From Bruce Deitrick Price at American Thinker:
When we contemplate public schools, two things are certain. Almost everyone agrees that the schools are not as good as they should be, given the huge effort and expenditure. Second, everyone has a theory.
You can hardly read a newspaper without some expert telling you yet another reason why the public schools are a mess. Much blame is heaped on parents. Other culprits include popular culture, the internet, teachers, the students themselves, and of course, the perennial favorite, not enough money. We are often told, if only the American people cared, they would spend enough to create world-class schools. Another set of discussions deals with administrative or organizational solutions: testing, accountability, charter schools, vouchers, teacher training, promotions, unions, class size, and many more.
My conclusion is that all these theories remain more on the surface than people would like to suppose. Equally troubling, the endless debates turn out to be distractions. Millions of hours are sunk into solving problems that remain unsolved. The practical result is that the public is demoralized and numbed.
Doesn’t all this suggest we are not looking deeply enough? We are not looking at what the professors of education call theories and methods. It’s probably safe to predict that if you have good ones, you’ll get good results. Unfortunately, we have bad ones.
Let’s look at the intellectual machinery, one wobbly gear at a time.
Read more: American Thinker
