Big Jolly Politics

politics in Harris County and Texas

Education and Misplaced Priorities

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What will your School District Lobbyist do in Austin this year?

In preparation for the biennial Texas legislative session opening this week, school districts and other local government entities have created “legislative priority” lists for their respective lobbyists to take to the state capitol. While legislative wish lists may not carry the entertainment value of say, analyzing various political Twitter accounts, citizens would do well to scrutinize the stated priorities of our local, but less visible politicians.

Unfortunately, these published priority lists can be misleading.  For example, Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District’s recently published list, (which like most districts largely mirrors that of the Texas Association of School Boards), includes a call for the state to “restore” its “share” of formula funding to at least 50%.  This wording gives many readers the impression that the state has cut education funding, when in fact education spending in Texas has increased by an inflation-adjusted 29.7%.  Under the current “Robin Hood” system, when local revenue goes up, the state’s proportion goes down for some districts, (even though Texas increased education spending by $5.2 billion last session).  As it stands, the funding structure is contributing to an increasing property tax burden for Texas families, and has not effectively incentivized either efficiency or improvements in student achievement.  While there is little doubt that the legislature will increase education spending in 2019, there is an urgent need to accompany increases with meaningful reforms.

While calling for more funding on one hand, several priority lists include an apparent demand to diminish accountability standards for public schools.  Although the new, more understandable A-F grading system has not yet been fully implemented, these districts are demanding a return to the previous vague and opaque ratings in which schools are rated as either having “Met Standard” or “Improvement Required.”    The new A-F system takes into account not only standardized test scores, but also yearly student growth and the progress of racial/ethnic and economically disadvantaged groups.  Unfortunately, some administrators do not want this more fine-tuned scrutiny, and in addition to opposing the A-F system, are also lobbying for a curtailing of the state’s standardized testing program known as STAAR.

The STAAR tests, created in collaboration with Texas teachers, have both ardent supporters and passionate opponents.  Some opponents claim the STAAR itself is problematic and should be replaced, but national measures (NAEP) reflect the same student achievement trends, and only about 16% of Texas students are earning college-ready scores on the ACT and SAT.  A small, but surprisingly vocal minority of Texans seem to believe we should stop testing altogether and “just trust teachers.”  In that public education in Texas constitutes a $60 billion program and is responsible for more than 5 million students, or “souls,” that solution is both unpalatable and highly unlikely.  And while a significant number of people do not actually enjoy taking tests, tests of many kinds are an ever-present factor of the adult life for which schools are purportedly preparing students.

As for the Texas STAAR, despite the horror stories about overly demanding and stressful tests, it turns out that students earn a passing score even if they are performing below grade level.  Which explains why a “highly rated” district like Cy-Fair ISD might be asking the State to throw out the new grading system and reduce student exposure to the STAAR tests.  Although CFISD boasts an 83% pass rate, of the 189,364 CFISD students tested in 2018, only 57% actually met or mastered grade level.  Therefore, approximately 43% of CFISD students are testing below grade level.  Broken down by demographics, 56% of African-American, 51% of Hispanic, and 55% of economically disadvantaged students in CFISD are actually testing below expected grade-levels.

And perhaps these sobering numbers also explain Cy-Fair ISD’s antipathy towards public charter schools.  Among the various successful charter operators in Texas, are models that have proven successful with minorities and economically disadvantaged students, as well as models that offer a more rigorous curriculum that brings “at grade level” students to mastery and beyond.

If the goal is to increase student achievement for every demographic, why would we not welcome charter models that seem to better serve some segments of the population?  Sadly, CFISD and other districts plan to lobby against the expansion of charter schools in “high performing” districts; a moniker they may not enjoy under the closer scrutiny provided by the new A-F school rating system.

There are no simple, easy solutions when it comes to education policy.  State lawmakers in Texas will have a limited window of opportunity in 2019 to craft remedies for Texas children and families.  But in light of the challenges of lagging student achievement, funding difficulties, and increasingly burdensome property taxes, the status quo is unacceptable, (as is merely increasing funding without reform).  Hopefully, our representatives will endeavor to represent not districts, but students, and create opportunities for greater student success at every level.

School for the School Board

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What is the primary duty of local school boards?

I recently asked this question of a seven-year Texas school board trustee.  She answered:  1) to maximize student learning achievement, 2) to hire and supervise the superintendent, and 3) to set and manage the district budget.  She followed up by emphasizing, “In that order,” because, she noted, “ nothing is as important as student learning.”

While these may sound like obvious goals, many school boards spend an inordinate amount of time on everything but student achievement, and often during a confusing array of closed and open meetings that may last an excruciating eight hours or more. Former TEA official, Kara Belew, now senior education policy advisor at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, notes that she spent nearly a year observing one board that never once addressed student achievement issues.  School boards across the state may be touting spectacular sports stadiums and water parks, or worse, crafting “legislative agendas,” (for which the district often spends taxpayer dollars to lobby the state for more taxpayer dollars), but few boards are even talking about whether district students are learning reading and math.

One solution is to send school boards back to school.

Under current law, elected school board trustees must undergo training, but the state has permitted a number of outside groups to provide these trainings; the most prominent provider being the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB).  Now, under Commissioner Mike Morath, the Texas Education Agency is offering an optional board training and certification through “Lone Star Governance,” a program that directs focus on one primary objective:  Improving Student Outcomes.

Why is this important?

While there has been some good news for Texas students, such as the drop in the number of low-performing schools and increase in SAT/ACT pass rates, there’s still plenty of troubling news.  At a recent education policy summit in Austin, Commissioner Morath shared that while there has been improvement, only about 43% of third-graders are meeting grade level in reading and math,  around 50% of 8th graders are on target, and less than 20% of Texas students are attaining college-ready scores on the SAT/ACT.  Clearly, there is still plenty of room for improvement.

As always, there is the perennial call for more spending, but state education funding has increased from $43.1 billion in 2007 to $60.6 billion in 2017.  Also, at $11,349 in per-pupil spending, Texas hovers around the national average and still with better results than big spenders like New York and California.

In light of these hard numbers, many taxpayers and parents are calling for greater efficiency and purpose in education spending, including a focus on the issue that really matters: student learning.

Enter the TEA’s Lone Star Governance program.

During LSG’s two-day training, elected school board trustees and superintendents are taught to set an achievable number of publicly-stated goals and constraints that focus on improving student outcomes.  Attendees learn to track progress, properly empower and constrain the superintendent, and to conduct regular evaluations of both the superintendent and the board itself.  Boards are also encouraged to adopt policies that prevent conflicts of interest and promote transparency.   And, to the great rejoicing of ISD observers everywhere, boards are given time-tracking tools, taught to minimize “closed” session meetings, and limit regular and public meetings to three times a month and two hours each.

The Lone Star Governance program is not the silver bullet that will fix everything in public education, but I do see cause for cautious optimism. Under the previously mentioned TASB trainings, newly-elected trustees are taught that the superintendent is the “quarterback,” who directs the activities of the board.  This dynamic is alarmingly at odds with the original democratic structure in which school boards are answerable to both the voters and the state (since the state is the entity constitutionally responsible for a system of public education).  In a properly aligned district, the superintendent is an empowered employee of the elected board, but not the ultimate authority.  By equipping boards to find the happy medium between micromanaging and giving superintendent’s carte blanche, the LSG program restores an appropriately constitutional governing mindset.

Also, although TASB purports to share the same goals, trainers been known to convey a contemptuous attitude towards reformers, parents, and taxpayers, and to encourage boards to engage in lobbying the state legislature to protect the status quo and oppose reforms.  Lone Star Governance actually mentions “empowering parents,” and seeks to return board focus to the students, or as Commissioner Morath calls them, the “5.5 million souls” in the Texas education system, and whether or not they are learning.  Of the boards that have adopted student achievement as the primary goal, there seems to be an increased willingness to allow innovations such as in-district charters and parental choice programs that have been so successful in other parts of the country.

One cause for concern in the LSG materials is the heavy emphasis on board unity and teamwork. Not that unity and teamwork are bad things, but one problem with many school boards is that misguided notions of “unity” have sometimes stifled the kind of debate that leads to better outcomes. No trustee who questions the efficacy or cost of proposed policy should be labeled “rogue” or “maverick” as TASB has done.

School boards should focus on the real purpose of public education, which is not to maintain institutions or provide jobs, but to educate children.  Real children, or as Commissioner Morath describes them, “souls.”  That distinction makes all the difference in the world.

Texas School Districts and Illusions of Local Control

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Public school districts have great power over families, but are not as locally accountable as they first appear.

According to local news reports, the Cy-Fair Independent School District is planning to re-draw attendance zones again, and the Board is inviting feedback from concerned parents.  Such re-zoning efforts occur all too frequently around the Lone Star State in response to population growth, and always create much anxiety in the affected communities.  However most Texas parents believe that during the rezoning process Attendance Boundary committees work with local citizens to collect information that the district will then use to formulate a new plan.

But in most cases, the parents are wrong.

In reality, prior to any “citizen” committee input, most district administrations have already formulated a proposal, but employ a heavily-massaged “Delphi Technique” to promote the predetermined plan.  The district superintendent and board members will carefully select a combination of “experts” and some residents to serve on a committee.  The committee will be tasked with examining selected data and reviewing proposals.  While a few tweaks may be allowed, the plan approved by the administration is the only plan that will be approved.  If all goes accordingly, the committee will unanimously vote to support the district’s plan.  Afterwards the school board will go through the motions of hearing more testimony, but also dutifully approve the original proposal.  The purpose of this process is to create the appearance of community input and support.

Occasionally, informed citizens push back on these Delphi Technique maneuvers.  In 2012, parents in Round Rock  created an alternate re-zoning plan that was more cost-effective, manageable, and acceptable to most of the community, but in a series of highly charged and controversial proceedings, the district plan won out, as was always intended.  Due to such controversies (including this one over an illegally formulated School Health Advisory Council,) many districts have become more careful about the proceedings at such committees.  However, school districts still heavily depend on these techniques to promote everything from extravagant bond debt initiatives to socially liberal sex education programs.

Modified Delphi-style committees are only one way school district administrators manipulate perceptions.  Although school board members are elected to represent parents and voters, Texas districts send new trustees to Texas Association of School Boards (TASB,) training classes.  There, TASB teaches that the superintendent is the “quarterback,” and that the board is merely the supporting team.  In other words, the board must only run the plays called by the QB-superintendent.  TASB, which works closely with TASA (Texas Association of School Administrators) also suggests that a successful board votes unanimously; any dissension is a sign of failure.  (The fact that TASA gave the Cy-Fair ISD Board an Outstanding School Board Award in 2015 tells us volumes about that board.*)

Furthermore, most ISDs in Texas have a handbook, or set of rules, for school board members that restrict the ability of trustees to act in their capacity as elected representatives of the people.  Recently, the public learned that Katy ISD restricts free speech by prohibiting elected board members from speaking to the media.  Many other districts have additional restraints in place, such as prohibiting trustees from visiting district schools without permission from the superintendent.  Or vaguely restricting trustees from “investigating” district matters without permission.  While we like to think elected officials govern our school districts, in reality non-elected administrators exercise great power over public education.  Therefore as reformers work to reduce federal control over education, they must also address trends that make “local control” more bureaucratic than democratic.

News reports on Cy-Fair ISD’s re-zoning have included comments from parents obviously anguished by the impact on their children.  Understandably so.  It must be incredibly frustrating to have such a significant portion of your and your children’s lives subject to the machinations of government bureaucracy.  Especially one that may be much less democratic than it first appears.  It is for this reason that a growing number of parents are demanding the right to make their own educational choices.  No bureaucracy should have this much power of the life of a family.

*TASA stated one reason CFISD won the award was due to their passage of a $1.2 billion bond package.  Ouch.

Chron columnist Falkenberg misrepresents Patrick speech

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Yeah, I know, shocking, right? But seriously, I read Houston Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg’s column about Sen. Dan Patrick’s speech on “school choice” at the Beren Academy and was floored by her complete and total misrepresentation. I mean, I get that she’s against anything that a conservative Republican would try to do to improve anything but why not just tell the truth?

First off, she spends most of her screed talking about charter schools. Fact is, charter schools were not the focus of his speech – I know that it was taped but I cannot find it online. Falkenberg rants that Sen. Patrick talked about 500 public schools failing but claims that he didn’t talk about the problems of charter schools. Flat out false. He specifically said that not all charter schools were doing well and that some needed to close.

This paragraph really irked me:

But there’s one more problem with Patrick’s use of the “500 F schools” statistic: I don’t think any of the parents at Beren send their children to one. They can afford not to. Beren parents may indeed sacrifice to send their children to a private, religious school. They certainly would benefit from a state subsidy, but they are not the families central to Patrick’s speeches.

First off, OBVIOUSLY parents that send their children to Beren do not send them to one of the failing schools. Bizarre.  But then she proceeds to claim that the reason they don’t send their children to a failing school is because “They can afford not to.”. How does she know this? All Jews are rich? Really? Is that what the tolerant one is saying? How does she know that these families are not central to Patrick’s speech? As I looked around the room, I saw children of all races – where does Falkenberg get her insight from regarding whether or not they were “central” to Sen. Patrick’s ideas?

And if Falkenberg had paid attention, the reason that many parents can “afford” to send their children to Beren is that the school is able to offset some of the tuition costs by raising money. The entire point of the rally was “tuition affordability”. Some of these parent’s forgo new cars or large homes in order to give their children a better chance to succeed in life. Where does she get off discounting this?

And then she claims that Sen. Patrick is hiding something because she couldn’t attend a question/answer session between Sen. Patrick and parents of students. Guess what? I couldn’t attend either because…listen up…I’m not a parent of a child at that academy. Good grief.

She did get something right that day but didn’t include it in her column. This is her tweet from the rally:

“It’s immoral to force a student to go to a school that cannot serve them.” Sen. Dan Patrick on school choice at Beren Academy.

I guess that is an example, in her mind, of

playing people’s gut feelings like a gut-string guitar

The truth that it is immoral seems to escape her.

I’ll answer the questions she has at the end of her screed, straight from the information she was given at the meeting:

  • How would a small subsidy be enough for tuition at a good private school? – The schools have private fundraising efforts to help parents close the gap between tuition costs, any “voucher” or “scholarship from tax credits” and their ability to pay.
  • What about transportation and accountability? – Transportation costs can also be offset by subsidies. There are various ways to test the progress of the students – none have been taken off the table.
  • How can we be sure a private school, or a charter, is better than what students have now? – Statistics show that private schools generally have better academic progress. Charter schools have had mixed results. Failing schools are not an option.
  • What happens if it isn’t? – Then, as Sen. Patrick clearly stated, you close the failing charter school and start over.

This is not an easy issue. Misrepresenting the other side’s views does not help further the debate on how to improve public education in Texas.

Your Texas education dollars are being wasted

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The next time some blabbermouth tells you that we need to spend more money on education in Texas, tell them to watch this video of the Beaumont Central Marching Band (warning – your ears could be damaged):

And I use “band” only because that is the official term – my goodness that was an awful noise. You’d think that the “band” “teacher” would try to teach these kids to blow into a trumpet so as to make a noise that doesn’t sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. Gosh awful noise.

Big Bird assaulting Mitt Romney? Paid for with your “scarce” tax dollars?

Are you kidding me? Someone’s head should roll (figuratively for those of you in Beaumont) for allowing this to happen. You can call the Beaumont ISD Superintendent, Dr. Timothy B. Chargois, at (409) 617-5132 to complain and tell him that his band is awful. Hard to even call it “music”.

Just say no to more funding for Texas schools and yes to vouchers to give kids that want to learn a chance.

Texas Education III: National Policy is not the Answer to the Problem in our Classrooms

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Ed Hubbard

During the Carter Administration, Congress created the Department of Education.  Many conservatives denounced this move as federal usurpation of a power left to state and local governments, and Ronald Reagan advocated abolishing the agency.  His position of antipathy toward federal involvement in public education has been, more or less, the Republican Party’s official position ever since.

It is at least a little ironic, then, that much of the debate today over the proper curriculum to use in our public schools arose during the Reagan Administration as a result of A Nation at Risk, a 1983 report about the state of public education in our country, which was commissioned by Reagan’s Secretary of Education.  Indeed, the reaction to that report spawned three decades of ever-growing federal involvement in education under both Republican and Democratic administrations without any real improvement in the nation’s education.

Arguably, the most important findings in that report were

  • “Some 23 million American adults are functionally illiterate by the simplest tests of everyday reading, writing, and comprehension.”
  • “About 13 percent of all 17-year-olds in the United States can be considered functionally illiterate.  Functional illiteracy among the minority youth may run as high as 40 percent.”
  • “Many 17-year-olds do not do not possess the ‘higher order’ intellectual skill we should expect of them.  Nearly 40 percent cannot draw inferences from written material; only one-fifth can write a persuasive essay; and only one-third can solve a mathematics problem requiring several steps.”
  • “For the first time in the history of our country, the educational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even approach, those of their parents.”
  • “…the average citizen today is better educated and more knowledgeable than the average citizen of a generation ago—more literate, and exposed to more mathematics, literature, and science.  … Nevertheless, the average graduate of our schools and colleges today is not as well-educated as the average graduate of 25 to 35 years ago, when a much smaller proportion of our population completed high school and college.”
  • “The teacher preparation curriculum is weighted heavily with courses in ‘educational methods’ at the expense of courses in subjects to be taught.  A survey of 1,350 institutions training teachers indicated that 41 percent of the time of elementary school teacher candidates is spent in education courses, which reduces the amount of time available for subject matter courses.”

These findings alarmed the nation. The report also listed two interesting “Tools at Hand” for addressing these findings:

  • “our better understanding of learning and teaching and the implications of this knowledge for school practice, and the numerous examples of local success as a result of superior effort and effective dissemination;” and
  • “the equally sound tradition, from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 until today, that the Federal Government should supplement State, local, and other resources to foster national educational goals; ….”

The responses to this report flooded bookstores and public debate.  Among the many books and studies that would be published were two landmark works published in 1987.  That year Professor Allan Bloom of the University of Chicago wrote a significant critique of modern college education in The Closing of the American Mind; and E.D Hirsch published what became the foundation of the movement for a “core-knowledge” curriculum, Cultural Literacy.  Education departments of many universities doubled-down on method-based curricula in an effort to address the lack of “‘higher order’ intellectual skill” among high school graduates, while research of cognitive scientists began to support Hirsch’s theory about “core knowledge”. In Texas, Ross Perot spearheaded reforms through the legislature with the backing of Governor Clements, and George W. Bush later championed reforms that focused on testing and standards.  Various states and localities tried to inject competition and diversity into the system with vouchers, magnet schools, charter schools, and home schools.  Nationally, George H. W. Bush ran for President in 1988 to be our first “Education President,” and George W. Bush pushed for national standards and action through his “No Child Left Behind” legislative initiative.  Meanwhile, for the last 25 years Bill Bennett, E.D. Hirsch and others have tried to educate the nation on what we need to learn and how we need to learn it.

But any fair-minded person, looking at the results of all of this action over the last 29 years would have to concede that as we’ve tried to mount a national battle for better education little has improved, and in some places (like Detroit, where it recently was estimated that its school system suffers from a 75{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} drop-out rate before the 12th grade) it has gotten worse.  I believe it has gotten worse because we refused to start the reform where it was needed—in the local classroom with the curriculum teachers use to teach our children, and with the tools and facilities they use for teaching.  This is a predicament shared by communities throughout the country, but it is primarily a State and local problem to solve.

Over the course of the next few posts, I am going to address each of the findings listed above from A Nation at Risk in the context of the constitutional purpose of public education in Texas and the refinement of that purpose I have proposed in the first two posts of this series, to come up with the contours of a proposed curriculum we will need in our schools, and for the tools and facilities we will need to teach that curriculum.  I am going to present my arguments for a “core-knowledge” curriculum, rather than a “method-based” curriculum, discuss how such a curriculum could advance the purpose I have proposed, and outline how such a curriculum should be implemented.

But as I was writing the first post on those topics, I realized that we should pause for a moment and discuss an “800-pound gorilla” in the room—the history of federal involvement in public education in this country, and why federal regulation and money should not be used to “supplement State, local, and other resources” needed to address the classroom reforms I am proposing. In fact, I believe that it is precisely because of our pre-occupation with trying to find a national “silver bullet” to slay our educational problems that we have compounded the problems we face today.

Remember, my first post on this subject in which I quoted the reference in the Texas Declaration of Independence to Mexico’s failure to provide public education in the territory?  Well, that concern for public education didn’t occur to Texans out of thin air in 1836.  In fact, the drafters of A Nation at Risk were right that there has been a continental civic commitment to public education since the 1630s, when the first public school, Boston Latin School, opened in Massachusetts.  In turn, there has been a commitment of national resources since the inception of our national government to establish or supplement an educational infrastructure within the states.

For instance, under the regime of the Articles of Confederation, the national government started establishing an educational infrastructure for each territory prior to statehood. In the Land Ordinance of 1785, Congress stated:  “There shall be reserved the lot No. 16, of every township, for the maintenance of public schools within the township….”  Then, in Article 3 of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, Congress stated:  “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged.”  These laws were among the few from the period of the Articles of Confederation, which were continued by the new Congress under the new Constitution.

This commitment to education at the time of our founding is exemplified by the actions of Thomas Jefferson.  He was the driving force behind the creation of three, distinct universities:  the United States Military Academy at West Point; the University of Michigan; and the University of Virginia. Each of these schools was established with a distinct purpose:  West Point would focus on the military sciences to create a trained officer corps for the defense of the country, and a network of gentlemen to lead our communities after leaving the service; Michigan would provide a practical education in the applied physical and industrial sciences, including agriculture and engineering; and Virginia would provide a liberal arts education, and training in the primary professions of medicine, law and the clergy.  Together, these institutions would provide society with models for the type of schools that would provide a full range of educational opportunities needed for the functioning of a free society.

For example, the “University of Michigania” (which Jefferson helped found in 1817, and which later became the University of Michigan) became the model for our land-grant colleges.  During the Civil War, our first Republican President proposed, and the Republican Congress enacted, the Morrill Act, that set aside land in each state for the “endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and mechanic arts,…in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life.”  The purpose of the Morrill Act had been a basic plank in the platforms of both the Whig and Republican parties since the 1830s.

In other words, for a century after the American Revolution, our founders, and the national government they created, implemented a national policy that provided states with the tools to create an educational infrastructure, from the township through college, which would provide citizens with the diffusion of knowledge and professions necessary for the functioning of a free government and economy.  When, by the 1870s, every state had adopted, either by constitution or statute, a system of public education, the federal role in education began to recede and education became almost solely a state and local issue.

However, the fact that there were now public school systems in every state did not mean that everyone sought, or was given an education—far from it; for not every community used the township model and built schools right away, and state laws did not make attendance mandatory throughout the whole country until much later.  Moreover, it took decades before the network of land-grant colleges was built and functioning, and, to this day, far less than half the children in this country attend any college or university.

In fact, given the demographics of the nation and the continuous influx and migration of people into and across the country, most children did not regularly attend high school until the Great Depression.  Then, as a result of the economic disaster, children were encouraged to stay in school and graduate from high school in order to reserve job opportunities for the adults in the community.  The public education system we know today is really a phenomenon of the post-World War II era of general prosperity and economic stability.

It is during this post-war period, as a national-defense response to Sputnik (and a civil-rights response to Brown v. the Board of Education), that the national government re-emerged as a player in educational policy.  This time, however, it inserted itself beyond its historic role of providing or supplementing educational infrastructure for the states (and beyond what was necessary to end segregation), and began dictating operations and curriculum.  In essence it inserted itself in an area where it lacked constitutional and institutional competence, and it imposed bureaucracies and inefficiencies on our schools, which never addressed the core problem—how our local schools should effectively educate the continuing influx of students of varying backgrounds and talents.  That continues to be a peculiarly local problem to solve.

I believe it is the attempt to absorb and educate the vast and ever-changing influx of students of varying backgrounds and talents since the Great Depression that is the cause of the paradox that the drafters of A Nation at Risk observed:

…the average citizen today is better educated and more knowledgeable than the average citizen of a generation ago—more literate, and exposed to more mathematics, literature, and science.  … Nevertheless, the average graduate of our schools and colleges today is not as well-educated as the average graduate of 25 to 35 years ago, when a much smaller proportion of our population completed high school and college.

This phenomena also explains why educational outcomes and drop-out rates vary so widely between localities and among the states—because the influx of diverse students has been so unevenly distributed across the country over the decades.  The challenges faced by schools in Los Angeles, Detroit and Houston differ substantially from each other, and from suburban and rural schools.

Any meaningful educational reform must start with the core-knowledge to be taught in local classrooms, while addressing the reality that a significant percentage of children of diverse backgrounds and talents will never complete primary and secondary levels of education, let alone attend and graduate from college.  While we try to retain these students in our schools as long as possible, and continue to raise their level of literacy, we must begin to focus their training on the “cultural literacy” they will need to be successful adults.  Therefore, we must tailor the public school curriculum at each grade level to expose as many of these children as possible to the rudiments of American citizenship and the global economy.  In the meantime, we must provide a more demanding curriculum at each higher grade level of school based on a strong foundation of “cultural literacy” in order to improve the quality of the knowledge of those who stay in school and graduate from high school.  Each local and state must have the flexibility to tailor this curriculum to the type of diverse student they must educate.

National standards and tests, or even state standardized tests with teachers “teaching to the tests,” may continue to measure our problems as they get worse, but they will not solve these problems.  Only local and state reforms will solve the problems our classrooms face.

I’ll start to look at how we address the specifics of a new curriculum in the next post.