America's Number One Issue

Quote of the day:
“Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.”
--Bob Herbert in yesterday’s New York Times.

Quote of the day no. 2:
“When I compare our high schools with what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow.”
--Bill Gates

Education is one of our “been there, done that” issues. We hear statements like those of Bill Gates and columnist Bob Herbert and we think, “Yeah, yeah, ok. We’ve heard this before about a gazillion times. I guess we just can’t do anything about it.”

And it seems we really can’t. We just keep getting stuck in the political mud. Significant change in our schools requires both more funding and consensus. Both of these have proved impossible so far.

More funding is impossible because there is nowhere for that funding to come from. There are too many other urgent spending priorities, and raising taxes is politically unpopular.

Consensus is impossible because of long-standing entrenchment of three groups: reform-minded administrators, teachers and activist parents.

The only way any of this will change is if we can free ourselves from the mud in which we are stuck.

What is the mud? It is us. It is our apathy and indifference.

If we were to simply insist on change and take responsibility for it, things would begin to change. There are a number of examples of successful schools that can serve as models.

We can look to them for leadership and help, or we can face the consequences.