Educating the American School System

Here are eight problems with the American education system and how to fix them:




Standardized Testing

Let’s start with the easy one. Standardized testing produces pupils who are good at memorizing stuff for just long enough to pass an exam. Meanwhile, far too many of them aren't learning how to be engaged citizens who think critically. We should do away with these tests in order to give teachers and school boards more input in the curriculum. That's how it's supposed to work, and when we don't, it doesn't. Chances are, the teachers who know the names and faces of their students probably understand their needs better than some bureaucrat who knows nothing about their lived experiences. 

Speaking of which, this is Betsy DeVos, the new Secretary of Education:

Her dad was the billionaire who founded Amway, which has proven to be one of the most profitable pyramid schemes since Scientology... so I'm guessing she probably didn't spend a lot of time in public schools and yellow busses when she was a kid.  

DeVos will want to privatize our education system under the false pretense that the increased competition will bring out the best in everyone. After all, it worked for Amway, didn't it? That might be how it seems from the top of the pyramid. Meanwhile, the people at the bottom are still waiting for the wealth to trickle down. 

Schools whose students never had a fair chance to begin with will be closed and left to decay in already broken neighborhoods. And do you know what brings down residential property value in urban areas? Abandoned schools. Then again, maybe that's the long con.

When it comes down to it, capitalism itself is a pyramid scheme, and it has no business in our schools. If this perverse coexistence between corporate America and our education system seems natural, it's probably only because that's what you were taught in school. The neoliberal ideology is not a panacea for all that ails us as a nation. Not everything can be measured in dollars. If we learn anything from our mistakes, it should be plainly obvious that there are plenty of problems that unfettered capitalism only make worse. 

For starters, kids are being taught that "n" is an adequate substitute for "and"
and that Little Caesars is an adequate substitute for food. 

On the same token, standardized tests are a failed attempt at quantifying that which is fundamentally qualitative. They measure short-term memorization of facts, when students should really be learning how to learn. As far as the teachers are concerned, these tests are a more accurate measure of how prepared their students were before setting foot in their classroom than they are any indication of teaching ability. Furthermore, just as individual students process and retain information differently from one another, teachers may also have very different methods of conveying knowledge to their pupils. 

The current one-size-fits-all approach does not work. Standardized testing stifles creativity while taking the passion out of both learning and teaching. We need to give instructors respect enough to let them do their jobs, if for no other reason than because students are more likely to learn effectively when teachers are allowed to lead the classroom with a style and emphasis that best accommodates everyone involved. 




Worker Bees

Back in the 1910s, Andrew Carnegie helped centralize power within the American education system for the purpose of achieving uniformity in the curricula. Carnegie, of course, had an agenda. The idea was to essentially program America's youth into supporting the very system that had made him one of the wealthiest men in the world at that time. This was done by distancing students from the influence of their families and communities through the creation of school districts. Education was no longer localized. Meanwhile, American schools were redesigned to produce employees who could follow directions but not think critically about this system that exploits their labor while hindering their individuality.

Carnegie actually drew from many of the same ideas that would soon become prevalent in Nazi Germany. That is, just as Hitler believed that some people were just born better than others, so too does the American education system. This is why we have well-funded schools for rich kids and chronically underfunded schools for everybody else. 

Try to guess which of these systems puts more emphasis on creativity, balance and leadership, and which is designed to produce employees who follow orders...




Based on Age

For the first twelve or so years of education, your grade is based on your age. Then you get to college, where you take classes that are at your ability level. 

Wouldn't it make more sense if all of your education was like this? 

In elementary school, teachers set the smart kids aside so that they can teach to the lowest common denominator. Everyone else is bored, but that's how it goes. Never mind the fact that people learn differently and at different rates. 

Here in the US, kindergarten start date is based on your birthday, which makes it about as scientifically grounded as astrology.




Public Schools are Funded by Land Taxes

The reason rich kids go to nice schools and poor kids go to shitty schools is because most of the funding for those schools comes from property taxes... and the occasional bake sale. Technically, it's the fact that rich kids' parents own expensive real estate that explains why they'll have a decent chance at getting accepted to an Ivy League university after high school, which will then likely lead to a decent six figure salary at a reputable company. 

Or maybe even the Presidency.

George W. Bush didn't get accepted to Harvard and Yale because he was an ace student, nor do I think that the quality of education is inherently better at any Ivy League school than it is at a state university. Rather, I think that "academic pedigree" merely serves to perpetuate these same class divides into adulthood.

In most countries, it’s not like this. School funding is distributed equally, so that all citizens have access to the same quality of education. 

Crazy, right?



College Students are Indentured by Loan Debt

Along these same lines, students from wealthy families often have parents who can pay for their educations, whereas just about everyone else has to take out huge loans that may very well hang over their heads for the rest of their lives. Once again, capitalism has no business in our schools. The more our education system is treated like a business, the more the "customers" are getting screwed. 

I'm sorry to break it to you, but that's how capitalism works. That profit has to come from somewhere, and the bigger a business gets, the more hands there are taking cuts and the bigger those cuts get. Why? Because they can. Capitalism is built on the principle of constant expansion. Not once has a corporation ever stopped while it was ahead. 

It's also hard to promote the value of higher education when it puts the people who attain it so deeply in debt. This breeds anti-intellectualism because it makes the uneducated feel smart for having not pursued a college degree. I don't think I need to remind anyone of the electoral ramifications that come from fostering a general distrust of knowledge and intelligence. If you don't watch the news, at least watch Idiocracy.

Most of the Money in Higher Education Goes to Administration

Approximately seventy percent of classes at public universities are taught by grad students, adjuncts or other non-tenure faculty. Meanwhile, the costs associated with higher education have been outpacing inflation for decades. If teachers are getting paid less (and cumulatively, they most certainly are), then where is all that money going?

Part of treating higher education like a business and students like customers is that colleges are now in the business of competing for these prospective customers by offering superfluous amenities. A university may layoff a number of teachers so that some new dorms can be built with better wi-fi, or put a freeze on hiring tenure-track faculty while giving the Vice President of Internal Marketing Strategies and Other Related Bullshit a ridiculous bonus. Meanwhile, university presidents are praised for achieving short-term financial gains through privatization while destroying their schools from the inside out. 




Sports are a Huge Part of School

Quick, who or what is your school mascot? Ok, follow-up questions: Why does that matter in the slightest, and what has school spirit ever done for you? The only reason that people are enthusiastic about pep rallies in the first place is because they don't have to go to fifth period. Everybody knows that.

I remember the handmade posters in the hall that would accompany home games, and I have to say, crushing one's opponent seems a bit harsh. It's just a stupid game, after all. Sports teach kids tribal mentalities. My school can beat up your school! My state is better than your state! The athletes wearing our school colors can throw, kick or hit balls better than their counterparts at the place where you go to school! It's kind of ridiculous if you think about it. I say this as someone from Michigan who currently lives in Ohio and who gives precisely zero shits about any kind of intercollegiate rivalry between these states. 

Schools spend so much money on athletics that could be put toward actual education. Even at universities, unless the teams are regularly televised on national broadcasts, sports programs almost invariably lose money. The idea is that these programs will keep alumni connected to their alma mater, which will make them more inclined to make donations, and this is how they justify the enormous expenses of building a new stadium or sending the badminton team to the next state over in a chartered bus. In actuality, these programs are subsidized by those constant tuition increases. Go sports!

In most other countries, sports clubs are completely separate from educational institutions. And why shouldn't they be?


School Lunches are a Bad Joke

Ever hear the one about the mean lunch lady who served nasty food? Well it doesn't have to be like that. There is no reason that our kids should have to eat processed garbage, and cafeteria attendants, please remember that it's not their fault your life turned out this way. 

Nutrition is a critical component of children's physical, psychological and intellectual development, and kids learn more than just their ABCs at school. We need to teach them healthy eating habits, which also means keeping fast food and vending machines out of schools. The more we allow this to be normal, the more normalized it becomes... and a school without any principles is like a school without any principals, either of which can only lead to chaos.

People always talk about how valuable children are to our future, but then we let the foundation of our education system crumble from within. 

We can and must do better.