Stark Incompetence of the Education Establishment is the Most Important Brutal Reality That American Society Must Face

Two articles from recent editions of the Star Tribune, though covering two very different topics, demonstrate the stark incompetence of the education establishment.  Those articles are “A new date that will live in infamy” (Star Tribune, , January 7, 2021), by Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Eric Tucker, Mary Clare Jalonick;  and “Districts weigh expansion of summer school” (Star Tribune, January 10, 2021), by staff writer Erin Golden.

 

In speaking to teachers about the possible use of federal funds designated for summer school remediation for students who have fallen behind academically under distanced learning conditions during the pandemic, Golden notes that “Some teachers worry that the heightened focus on learning losses, especially when measured primarily by grades or test scores, will ultimately be a disservice to students.”  She quotes Minneapolis Public Schools Washburn High School science teacher Angela Osuji as saying that additional help for students could be useful, “as long as it wasn’t just the same type of instruction offered during the school year…  Despite everything, they are still showing up [for school].  So or I don’t know why we wouldn’t celebrate those aspects of their existence.”

 

Golden paraphrases Mahtomedi Middle School teacher Virginia Mancini as saying that “students should be focused on addressing students’ mental and emotional health and resist letting outdated or ‘unfair’ types of measurement, like test scores, be the barometer for how much students have succeeded or failed.”  Mancini conveyed that her students “have made major strides in their ability to use technology, work independently and problem-solve,”  and that she recently “taught her seventh graders how to draft a business-style email---  an important life skill that she said won’t show up on any typical measure of academic growth.”

 

All manner of student struggles should be addressed by caring and trained professionals, including  student challenges pertinent to psychological and emotional health.  Writing a business-style email can be counted as a useful skill.  But the comments of Osuji and Mancini are typical of teachers who have absorbed the anti-knowledge ideology of education professors and tend to emphasize many aspects of the school experience over academics.  Emphasis on everything but academics is why, for example, at the Minneapolis Public Schools, fewer than 42 percent of all students are proficient in mathematics, 47 percent in reading, and 36 percent in science, with 20 percent of students in many demographic categories not rising to proficiency in any of those academic areas.

 

Under such conditions, students should receive aggressive skill remediation, during regular classes, after school, and in summer school.  It is understandable why, given the way that teachers are trained and in their tendency to avoid tough truths, they will tout certain positive student traits and skills while ignoring those that are most academically essential;  but doing so produces the wretched results that we observe year after year, denying students the knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education that they should have.

 

The associated press authors were writing one of the first accounts of the events of Wednesday, January 6, whereby a group of supporters of President Trump stormed the capitol building in Washington, D. C., so as violently to disrupt certification of the electoral results.  The point relevant to preK-12 education in my reference here is that few current students, and many adults who have graduated from public schools, are capable of comprehending these events or the account given in the article.  They have insubstantial knowledge of the two houses of the United States Congress, the Electoral College system, the origin of the phrase “day that will live in infamy,” and many other aspects of government and history that must be understood properly to analyze that fateful Wednesday’s events. 

 

And most high school students have such poorly developed vocabularies that they would not know the meanings of the following words and terms:   democracy (I kid you not), insurrection, infamy, deployed, instituted, integrity, descend, reconvene, dismay, unilateral, unprecedented, glee, rotunda, breached, profane, foment, stoking, mobilize, and certify.  They would not know what is meant by “Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tx.”

 

We will get nothing right until we overhaul preK-12 education for the provision of a substantive academic education.  The ignorance of the American public has been much on display of late.  The knowledge base of current students and adult citizens alike is our worst disaster.

 

The catastrophe of student and citizen ignorance is the most important brutal reality that we must face, and that we must address by overhauling curriculum and teacher training at the level of the locally centralized school district.