A Culture War in the Schools

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 27, 2000 | by Aimee Welch

A prominent education scholar who served in the Bush administration reveals the harm `progressive' educational methods have wreaked in the U.S, public-school system.

On the campaign trail Texas Gov. George W. Bush called for a $26.6 billion "crusade" to hold schools accountable for meeting minimum standards of performance. Vice President Al Gore called for a $115 billion "revolution" to "invest" more money to aid falling schools. Although the states and local communities still pay 93 percent of the bills for public schools, promises of federal initiatives for improving the U.S. educational system have flown thick and fast.

National debates on education standards, curricula and methods are nothing new, as education historian Diane Ravitch demonstrates in her new book Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms (Simon and Schuster), and history has some lessons for today's would-be reformers. But, as Ravitch puts it, "what is needed before broad implementation of any innovation takes place is clear evidence of its effectiveness. Schools must be flexible enough to try new instructional methods and organizational patterns, and intelligent enough to gauge their success over time in accomplishing their primary mission: educating children."

A fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Ravitch long has been an influential voice among those seeking change in education policy. Author of more than a dozen books, she served as assistant secretary of education in charge of education research during the senior George Bush's presidency while still a registered Democrat. After leaving that office she registered as an independent but served as an education-policy consultant to Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush. She explains that she is nonpartisan and also has consulted on education with President Clinton and Gore.

There has been speculation about Ravitch as a possible secretary of education in a new Bush administration, and Ravitch seems surprised when Insight asks her about it. "I like living in New York" she laughs. "I don't have any political ambitions." As this magazine goes to press, a Bush staffer tells Insight that the governor has been focused on the election and has not yet discussed possible appointments. "But personally, I think she's wonderful," says the staff insider.

In Left Back Ravitch has composed a fresh account of the people and ideas that shaped the present U.S. school system and examines the pitfalls to avoid in implementing future reform. In a review of her influential new book, Martin Morse Wooster, associate editor of the American Enterprise, summarized the unresolved 100-year debate Ravitch chronicles:

"What's the reason why we send our children to school? Is it to teach them the best of what Western civilization has produced? Or is it to teach skills that might prove useful to future employers? Of all the debates in education this argument between traditionalists and self-styled `progressives' is the longest-running and the most important."

According to Ravitch, there was a general consensus among educators of the 19th century "that the best way to improve society was to offer a sound education to as many children as possible. They believed that well-educated individuals would become responsible citizens and would improve society by dint of their intelligence and character." She describes this philosophy as an educational ladder open to children of all social backgrounds from preschool to the university.

Not that there ever has been a golden age of education, explains Ravitch. Although she praises the traditional content of this era, she is critical of rigid traditional teaching methods that emphasized dry (sometimes mindless) drill, falling fully to engage children's faculties or take into account differences in learning styles.

As methods came into question by reformers, however, so did the consensus about the meaning of education. With the advent and evolution of social psychology around the turn of the 20th century-- social Darwinism following on the heels of Charles Darwin's scientistic notions about survival of the fittest -- advocates of progressive academics began to argue that the purpose of education was not to convey knowledge but "adaptation of the individual to his society" It gradually became popular to argue that it was "inefficient" to require students to study any subject matter that did not demonstrate "immediate utility." Intellectuals made the anti-intellectual argument that there was little need to offer girls or immigrants or minorities rigorous academic curricula. What value could higher mathematics or ancient languages hold for them?

One progressive movement followed another, most claiming an ideological heritage from John Dewey; sometimes they overlapped and some contradicted one another.

Many school districts began categorizing children and setting them in separate tracks by the age of 12. Intelligence tests were promoted among school administrators by developers who claimed they could discern scientifically which children it would pay society to give academic training.