Article #1 >>>>> Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Volume VIII, Number 9, March 2022 

Article #1

We Pay a High Societal Price for Failing   

Face the Truths About PreK-12 Education

                                                                                  

 

Truth is daunting to face, so that we are forever waiting until societal dilemmas linger for decades until some social force demands the long-delayed confrontation.  

Among the most important truths that we have never faced are those pertinent to 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.

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.

Now we have the possibility of teacher union strikes in Minneapolis and St.  Paul, with demands (psychological support staff, smaller class sizes, increased remuneration) that have nothing to do with the key vexations. 

Here are the undiscussed truths and those aspects of our system of public education that sustain abominable academic quality:

Students at the preK-5 level master no rigorous, systematically imparted knowledge sets pertinent to natural science, history, government, geography, quality literature, or the fine arts. Middle school features more courses in those areas but those courses are knowledge-deficit.  At the high school level, only Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses have the potential for academic substance but are often taught by teachers who not possess the requisite knowledge base.

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.  Similarly, teachers have since the 1990s been induced to seek advancement on the “step and lane” system via lightweight graduate programs in education.

Knowledge-deficient curriculum and abominable teacher quality at the median yield graduates (those who manage to graduate) who walk across the stage to claim a piece of paper that is a diploma in name only, bequeathing to us the ignorant body politic that our incompetent public education establishment produces.

We have no hope of healing our suffering society until we face the truths pertinent to the key vexations in our wretched system of public education:  knowledge-deficient curriculum and woeful teaching at the median.