Plummeting Education in America

On April 6 of this year, I wrote a piece titled "The Criminalization of Affordable Healthcare in America", and made the strong suggestion that the United States could ill afford to continue taking an arrogant posture of superiority vis-à-vis the rest of the world in regards to affordable healthcare solutions, and that, in fact, it could probably learn some things be more closely paying attention to the example of other nations. I stand by that, and think that this could be extended to other realms, as well.

            I want to talk about another area where we have fallen far behind other nations, that of education, which has been much in the news as of lately, since the presumptive Republican Presidential candidate just proposed his own platform on this issue – making sure to blast President Obama in the process, predictably. Now, Mitt Romney was trying to score some points with the electorate that he hopes elevates him to the White House later this year, and he would be hard pressed to criticize President Obama too strongly, since Obama largely just continued the educational policy of his predecessor, President Bush, with his "No Child Left Behind" policy, a system of tasting kids, and then holding the teachers and the schools accountable, and focusing on raising test scores.

            In an era when the focus for an apparent majority of Americans was on tax cuts and cutting out wasteful government spending, and which also happened to coincide with the alarming news that American students were ranking lower and lower and falling farther and farther behind students in other nations in all facets of education, the "No Child Left Behind" Act seemed a convenient answer. It put the stress on standardized tests, and preparation for those tests. In the meantime, teachers were to be held more accountable, which sounded great for political speeches. This seemed to make complete sense for many people, who saw in this a clear cut issue, as well as an easy scapegoat for what is actually quite a complex problem, with no easy answers.

Bush made these changes, and the theory was that we did not have to increase spending on education in order to improve it. It sounded great to many people. But now, the schools are, once again, failing on a level, that people are standing up and taking notice. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. Like healthcare, education, and the poor results in comparison to students of other nations, speaks for itself. It is an issue – a huge and polarizing issue – with each election cycle. This year is proving to be yet another example of it, to boot.

            So, who's to blame in all of this? Teachers? Sometimes, yes. Parents? More often than they themselves acknowledge, yes. The directors and higher-ups within the school system? They certainly can accept a strong level of blame, as well. Politicians, perhaps, or a monstrous and out of control government? An inefficient and highly bureaucratic system where new teachers focus on ensuring tenure for themselves rather than on providing top notch education is certainly a huge problem, without doubt. Can we blame the kids, either individually or as a whole? On some level, yes – at least by our own accepted ideology. Yet, this sounds inherently unfair, does it not? After all, these problems are more voiced and understood by adults, who have, after all, been entrusted with the responsibility of educating their young. It is more the adults that are failing, than the kids, and the poor results of the kids reflects poorly on the adult society, since it shows a lack of true commitment, dedication, and focus on such a crucial issue as education.

            So, where else do we point the finger? Who can we blame, otherwise? Television, perhaps? Movies? Video games? Popular or "dangerous" music? So we perhaps blame ideology, conveniently pointing to the ideology that we are opposed to?

            Is the ailment more complicated and the problems more far reaching, yet subtle, than all of this? Or are there perhaps real solutions somewhere?

            That is a debate that rages on, and like the healthcare debate, it does not appear that there are any clear winners – only losers. The main losers in all of this? Our kids themselves, who are continually being given inadequate and second-class education. In an increasingly competitive world, the American education system as a whole is putting out a subpar product. This, from a country that used to rank first in education some decades ago, during America 's so-called "Golden Age". So, what happened? Why have we fallen so far, so fast? More importantly, perhaps, what can we do to change it? Or can we change it?

            It seems to me that this is too crucial an issue for us not to at least seriously try and change it. Albert Einstein famously once said, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." We hear a lot of the expression to "think outside the box", and this is usually applied for business or money-making purposes, perhaps even twelve step programs or self-help books for financial guidance and strategies for success. Yet, it seems to rarely be used in discussions on education, but if we are to make effective, positive changes, perhaps that needs to change.

            So, allow me to indulge in my next blog by utilizing the example of some of those other nations that have shot ahead of the United States , and see if we, the supposed adults, can provide better and more effective lessons for our children by learning some lessons ourselves. Let's start with the country that everyone seems so enamored with right now because of their revolutionary approach to education, and the country that now ranks as the leading country in the world in terms of education: Finland