The Fundamentals of Learning
“Decades of research and reform have not altered the fundamental facts of teaching,” writes Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder. “The task of universal, public, elementary education is still usually being conducted by a woman alone in a little room.”
The fundamental facts about teaching and education were not changed by this week’s education summit of President Bush and the nation’s governors at Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia. But it was historic nonetheless, in its advocacy for those women and men teaching “alone in a little room,” and in the national goals finally set for a country that spends a greater percentage of its gross national product on education than Japan but has less to show for it.
The bad news about U.S. education is familiar by now: American high schools graduate 700,000 functional illiterates every year; more than 4 million students drop out each year; European and Asian students consistently outrank Americans in international math and science examinations.
But it is not true, as some in Washington would have you believe, that the 29% increase in education spending by state and local governments (and a small decrease in the federal share) in the last several years has made no difference. The National Assessment of Educational Progress has found recent improvements in the reading ability of elementary school students. Since 1984 in California, the percentage of students scoring above average on the Scholastic Achievement Tests has risen 28% for verbal and 32% for math; the overall scores for minority students have increased; and there has been a 92% jump in the rate of high school seniors passing the Advanced Placement exam for college.
One of the goals set at the summit--to promote early childhood development--is an acknowledgement that educators already know that reaching a child early can make a dramatic difference. Head Start, a preschool program for low-income children, has proved effective in offsetting later social and learning problems. In spite of the Administration’s nervousness about increased federal education spending, money spent on the programs with fine track records, such as Head Start, is money prudently spent. Right now, Head Start is only reaching one out of the five children who need it. Although the federal government accounts for only 9% of education funding, its role should not be undervalued: the federal government pays for two-thirds of the nation’s remedial education programs.
The answers do not lie with government alone. Already, the private sector has taken action to better prepare young people for the changing and increasingly technical job market. On-the-job reading and math programs help undereducated workers. And in Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, Houston and Miami, adopt-a-class programs for the low-income but high-achieving are thriving. Promoted by the National Urban League and supported by Merrill Lynch & Co., they serve as examples of enlightened self-interest.
As he returns from the summit, Gov. George Deukmejian needs to send out a message that he is willing to champion and sign measures that will help reach the literacy goals agreed upon at the summit. Removing California’s dubious distinction as having some of the nation’s most overcrowded classrooms would be a start. Such a step would help enhance the chances that more bright, committed people want to enter that “little room” to teach children whose minds ideally are nurtured long before they first enter a classroom.
