for improving the achievement of all our students.

Last week's national education summit has been dismissed by some as "just talk" and public relations. I think that view is a big mistake. The summit, sponsored by the National Governors' Association and IBM's CEO Louis Gerstner, took steps which, over time, will lead to a vast improvement in school achievement.

Social promotion is alive and well in schools across the country.

"How is it that some students enter high school -- and even go on to graduate -- without being able to read or do simple math?" John Cole, president of the Texas Federation of Teachers, says he is often asked that question, and he doesn't have any trouble with the answer. It happens because the students have been passed from grade to grade without being able to do the required work.

The last thing children of color need is to be taught by teachers who don't meet a minimum standard.

Few things matter as much to teachers as being considered professionals. When you are a professional, people assume you know what you are doing, and they tend to go along with your judgment in your area of expertise. But while doctors, lawyers, and architects won this acceptance many years ago, teachers are still fighting to gain it. One problem is that some teachers have not been ready to go along with the kind of rigorous standards that govern the entrance to other professions. Some have even fought against minimum- competency tests for prospective teachers.

Students are fed superstition dressed up as science.

For a number of years, a mini-curriculum called the "African-American Baseline Essays" has been circulating all over the U.S. Many urban school districts, including Atlanta, the District of Columbia, and Detroit, have adopted the essays, which focus on ancient African civilizations, especially ancient Egypt. The motives of school districts that put the curriculum into their classrooms were good. They wanted to encourage African-American students to raise their sights by having them learn about the accomplishments of African civilizations. But the baseline essays, which include a lot of pseudo-history and pseudo-science, are a terrible way of achieving this. The science baseline essay, in particular, is full of quackery masquerading as science.

Unions do not hire, evaluate, promote, or grant tenure to teachers.

Last week, US. News & World Report had a cover story called "Why Teachers Don't Teach" (February 26, 1996). It blamed our overall educational problems -- and especially the fact that there are some incompetent teachers -- on problems with teacher education, licensing, hiring, evaluation, tenure, and dismissal policies. And it pinned the blame for all these problems on teacher unions. These are important issues. Unfortunately the article was as accurate and constructive about them as the Willie Horton ad, which ran during the 1988 presidential campaign, was about our crime problems.

The bill is an unfunded federal mandate, and it's a whopper.

Most people probably did not notice that the Contract with America promised to pass a law affirming parents' rights and responsibilities in regard to their children. Those who did probably assumed it was a harmless example of motherhood and apple pie. They were wrong. When you take a good look at it, the bill turns out to be extremely destructive.

How can we improve U.S. education? 

One answer that gets a lot of applause is to introduce some form of private enterprise. Some people call for vouchers--using public money to pay for children to attend private, and largely unregulated, schools. Others tout charter schools, which are set up under state law to be independent of state and local control though they are funded by public money. Either way, supporters say, we would bypass the regulation that is strangling education. And we'd create competition among schools, causing excellent schools to flourish, good, new schools to spring up, and bad schools to close--just the way it happens in the business world.

Changes in IDEA will make it more flexible and fairer for all concerned.

Suppose you discover one of your children doing something that is way out of line. And suppose that, after telling the kid he is grounded for a couple of weeks, you find that another of your children has been guilty of the same offense. Would you tell the second child that his bad behavior didn't matter? Not unless you wanted to teach your kids that the rules apply to only one of them. A double standard like that would be devastatingly unfair to both youngsters, and it would undermine your authority as a parent. Unfortunately, a federal law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), is forcing teachers to use this kind of double standard as they try to maintain classroom discipline.

Time has revealed that the emperor has no clothes.

Recent months have been disastrous for Education Alternatives, Inc. (EAI). In November, Baltimore pulled the plug on the for-profit company's contract to manage 11 Baltimore schools -- eighteen months before the contract was due to expire. Last week, Hartford, which had hired EAI to run its entire school system in October 1994, said good-bye after months of bickering between the two parties about how much EAI would be paid. And all this came on top of EAI's failure at South Pointe Elementary School in Dade County, Florida, last summer. Despite the outside money EAI had pulled in -- and its claims of extraordinary success -- an independent study found that South Pointe students achieved no better than similar students in other district schools.

Holland learns that knowing your subject is essential, but it isn't enough to make you a teacher.

Some movie critics are saying the new film "Mr. Holland's Opus" is pretty good but a bit too sentimental or too long or too preachy. Don't be put off This movie tells some important truths about what it means to be a teacher. It's also fun, and moving.

Vouchers have never been shown to improve student achievement or school performance.

In recent months, most of the headlines out of Washington have been about the battle over the budget. As a result, another important battle has been nearly ignored. I mean the one concerned with how to fix the District of Columbia's beleaguered school system. The biggest issue here is a proposal by some congressional Republicans to introduce vouchers, which would use public money to pay for D.C. students to attend private schools and public schools in other jurisdictions. Vouchers are touted by supporters as a panacea. The truth is, they have never been shown to improve student achievement or school performance either in the U.S. or in any successful system abroad.

Does knowledge, or just being older and having more years of schooling, get you better jobs?

How often have we heard that knowledge and reading are not as important as they used to be? "Knowledge ... is available on the information highway for the taking. No need to store information in your head, it's already stored outside your head in media that will talk to you, show you pictures and respond to your every need for information. Facts, concepts, principles, we are often told by educators, come and go, and besides, they are culturally biased, so they teach processes, not knowledge." This is the issue explored in "Knowledge, Literacy and Life in San Diego," a research study by Thomas G. Sticht, Carolyn H. and C. Richard Hofstetter of the San Diego Consortium for Workforce Education and Lifelong Learning.

School decentralization theory, and the reform it prompted, turned out to be wrong.

Americans are trying to fix their schools. There are many proposals for how to do this and movement in different directions, but one of the most popular directions now is decentralization. The theory is that school district bureaucracies are largely to blame for our education problems; they issue rules and regulations that, together with the rules in union contracts, hinder school reform.

History tells many stories, but the one we must teach is the story of the struggle for democracy.

The decision to send U.S. troops to Bosnia provides what school people call "a teachable moment" -- an opportunity to connect classroom lessons with a compelling real-life situation. People differ about whether we should be there. But you can't have an intelligent discussion on the question without talking about history-- the two great wars of this century in Europe, the pivotal role of the Balkan states, the rise of American commitments to counter aggression and assure European stability, the end of the Cold War, and what it means to be the remaining superpower.

Van Over tested results and refined procedures until he had created a recipe that was excellent and certain to succeed.

A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times food section ran an article about a French bread that you can make with a food processor (November 22, 1995). The article claimed that the baguette was as delicious as the kind you buy in a good bakery. I was skeptical. I have made bread for my family and friends for a number of years, and I know that a good French loaf is a real accomplishment. I had no trouble believing that the bread would be quick and easy. But delicious? Nevertheless, I tried the recipe for Thanksgiving. It was terrific!