Should we raise expectations? Should we increase funding? Should we introduce vouchers or charters? Should we dissolve the unions? Should we have a national curriculum? Should we have more tracking and data? And what should we do about performance pay, state testing, teacher training, technology, 21st century skills, ELLs, special needs, bullying, the opportunity and achievement gaps, class size, suspension, underperformance, drugs, anxiety, depression, suicide, ethics, civics, seniority, mathematics, and the humanities?
There is certainly a ferment of issues and opinions in the United States about how we ought to educate our children. While the number of problems and suggested reforms might appear mesmerizing, the amount of discussion no doubt is encouraging. But will the intense debate over schools turn into anything other than rhetoric?
The divide between pro and contra is dizzying, and the tendency for conversation to devolve into accusation and recrimination looms. Sometimes the various arguments remind me of two people talking over each other. At other times, we have too much soliloquizing and too little engagement, too much politicking and too little perspective on what matters: our children. Rather than concerning ourselves with the needs of our children, we have decided to wage our political wars and allow our own interests to overwhelm efforts at progress.
We need to survey education in the US and, looking beyond symptomatology, grasp the root of the problem. To do this, we need to draw on the wealth of perspectives from our richly diverse society, and extend the forum beyond the confines of professional educators. We need the experience and wisdom of people from all sectors because ultimately we all share the responsibility of educating our children. Moreover, having input from individuals who have not espoused a certain side or cause would bring freshness and insight to revitalize the debate.
Without societal change, education reform will only treat symptoms rather than deliver solutions. We ought to embrace the reality that education occurs within and without a school’s walls, and that each of us has a responsibility to provide the best possible education for each child. To provide such an education will take intense and multidisciplinary collaboration, which in turn would require us to rethink how we live our lives and restructure our priorities. In short, we need to re-humanize life in this dehumanized epoch and education provides the ideal path for progress. To my mind, actively taking on the social responsibility of education certainly would be a considerable step forward.
