Stand far, far back and contemplate the entire last 100 years of American public education. I believe you’ll be mainly struck by the vast amount of unreality. Okay, hokum.
Close to the battle and debate, you could reasonably have the sense that something real is taking place. The Education Establishment was skilled at confecting one showy innovation after another. These things exploded on the scene like Fourth of July fireworks, filling the sky with showers of sparks.
The Education Establishment produced endless clever verbiage to hype the supposed merits of each new concoction. Typically, the public’s interest in education was consumed in trying to grasp ungraspable sophistries. Finally everyone was tired and thought, the heck with it, maybe the experts know what they’re doing. This pattern must have recurred hundreds of millions of times.
In reality, behind the debates and pretty fireworks, there was very nearly nothing, only a vast intellectual emptiness. But you were never intended to see it. Much like when we go to a Broadway show and oohhh and ahhh over the beautiful sets, we’re not supposed to dwell on the fact that it’s all painted canvas.
What happened very early in the game, say by 1925, is that the Education Establishment realized they had an uphill slog. The public scorned the world-view so beloved by “progressive” educators, namely, socialism. On the other hand, the public decidedly did want traditional education, which the elite educators disdained. Decade by decade, the Education Establishment had to continue its deceitful blitzkrieg of slogans and make-believe. We might fairly call this a PR campaign. A very successful PR campaign. A very expensive PR campaign.
You can make a list of all the famous innovations: Whole Word, New Math, Open Classroom, Cooperative Learning, Self-Esteem, Multiculturalism, Bilingual Education, Constructivism, Reform Math, Balanced Literacy, Alternative Assessment, and about 50 more. Every one of these things seems to me to be a phony. Not just a misstatement of facts but a counter-productive gimmick that ends up dumbing-down children, even while claiming to make them smarter. (The paradigm, of course, is Whole Word, which created 50,000,000 functional illiterates.) Only a PR firm can pull off this kind of stuff. They operate in a world separate from fact and reality.
This article is meant as a cautionary tale. When I read about education in my local paper, or as reported in the national media, I’m constantly struck by the total unreality of the discussions. My local paper will actually report that reading scores are up or down four percentage points, but never once ask why they are so low to begin with or what, in fact, a high score actually means (i.e., the child can read a menu, a newspaper, or what exactly?) The media show little interest in looking past the PR. So PR remains the norm.
The Education Establishment has gotten really good at throwing chum to the public. The experts say, “We are in favor of charter schools, ON THE OTHER HAND...” They say, “The voucher programs have many merits HOWEVER...” They say, “Test scores are down BUT they’re also up so that’s good news...” Everything is designed to obfuscate the issues, and weary the public. Surface is much discussed. Depth is a nonexistent category. Candor has left the building.
It was often joked that you knew Bill Clinton was lying if his lips were moving. A joke, yes but many people take this to be a fair guide to reality. I’ve personally defended Clinton by saying he wasn’t so much a liar as a sophist. However that may be, we should also assume that the Education Establishment, if talking, is lying. “Trust us” means “Lock up your kids.”
The more I look at Core Standards, Race to the Top, Authentic Assessment, 21st Century Skills, and all the rest of the hot new stuff we see touted in the newspapers, the more I’m sure it’s all the same old stuff recycled. This year’s new model, that’s all. It’s still faux-education conducted by a PR firm. The war against traditional education keeps on chugging. Caveat emptor.
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Bruce Deitrick Price writes about culture, education, and language on Improve-Education.org, which has these relevant articles: #36: The Assault on Math, #42: Reading Resources, #34: The Con In Constructivism.
