When will education be about learning?
By Brian Kirwin | Friday, February 12th, 2010 | PolicyThe biggest Education debates so far this year has been about two things: Opening schools before Labor Day, and how much money school systems will get.
This is what happens when the major voices in education are lobbyists, unions (oops, sorry, “professional organizations”) and government.
I don’t believe for a second that opening schools before Labor Day helps any student take a test in May. I didn’t see a single education proponent lobbying to end Spring Break “for the children” but they sure wanted to extend their work year one week longer.
Which begs the question – Why would extra days before Labor Day be soooooo beneficial but taking a week off for “Spring Break” has no negative impact whatsoever?
Of course, it’s all about money now that the proposals for early school starts have all but died. It’s about how many teachers jobs can be saved and how less money can be spent on classroom learning compared to administration, buses and other unsexy items.
Meanwhile we still have an educational system much less interested in learning. Granted, Virginia is better than most, but Virginia still sends a giant percentage of students to college who walk right into remedial Math or English classes. Most students are placed into grades by what age they are, not by what aptitude they demonstrate. We have seventh grade students who test at 12th grade levels (ya knew I’d work my daughter into this post), and guess what? They stay in 7th grade.
At its core, our education is still based on a guild-era model which was more concerned with keeping children out of sweatshop labor and preserving adult union work than it was about learning.
Thomas Jefferson graduated from William and Mary at the age of 18 with full honors after only 2 years. John Adams entered Harvard at the age of 16, and became a lawyer without attending law school. His son, John Quincy Adams, attended Leiden University at 13 and worked for the US Ambassador to Russia before he was 16.
Ben Franklin never took a class after the age of 10, and became one of the wealthiest men of his time through writing, publishing, printing and inventing.
Today, even the best and brightest are caught up until age 22 in the 13-year general education curriculum and 4-year college standard that is more about protecting the education industry then it is about actual student learning.
We are in an age where the average 12-year old has more information through his cell phone than any university in the World had a few centuries ago. Governments pay significant dollars to house books in libraries that a 6-year old could download onto a Kindle for a few dollars.
And our education lobbies are concerned with the money teachers make, the number of students in a classroom (which is akin to saying “hire more teachers”) and what day on the calender does everyone get to start working.
If we were honestly interested in student learning, we would cater education to individual student aptitude. If a student is at an 11th grade math level, a 9th grade science level and a 6th grade reading level, and he is in 7th grade, guess what? He’ll be bored most of the day, and struggling to keep pace the rest. It’s stupid.
So we’ll continue to squabble about a composite index and whether school should start August 31st or September 1, and we’ll debate which order and row all the chairs should be arranged on the deck, what size they should be, and whether they should be painted or lacquered.
Until someone looks ahead and yells, “Iceburg!,” that’ll have to do.
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About the author
The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.
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Comments
33 Responses to "When will education be about learning?"
Brian, I know this doesn’t happen often, but I agree with you on many points here. Our model of education was crafted to deal with the influx of students once the education of minors became law. Jefferson’s time was different. Access to education was limited, and competition was too.
However, technology is pushing education in a differentiated direction that, if shown to be successful, may provide students with opportunities to excel at their own pace and not be limited by their peers. This is exciting.
It’s going to take some time to shift our expectations of what education should look like as we move forward, but I think there is some hope that we will move forward.
Until then, issues like the composite index, classroom size, and other items being squabbled about are important and do impact what we’re able to offer students today.
So Brian, are you saying that middle and high school curriculum should be structured like college or university curriculum… ie establish 100, 200, 300, 400 levels in core courses like reading, math, science, geography etc.? Students would then have an option to test out of a course into the next higher level all the way into a Community college?
rather than worry about all these things like composite index, standards of learning etc, why don’t we ask this question (& actually get an answer): why are children graduating from high school & cannot read & cannot make change?
a teacher may not be able to teach & should be fired or reassigned. but whoever promoted this children should be fired immediately.
After reading the Virginian Pilot today about Hampton Roads losing more than $57 million in funding for schools while Northern Virginia will receive $128 million more, I am going to Richmond on Monday to ask questions. Anyone want to join me?
@Kathy, this goes hand in hand with Northern Virginia politicians proposing bridge and tunnel tolls in Hampton Roads.
There is something significantly wrong with having a “common”wealth when one region wants to significantly screw another.
As an aside – public education has always been about indoctrination. Unfortunately, what once was about teaching immigrants how to read and write in English and pledge allegiance to the United States has now turned into how students can become more statist.
Tim J, sounds like an idea worth exploring.
I agree with your entire article 100%, but I think you pinpointed the biggest problem with our education system in Paragraph 2. Unions! At least one thing’s for sure: we treat our teachers and students exactly the same, and have very low standards for both. The fact of the matter is everyone isn’t the same, people learn on different levels. Mr. Kirwin, your ideas for adjusting to this factor are novel.
Tim J that’s exactly what I thought when I was reading the article this morning but I wanted to stay on Brian’s vein of education. However, Brian, J.R., I would like to know with the population here, the needs here, why is a disproportionate amount of money being streamed into Northern Virginia?
Kathy, NoVA did not come up with the LCI. The LCI also regularly punishes NoVA school systems. It is just an oddity that this year the rest of the state gets the short end of the stick. Former Govenor Kaine wanted to be unfair about it and freeze the index. Governor McDonnell just wants to let the index work the way it should. You can be thankful that your real estate values did not fall as much as ours, the genesis of this entire adjustment. It is quite amusing though that now the rest of the state all of the sudden has a problem with LCI.
But if you would like to rework the LCI so that it does not incorporate real property values into the formula, I would be fine with that. A formula that retuned more money to the jurisdictions that generate those tax revenues would be fine with me. We could also reduce overall state taxation and education funding and put more of that on the localities. I would be fine with that too.
Tim J, what NoVA politicians are proposing tolling your roads? And what are the specifics of it? Are we talking about a PPTA project?
tx2vadem, I am paying more in real estate taxes than I could possibly sell my house for. Houses like mine sit on the market for up to and over a year now. That doesn’t help those that have lost their jobs and need to sell right away. I am sure Governor McDonnell is doing the best he can considering what he inherited from years of Democratic spend and think about it later rule.
As far as the roads, I’ve been to Northern Virgina many times, I have a son that lives there. Yes, the traffic is terrible, but we in South Hampton Roads need another tunnel, bridge, whatever. Our roads need fixed. Is it fair that with our population transportation money is disproportionally sent to Northern Virginia while NoVA politicians want to suggest we have tolls?
@tx2vadem A BD blog article by DJ Spiker on 27 January Entitled “NoVa Delegate Solution for HRBT: Toll, toll, toll!” DJ provides an overview of the bill introduced by Delegate Joe May (Leesburg) “calling for a $2 toll on the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and Monitor-Merrimac Bridge-Tunnel. Just to be clear, Del. May’s district sits roughly 208 miles away from the HRBT.”
Kathy, since the tax rate is 89 cents per $100 of home value, I doubt seriously that you are paying more in real estate taxes than your home is worth.
Brian, many of the homes in my neighborhood have sat on the market for more than a year and would never sell for what they are being taxed on for value. For example, being taxed for $450,000 when in fact because it sits for over a year and finally sells for $430,000. That has nothing to do with tax rate. It has to do with the dollar value you are being taxed on in the first place. You are smarter than that Brian!
Brian is essentially right. Back in my native Maryland, if you passed all your classes the first three years of high school, effectively the only class you had to pass as a Senior was a 4th year of English. You want to keep kids in school all day for that?
In my case, two of my Junior year electives (Journalism & Speech) were out of the English department. Under Brian’s proposal, I could have graduated after my Junior year at age 16. Sounds cool.
Kathy, you said “I am paying more in real estate taxes than I could possibly sell my house for”
If your house was appraised for taxes at your number, $450,000 – the taxes for that would be $4,005.
If you think you can’t sell your home for four thousand bucks, you’re insane. I’ll write you a check today and buy it from you.
Henry, exactly.
Brian, you are silly.
Brian, your proposal would require doing two things. Schools would have to do away with the massive SOL testing that is growing yearly in cost and scope. Something, I would readily agree to. Students are passing these tests by leaps and bounds and yet they can’t read any better or do math any better or think critically any better than they could ten years ago. Secondly, it would require an infusion of money the likes of which you can’t imagine in order to provide individual educational plans for the IQ of 50 and the IQ of 150. Just think what each IEP costs now. Imagine one for each child.
Kathy, the real estate component of the index is relative and based on the area as a whole. So, individual results may vary. On the whole, NoVA’s real estate prices went up a lot more and had a lot further to fall than the rest of the state.
I didn’t bring up roads other than to ask what NoVA politician is talking about tolling. But since you did, I am hard pressed to believe that the state spends a disproportionate amount of transportation funding here (though I guess I would need to know on what basis we are talking about). If you have something that points to that, I would be interested to see it. In terms of funding the Transportation Fund, we generate a lot of money. And unlike the rest of the state, we also have a special Motor Fuels Sales Tax that applies only to NoVA jurisdictions.
Susan, sounds like a great charter school concept, doesn’t it?
And only the public school system would demand to be paid more to actually teach. I’d set up a more Italian-style plan. It’s called “do it, or you’re fired.”
Watch out Brian on presenting any constructive ideas to change the education “political patronage pit” which is one of many “pits” threatening Virginia’s fiscal sanity.
VEA thugs will be knocking at your door or perhaps waiting for you in a Wal-Mart parking lot somewhere…
But, Brian, where will the money come from and the personnel when we’re getting ready to lay off 30,000 public school employees in the Commonwealth?
There are special ed students with mandates in their IEPs that require the intervention of up to three support staff plus two professionals to meet the guidelines set down by their IEPs. DOn’t follow those guidelines and you set yourself up for a lawsuit. Defending against lawsuits costs lost of money. So you think a charter school could do this for all students? Where’s that kind of money going to come from when there is no new revenue.
I’ve sat in IEP meetings with 8 paid professionals(an administrator, a teacher, a social worker, a psychologist, a lawyer, a special ed representative from the central office) to address one minor change to a child’s IEP. How are you going to do that for all students?
I wish charter school were the answer, but they are not.
Tim, the VEA has about much authority in the state of Virginia as the PTO. Remember the Commonwealth is a right to work state. We have unions in name only. Most teachers are not members, and the only thing the VEA can do for you is provide legal counsel if someone decides to sue you.
Susan, I reject the notion that it is more expensive to succeed than it is to fail. I know all about IEPs, and it’s government’s answer. I went to school and if students accelerated in math, they took math that was accelerated. I took Algebra while 80% of the school was in basic math. I was in pre-calc when mostly everyone was in Algebra.
Also, I was taking Physics and Anatomy while others toiled in Earth Sciences. It doesn’t take major surgery and government meetings with a dozen government bureaucrats to let students who learn advance, or in Henry’s case, graduate ahead of schedule and save the taxpayers a boatload of money.
Or, we can keep employing teachers who don’t teach, a giant administrative bureaucracy that does little more than suck up time and money, and graduate kids with a diploma that gets them right into remedial English in community college.
Shame that you don’t even want to try. Enjoy holding those school doors closed as you hold the kids in there.
Tim J…good prediction, judging by the comment that followed yours.
Please, Brian, don’t accuse me of the same intransigence that the Republican party demonstrates regarding health care reform, “Shame that you don’t even want to try.” I am all for educational reform, but I try to avoid speaking and thinking in platitudes, ” I reject the notion that it is more expensive to succeed than to fail.” I’m glad you received such an ideal education, “pre-cal” when the rest of the dummies were in Basic Math. Brian, did your school not offer calculus? I know my children started a math path of algebra in 7th grade ending with calculus in high school. They attended/attend public school. They are receiving the same kind of education that you seem to look back on so fondly and proudly. Might I ask if it were provided to you by a public school? So what gives, Brian, what’s your beef? I thought you had some reason to want reform as in charter schools.
“I try to avoid speaking and thinking”
Obviously…
Ok, fine, I thought there might be the possibility here of a dialogue with someone who seriously wanted to discuss the problems in education and the pending disaster that the governors’(Kaine and McDonnell) budget is going to have in the local communities, but I guess not. “Charter schools, right, the answer.” How many times do I have to repeat the mantra before I no longer need to “speak and think”?
Susan, Susan, Susan. The second you started repeating liberal talking points about Republicans and health care reform, I stopped taking you seriously.
Enjoy it! I listened to you longer than most people would.
I can not understand why “Little Barry” did not simply suggest the State of Hawaii as a model for other states to use??? After all he was born there.
see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/health/policy/17hawaii.html
Don’t worry, Brian, I shant be an habitue here. I read your “about the author” before I commented and took from that that you were an independent voice and not a mouthpiece of the right.(Please change the word “jeers” to the appropriate word “cheers”) But after talking with you and then after I read the “Shout-outs” and the “About,” I realized that I had been mistaken.
Yes, Susan. It’s all about me. Keep namecalling.
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