The Shame And Disgrace Of American Education

I might as well start out by saying that I bring two "biases," if you will, to writing this post.  I am, on a K-through-12 basis, a product of the public education system.  In addition, my late father, who was a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, was also on a commission whose work resulted in a significant expansion of publicly-financed higher education in the state of Maryland.  It goes without saying that he was deeply committed both to higher education and public education.  But it's worth saying anyway, because I'm more than happy to share that commitment.  Both he and I saw people's lives transformed by greater access to education.

And the transformation of individual lives, as worthy a goal as that is, is not even the greatest reward of education.  Education builds informed citizens, without which democracy is possible only in name.  In any case, none of this would be possible without education's single greatest asset; teachers.  Buildings and media can be priced out to a specific extent.  But good teachers, ones who know how to impart information, bring a subject to life for students and, above all, help their students learn to think for themselves, are as priceless as they are rare.

So, exactly what is the state of education in America today?

Perhaps it is best summed up in this unbelievably depressing article from the Guardian.  The days when teachers were as much a part of the institutional stability of higher education seem to largely be gone forever.  In its place is a world in which college and university instructors live a hand-to-mouth existence, needing to supplement their income in ways that show no respect or value for the years they have put into learning one or more subjects.  Often, even doing this does not afford even so much as a decent living, much less a comfortable one.

And their counterparts in public schools are not doing much better.  Often, they are forced to pay for supplies out of their own, less-than-munificent salaries, simply so that they can adequately give their students the education that the students' parents seemingly are no longer willing to pay full-freight for.

Instead, in both higher and public education, money is spend on shiny new construction, something that is easier to show off to taxpayers and alumni than the seemingly invisible but real process of actual learning itself.  We would, in fact, be far better off in spending capital budgets on renovations rather than new construction, and spending more money to pay teachers at all levels the incomes they've worked for and deserved.  And, of course, such an approach would be more environmentally-friendly, too.

Hopefully, one day in the near future, we can fin a way to make this happen so that, at the very least, all teachers can sleep in beds rather than cars.  I would sleep a lot better if this happened.  And so would my dad.