Three Key Items for Action in Achieving Excellence in K-12 Education

Noting that people often refer to “excellent education” without having any clear notion of the constituent elements of an excellent education, I have offered a definition as follows:

>>>>> An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a strong liberal arts curriculum to all students. <<<<<

If we are to overhaul the current system of K-12 education in Minneapolis, in Minnesota, and in the United States so as to achieve excellence in public education, we must have three key items high on our agenda for action. With regard to maximizing the likelihood of finding an excellent teacher presiding when we walk into any given classroom, we must do one of two things. We must completely disassemble departments, schools, and colleges of education as they currently exist, replacing them with teacher preparation programs in the mode of those that produce doctors and lawyers. I have detailed a program whereby all prospective teachers study through to a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s degree, at both levels training not in education but in solid disciplines such as biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, history, economics, political science, literature, or the fine arts; the prospective teacher would then serve a full-year internship under the guidance of a master teacher and emerge with a clear idea that she or he can take on the demanding role of K-12 teacher. Under this system, certified K-12 teachers would have superior professional training, and they would have demonstrated keen intellectual mettle in rigorous degree programs, thus gaining position to demand correspondingly high remuneration.

Replacing current programs of teacher preparation will be opposed by education professors and many others with vested interests in the wretched system that now prevails. Until we generate enough activist will and muscle to achieve this herculean task, we must pressure superintendents and other school district actors to launch independent programs for retraining the motley specimens graduating from current teacher preparation programs. This will include providing subject area specialists across the liberal arts curriculum who can impart advanced knowledge from the legitimate disciplines to teachers who have arrived with glaring deficiencies in their mental file of academic content.

This is to say, we must believe that knowledge is at the core of an excellent education. We must move away from any notion that “learning how to learn” is enough, toward a conviction that what one learns at the K-12 level is most important. When a student studies hard and masters strong content in the natural sciences, mathematics, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts, that student will have learned how to learn material that really matters, subject area facts and themes that will enrich her or his life as a citizen and maximize that student’s chances of success in postsecondary study and occupational endeavors.

So, with well-trained teachers and a well-defined liberal arts curriculum, we will be poised to achieve my definition of an excellent education as “a matter of excellent teachers imparting a strong liberal arts curriculum to all students.” But, in addition to the provision of highly adroit teachers and the impartation of a rich body of knowledge, activist initiative for achieving democracy in the sphere of K-12 education (and therefore in the national community) will necessitate placement of one additional key item on the agenda for overhauling public education. School personnel should take all necessary steps for achieving near-100% rates of attendance and retention. All of our precious young people should have the benefits of excellent teachers imparting a strong liberal arts curriculum. They can do this only if they are in school every day and maintain firm continuity in their academic pursuits from year to year. To create such a situation, we must train many additional professionals, finding many of these among the legions of underused and unneeded central district staff, for roles directly affecting student learning and relationships with families of students. We need to greatly increase the quantity and quality of teacher aides. We need to enhance our efforts, with sensitive and skilled personnel, to reach out to families right where they live, learning in full their daily challenges, building familial relationships, so as to gain near-perfect rates of attendance and retention.

We cannot afford to be distracted by issues and activities that are tangential to the provision of an excellent education for all of our K-12 students, who will evidence varying economic statuses and differing levels of familial functionality. We must focus like a laser on teacher excellence and curricular richness, together with initiatives to maximize attendance and retention. Were we to do this, we would soon live in a nation that would be the fully realized democracy that at present can exist only in our imaginations.