Article #17 >>>>> Origin and Consequences of the Wretched System of Public Education Throughout the United States

Internally Sustaining Nature of Our Wretched System of PreK-12 Education 

Of the many articles and opinion pieces to appear in the Star Tribune during the last weeks and months, not a single one focuses on the key vexations of our wretched system of public education in Minnesota. 

Those vexations are knowledge-deficient curriculum and abysmal teacher training.

But one of the many consequences of our abysmal system of public education is the development of certain features that serve to sustain that very system while distracting journalists and the public from the brutal reality of the key vexations.

Coverage in the Star Tribune has focused on the challenges posed by the resurgence of Covid-19 in the forms of delta and omicron variants, including the struggles with online learning; exacerbation of the bus driver shortage;  and angry standoffs between those supportive of Covid mitigation policies and those against masks or vaccinations.

The proposed new social studies standards have induced negative comment from guest writers for being too focused on the abuses perpetrated by populations of European provenance upon those of African and American Indian ancestry, inducing in turn rebuttals from those who tout those standards for telling truths that have often been absent from curricula.

We have also had paeans to teachers from writers Sarah Haugen and Tracy Lysne, who urge us to be empathetic to those who feel burned out due to Covid-19 exigencies, which have worsened a situation already grave due to abiding systemic pressures (“Teacher burnout isn’t new, only worse,” Star Tribune, January 23, 2022);  and Al Zdon, who tells us to discuss the standards from both sides vigorously but ultimately have faith in “highly qualified teachers” in local schools to implement the standards (“Debate the standards, but trust the teachers,” Star Tribune, February 7, 2022). 

We have Jeffrey Aaron Snyder (“Conservatives are the new ‘discomfort’ police,” Star Tribune, February 1, 2022) cautioning us that bans on books and speakers have been urged by those of the left as well as the right on the political spectrum, so that both sides threaten intellectual freedom.   Others have advocated for state and federal funding for early childhood as key to assuring that young people of all economic classes prosper academically.

None of the above, though, whatever one may think of their virtue in addressing social issues, is pertinent to the core vexations of preK-12 education.  Most likely the failure to confront the brutal truths concerning public education in Minnesota is because the reality is either recondite to the writers or too daunting to face.

Here is the truth: 

None of the key figures in public education at the federal, state, or local levels are well-educated enough to make the needed changes.  Inspect the academic preparation of United States Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, Minnesota Commissioner of Education Heather Mueller, St. Paul Public Schools Superintendent Joe Gothard, and Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Ed Graff and you’ll find that not one has received a graduate degree in a key subject area discipline; overwhelmingly, their degrees have been bestowed by education programs that feature the most academically insubstantial courses on any college campus (aforementioned writers Haugen, Lysne, and Snyder are among the guilty professorial sustainers of such courses) . 

Investigate further and you’ll find that the same grim reality is mostly true for central office administrators, building principals, and teaching staffs;  while those trained to teach secondary subject areas may have undergraduate degrees in legitimate fields (mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, political science, economics, literature, fine arts), they have since the 1990s been induced to seek advancement on the “step and lane” system via lightweight graduate programs in education.

The Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) North Star Accountability System and the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) offer no hope for providing our precious young people with the knowledge and analytical skills that they need to go forth as informed citizens.  Thus do we get the abominably ignorant body politic that our incompetent public education establishment produces.

We have no hope of healing our suffering society until we address the knowledge-deficiency and woeful teaching in our preK-12 system of education.