Education Standards

In recent years there has been a push to standardize the public school curriculum across the nation. Standardized tests have been implemented to test such a large array of topics that there are reports of teachers focusing their time solely on material that is on the test and discarding their former lesson plans.

There's a huge benefit to a uniform education for our nation's youths and that is, assuming it's a good quality education, all the youths will have an approximately equal opportunity to succeed in adulthood.

There's also a huge drawback to a nationally uniform education: if it's not a good quality education, the number of people who are able to improve it is drastically reduced due to centralized control.

And there's a second huge drawback as well: we lose the ability to compare approaches. If everyone is doing the same thing, we have to trust that the centralized management is evaluating potential changes rationally - maybe carrying out experiments and studies - but the process is sure to be slow in order to allow ample time for discussion, evaluation, and planning. These activities are necessary before making a change to a national standard because every change will affect educators and students across the nation.

There are people out there who believe the Sun revolves around the Earth, that science was invented by the devil to trap humanity, and that the theory of evolution is a religious stance.  It's clear to me that these people should not be involved in the education system. Yet, they might say the same about me. So who should be allowed to set the standard of a good education?

One way to do it is that whoever pays the most money in "political contributions" to the recent campaign winners should get appointed as head of education and set the agenda for everyone. I think this way leads to poverty.

A better way to guide our national education program is to have a council of twelve wise people determine the educational standard. Each year, a list of the most successful companies in each industry and prominent researchers in every science will be compiled. Council members would be selected at random from this list, with the restriction that any person who has been drafted for the council in the past must be excluded at least five years before being drafted again. They would be notified six months in advance and brought together for two full days and two nights and have access to all available information and reports from our government departments - education, commerce, agriculture, defense, and so on. Each one would write his or her recommendations for changes to our educational program, and then a secretary assigned to support the council would combine all the recommendations into a report. The report would be circulated to all council members and each one would write comments on any section - encouragement or criticism. The secretary would combine all the comments into a single volume to accompany the report. Then the council would discuss each proposal and its associated comments, amending the proposal in accordance with the discussion, and voting to approved or reject it as amended. A two-thirds majority vote would be required to approve any proposal. The complete report, divided into two sections, would be published so that all educators will know the guidance. The first section is approved proposals, as amended, with any remaining criticism. The second section is rejected proposals with their criticism. It will be up to each school, county, and state to implement the guidance. Implementing the guidance would not be mandatory but prudent educators will pursue it. Reports on which communities implement approved guidance from the council and statistics on how their graduates fare in life should be collected by the government and made available to the public.  This way is democratic and meritocratic. In fact, such councils can be used at every level of government so that in addition to the national council, states may run their own councils, and counties may run their own councils. Schools implementing guidance from any council must track their efforts and results and report on them. In this way, a really good proposal from a local council can be shared nationally when the next council meets and sees its results.

Yet another way is to apply a free market to the problem - education companies will offer programs and parents will choose the education for their children based on cost and quality. National uniform tests would be administered by the government to rate how well children are learning in each company and these ratings would be made available to the public. This method does not set standards for education - the national uniform tests would not have a minimum passing score, only a rating of how well a student knows the facts of each subject. The range of subjects need not be limited arbitrarily. Interpretation of the results would be up to the public. Special interest groups such as churches, engineering associations, etc. can organize committees to interpret the results with their implications for the group and publish it so their members can more easily make decisions regarding where to send their children to school. So, for example, in the subject of science there might be a question such as "Which of these is true? Earth revolves around the Sun;  Sun revolves around the Earth; Neither; Both."  People who believe that the Earth is fixed and the sun revolves around the Earth might be attracted to areas where kids tend to answer that question incorrectly, but in general people might be attracted to areas where kids tend to answer questions correctly.

In a free market system, there must be schools to educate children whose parents choose not to pay the cost or cannot pay the cost. The burden of uneducated adults living on society is too heavy, and the injustice to children of poor parents is too great, so children must be given an opportunity.  But also there are issues of fairness to people who do pay for their children's education - because by providing free education to the children of their unable or unwilling peers, the government is forcing everyone else to pay the cost.  Maybe that's acceptable as long as there are strict rules enforced regarding the removal of children who are disruptive in the classroom or harass other kids.  It's perverse for them to stay in school.  I think that people will feel a lot better about paying for public education through taxes when the system is set up to provide a safe environment for their children.  So all children would have an opportunity to be educated, but children who aren't fit for it will not be allowed to attend public schools.

Some people may rightly say that children who misbehave are victims of bad parents, but society must draw the line there.  Disruptive or dangerous children shouldn't be allowed to interfere with the education and growth of other kids. If we see them as victims of bad parents we need to remove them from their broken homes. The state and charity organizations should work together to provide foster homes from which the children attend a separate school that has a much longer school day and where besides academics there is a combination of paid and volunteer staff who devote a lot of time to teaching proper behavior.  The point is in such a system the bad parents don't have any influence on their victim children, thus saving the children. When children in foster homes improve their behavior they would be allowed to return to regular public schools while living in the foster homes.