Literary Analysis 101: A Rebuttal to "Got a problem? Ask the public schools to solve it!"

While glancing over Digg this morning, I happened upon a post that linked to a blog entry entitled, "Got a problem? Ask the public schools to solve it!" The blog post refers to an article that appeared in the September 2007 edition of Harper's Magazine entitled, "Schoolhouse Crock: Fifty Years of Blaming America's Educational System for Our Stupidity", written by Peter Schrag. The blog post asserts that one of the four major points of the article is that the "[p]ublic education system is trying to do something unprecedented" by "educat[ing] every child — regardless of race, creed, socio-economic level, family background or mental and physical challenges." I found it absurd that a nationwide magazine would publish a story stating that America's free public education was "unprecedented" in a world where other countries offer free college education. As such, I immediately went out and bought a copy of Harper's to see if this was the case.

After reading the actual article, I must say that the blog entry misses the point of the article entirely. Mr. Schrag's piece goes far beyond the four simple 'important points' the post identifies. Furthermore, the first 'important point' presented by the post, the one that motivated me to purchase the magazine to begin with, is completely inaccurate. Mr. Schrag never expresses an idea that what the American educational system is doing is anything extraordinary. Nearly every industrialized country in the world offers its citizens free education, with many offering them a free college education as well. To state that the US public school system is doing something unique and "unprecedented" by educating all of its citizens, is, at best, ignorant, and at worse, is a gross misinterpretation of the article and represents a dangerous America-centric world view that ignores the achievements of other countries. After reading Mr. Schrag's article, I can say this 'important point' is never made in the article.

The actual point of the article is two fold, neither of which are fully addressed by the blog post. First, Mr. Schrag asserts that the US public education system is caught in the middle of a giant tug o' war between not only the two parties, but between competing education paradigms. The 'whole word reading' technique popularized by the 'Dick and Jane' books was an important source for language instruction up until the late 1970s. During the 1980s and 1990s, phonics and other 'whole language' techniques gained popularity. This, in turn, came under fire in the 2000s when the 'back to basics' movement became popular. Similarly, math instruction in the 1960s revolved around the 'new math' technique which focused on the process and explanation of basic mathematical principles. This gave way to a focus on word problems in the 1980s, which in turn was replaced by the 'new new math' regime during the 1990s. The 'new new math' technique was then made obsolete by the standardized tests required by the No Child Left Behind act. These shifting priorities and teaching strategies have diverted precious resources and time away from the school system's primary objective of fostering an environment for learning.

In addition, according to Mr. Schrag's article, the educational system has been used by the government to pursue certain political objectives. The government has time and time again retooled the educational system to confront whatever perceived challenges exist in the world, whether it be the Soviet's scientific and military achievements in the 1950s and 1960s, the strong Japanese and German economies during the 1970s and 1980s, or today's rapid growth in the Chinese and Indian economies. With each shift the government has attempted to fine tune the educational system and, in turn, the young and impressionable minds of this country's youths in an attempt to produce effective 'soldiers' to combat these perceived threats.

Mr. Schrag spends a good deal of time examining the impact of the Sputnik launch on America's educational system. Many individuals in government felt that if America's educational system could not produce enough engineers and scientists to fuel the country's Cold War research and development, we would fall further behind the Soviet Union, who was, at the time, winning the space race. As such, the government put a greater demand on schools to produce bright engineers and scientists through educational reform. This increased demand stressed the system, but more than that, the educational reforms were often short lived and contradictory. These changing rules confused educators and diverted attention away from education to study the effect of whatever program, technique, or methodology happens to be popular at the moment. Misguided government intervention in the schools, a product of the government's demand on educators to produce skilled workers to combat these ever changing threats, is an important topic in Mr. Schrag's piece, and one that is completely overlooked by the post.

The second point Mr. Schrag makes, which is only given a cursory glance in the post, is Mr. Schrag's assertion that the lack of other forms of social welfare in America has created a vacuum that the schools have attempted to fill. In Mr. Schrag's own words:

More so than other modern societies - and after a generation of conservative attacks on our social-welfare programs - the United States tends to act as if the schools can do it all. Yet children who come to school hungry, or with vision problems, or with toothaches, and who pass through mean streets to get there, can't possibly be expected to learn as well as healthy kids. Kids without engaged parents, or with only one functional parent (if that), are almost certain to be less engaged in the classroom. Money is hardly the issue: funding for public schools has never been higher. But neither has the number of tasks charged to the schools, which in hope of getting even more money, they have eagerly taken on.

It is not simply that, as the blog puts it, that:

Americans have a bad habit of looking at public schools as merely a
government service or a means to an end: You send your child there, and
your child is educated. Actually, the first education your child
receives is at home, and he or she should continue receiving education
at home even as the school year plays out. Parents must be partners
with public education, not just passive users.

No, it's not just that the parents of school children are not involved in the education of their child, though this is certainly part of the problem. It's more than that. In other countries, immediate problems such as health care and hunger are taken care of by other forms government welfare. These issues do not pose as great of a problem to the educational systems of those countries. It's not that nationalized health care or generous welfare programs to feed the poor act as a magic panacea to a country's educational problems and make students smarter; it merely reduces the burden placed on the educational system. In the United States, much of the educational system's effort is spent on creating and administering reduced price/free meal plans for low income youth or offering counseling to children with a range of behavioral, emotional, and parental issues. The lack of other forms of social welfare has shackled the American educational system, burdening it with tasks it was not designed to handle.

To say that "[p]ublic schools are expected to deal with numerous social problems" because "Americans have a tendency to expect public schools to deal with every perceived problem that comes down the pike" is a gross simplification of Mr. Schrag's point. His point isn't merely that the American public has explicitly charged the educational system with a laundry list of chores (which the blog cites), but that the prevailing American mindset of fiscal conservatism has removed all other forms of social welfare from the country, with the exception of public education. This is a central point in Mr. Schrag's article and a major point he spends time trying to express. The lack of other forms of social welfare has firmly planted the educational system on rocky ground. Children who are hungry, in poor health, and from families that are broken or unstable are unable to learn as well as children who are well cared for. With nowhere else to turn, the educational system has been forced to deal with these more basic issues before it can address its original task of educating our children.

This is the basis of Mr. Schrag's well written article: the US public education system cannot complete its primary task of educating our youth while being torn every which way by politically motivated 'educational reform' movements and without the help of some external forces to aid in delivering well fed and well cared for young minds to its halls. The same forces in government that blame our public education system for failing to educate the populace and threaten to replace it with a privatized system, Mr. Schrag argues, are the same individuals who have burdened the system by removing the critical social welfare support networks needed to provide the healthy minds necessary to achieve its primary goal: educating our youth.

Whether or not you agree with Mr. Schrag's point of view is another matter entirely, but I feel that "Got a problem? Ask the public schools to solve it!" has done Mr. Schrag a grave injustice by inadequately presenting his argument. I have attempted to sum up what I feel is the true heart of Mr. Schrag's piece here and I hope that those who have read the other blog post first will take it upon themselves to pick up a copy of Harper's and read the actual article themselves. This, however, is an exercise left up to the reader. Class dismissed.