Education

Issue and Position Statement

 

 

23 November 2003

 
All Americans should be encouraged to provide their children with the best education possible. Providing a basic education to every child in the United States is a huge undertaking - it consumes incredible amounts of state and local government funds.  The public school system has a big job and it is doing the job - there are millions of examples demonstrating that it has succeeded.

But let’s be frank about it - there are also millions of examples demonstrating complete failure - and millions more examples demonstrating a significant failure.   When a student attends public school for 12 years and can not read, that is a complete failure of the system.   When a student attends public school for 12 years and can not write coherently or do basic arithmetic, that is a significant failure of the system.  When a student doesn’t go to school for at least 12 years that is a tragedy - a failure of the parents - and the subject of another issue.

How is it that students can go through the same schools and some come out highly educated - some less so - and others illiterate?  The driving answer is the condition of the student.  Students are presented to the schools in various conditions and should not be expected to perform the same.  It is condition, not ability, that forms the major difference.

Factors determining the condition of a student include:

  The student's value of academic success.

  The student's interests and goals.

  The student's willingness to accept structure.

  The student's stage of intellectual development.

These factors are of course outside the control of the school system.  Yet these factors will to a large degree determine the student's performance.

School systems have to accept students in the condition they arrive and do the best they can with the rigid system they have.  But some changes to the advancement system used in the schools can allow all students to get more out of the years they spend in public school.  These changes should include the following points:

  The present system of grades (1 through 12) should be subdivided into courses and students advance through courses instead of grades.

  Students should be allowed to advance through the courses at the rate they can individually achieve.

  Students falling seriously behind in basic skills should be offered additional practical courses to improve those skills.

  Proficiency in basic courses must be achieved before moving on to more diverse courses - prerequisites must be met.

It is pointless to have a student carrying a history book if that student can not read it.  An algebra book is a disservice to a student who can’t do multiplication and division.  Let’s stop wasting the student's time - education is a building process - let’s provide students with an opportunity to master prerequisites before pushing them into other topics.  This will give the students a better education and it will Make America Better.

 

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