Why Aren't Needed Changes in Education Implemented? - school improvement planning - Brief Article

College Student Journal, March, 2000 by Marlow Ediger

4. university professors of education should not be spokespersons for public school teachers. Teachers should have their own pipelines to the news media. Public school teachers have the capability and desire to speak for themselves in the societal arena. They should be heavily involved in determining public policy in education in the public schools.

5. the news media needs to realize that blasting public schools is harmful to both teachers and pupils in the school setting. What is criticized needs to be based on evidence. The news media may attempt to picture public schools as failures in educating the young. There are doubts as to the reality of this manufactured crises. Berliner and Biddle (1995) entitled their book The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on American Public Schools to indicate the many mistruths emphasized by the news media and others in criticizing the public schools.

Researcher Gerald Bracey has monthly columns in the Phi Delta Kappan challenging unwarranted negative statements made about the public schools. His columns are highly research orientated, not opinion based (See Bracey, 1999).

Too frequently, what is stated in the media becomes a slogan. Individuals then repeat over and over again that which has been said or written about, regardless of supporting facts to make these remarks (See Ediger, 1996, for a discussion on slogans).

Criticisms of the American Public Schools have come and gone. Some of the worst negative criticism came during the Sputnik era when the then Soviet Union had surpassed the United States in space texts. Bowyer (1970) wrote:

The majority of Criticisms that were prompted by the fear that Russia would "outpace" America concentrate on a comparison of educational systems in terms of exaggerated praise for the one and condemnation of the other. Arthur Bestor, a professor of history and one of the most vocal of the popular critics, told a reporter for the US News and World Report that American secondary education declined in quality because of the confusion of professional educators. The teachers, according to Bestor, merely obeyed orders to push aside the fundamentals in favor of leaching students how to act on dates and how to select good radio programs. He pointed out that the Soviet second graders spend forty per cent of their time on science and mathematics and that they don't play at it. The implication is that for American education time is play time.

Closing

Unwarranted criticisms need to be examined and evaluated, be it in the public schools or other facet of life. In the case of warranted criticism, the complaints need to be assessed and analyzed. Improved techniques of teaching and instruction should follow. Each profession should have a desire to improve. Thus, if evidence is there, public schools need to develop better objectives, quality learning opportunities to achieve the objectives, and appraisal procedures to ascertain if the objectives have been attained. Respect is necessary for all in school and in society. A caring and concerned environment should be the lot of all. Having scapegoats in education and the societal arenas serves no useful purpose.