Editorial: Intelligent solutions to our society's problems, or how many politicians does it take to change a light bulb?

School Science and Mathematics, Mar 1998 by Lederman, Norman G, Niess, Margaret L

The number of individuals who die from heart disease each year continues to increase, in spite of the fact that the amount of research funds dedicated to cardiac research continues to climb. Shouldn't we stop funding such research? Clearly, our doctors and medical researchers are not qualified to solve the problem at hand. Our tax dollars would be better spent elsewhere.

Crime rates continue to escalate worldwide despite increased prison building and more enlightened views of criminology, group dynamics, and social behavior. Just what are the criminologists, law enforcement experts and sociologists doing? Clearly they are incapable of resolving our crime problems. These individuals are not properly trained, for if they were, crime would be a thing of the past. Universities should carefully consider whether to continue their departments of sociology and programs in criminology.

The World Health Organization continues to report that the nutritional health of our world population is generally declining with both malnutrition and obesity on the rise. Just what are the dieticians and nutritional experts doing anyway? Are these individuals certified competent? Funneling more monies into nutritional research and physiological studies is unwarranted. The evidence clearly indicates that "throwing" additional money at our nutritional problems has resulted in decreased health rather than a solution to our problems.

Related to the problem of humans' waning nutritional state is the worldwide shortage of food. Why are we spending so much money on the improvement of agricultural techniques and farming practices? Farmers and agricultural researchers are not qualified to solve the problem at hand. The evidence is clear. The more money we spend, the worse the problems become.

Although an ever-increasing amount of money is provided for automobile safety technology and the development of more rigorous safety regulations, deaths from automobile accidents continue to compete with cardiac disease for top honors in the fatality arena. Just what are these engineers and lawmakers doing? Do they have certified competence of having any knowledge about safety? Perhaps the engineers do, but look what they haven't done with all the money they receive.

The National Centers for Disease Control is, perhaps, one of the worst offenders of the misuse of public funds. Yes, cures and treatments for many of the world's most aggressive and virulent disease agents are routinely found. Yet, for every cure a new disease or ailment arises, and the overall effect is a decrease in the general health of the world's population. Is more money for research what is needed? If anything, we should reconsider where to direct our hardearned dollars.

Is there a need to talk about continued efforts to improve the environment? Probably not. You get the point.

If all of this isn't enough to make the most optimistic individual skeptical, what is happening in U.S. schools? Johnny STILL CAN'T READ! After the expenditure of billions and billions of dollars following the launching of Sputnik, not only can Johnny not read, but he also cannot solve simultaneous equations or determine the density of a simple compound. Should we spend more money on education? Should we pour more money into education programs to help improve the quality of teaching? CERTAINLY NOT! Schools of education and education programs are not our salvation. We have funded such institutions at exorbitant rates for the past three decades, and all we have to show are student who skills are declining and who are unable to qualify for the most basic employment.

Immediately following the heralding in of the new year, President Clinton and Congress, according to the Associated Press, began to consider the problem of the projected need for 2 million new classroom teachers during the coming decade. Numerous proposals of teacher recruitment are being considered, and the debates over whether graduates of teacher colleges are prepared for the classroom have predictably surfaced.

Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Foundation has stated, "We don't have faith that by sending more money and power to schools of education that we're actually going to get the types of teachers that we need." This conclusion makes perfect sense, because experience has shown us that schools of education are ineffective at preparing teachers for our nation's schools. Why else do we have all the educational problems that few would deny exist? Schools of education should probably be closed and, more to the point, teacher educators should probably be replaced by subject matter specialists (e.g., mathematicians and scientists).

Does this line of reasoning sound familiar? It should. It is virtually the same used in the opening paragraphs of this editorial. Yet, our politicians and the general public would immediately view those examples as a joke. Did you react with equal skepticism to all of the examples? Probably not, and this may be even more serious than the spurious conclusions reached in each of the examples.