
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><em>For the record, the largest portion of my career was dealing with education – as senior consultant to the Chicago and Detroit Boards of Education, the Milton Friedman Foundation for School Choice, the Chicago Teachers’ Academy, Marva Collins’ Westside Prep for children trapped in the segregated ghetto … and many other client and voluntary involvements. ; I derive my perspective and opinions from on-the-job experience – not from political narratives of the right or the left.</em></p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">While the 1960s can be viewed as a positive pivot point for feminism, gay rights and civil rights, it was a disaster for patriotism, law enforcement, family values, work ethic … and education. ; In fact, the realignment of the American public-school systems away from the so-called “basics” into laboratories of social and cultural indoctrination may have been the reasons for the other corrupting trends.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Education has a two-fold purpose; to provide the next generation with the intellectual skills to function in society and to achieve in the American opportunity society … and to provide an understanding and appreciation of the civics, history and values of the unique American culture.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">After more than half century of evolving “liberalism,” we now have an American education system – from pre-school to advanced degrees – that is failing in both purposes. ; The United States is far from the world leader in producing the best brains in the world – and basic American values have been supplanted with a leftwing culture based on arbitrary and faux progressive paradigms.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The shift in cultural values has become a front-burner issue, pitting parents against the current education industrial complex. ; While that is a critical issue – and one I visit periodically – this commentary focuses on the failure of progressive education in terms of the basics. ; That refers to the body of knowledge that the American people need to maintain world leadership in science, commerce and standard-of-living.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">In the wake of the latest achievement report, there has been an uptick in political and media attention – and public concern. ; And well there should be. ; ;</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) – often referred to as the Nation’s Report Card &#8212; America has suffered a historic decline in student achievement in math, science and reading across grades and groups. ; The NAEP reports that there has been no student improvement since the 1990s. ; And this year, America suffered a major decline in student outcomes.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Many attribute this precipitous decline to the impact of the Covid Pandemic – using it as an excuse to gloss over the longer trend. ; There is some truth to the impact of Covid, but the decline has been going on for decades. ; Furthermore, the alleged impact of Covid is now recognized as the result of progressive and woke policies that shut down the American education system unnecessarily – for political reasons, not legitimate health or learning concerns.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The education industrial establishment often uses artificial evaluations of school quality that are designed to mask the results of achievement testing. ; During my days as consultant to the Chicago Board of Education, the union published a report alleging ”improvement” in the quality of public school education. ; It was based on the morale of teachers – not student test scores. ; In fact, the latter were declining.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">More recently (2022), US News and World Report – in cooperation with Wharton School – published an article claiming American higher education was number one in the world, followed by Britian, Germany, Canada and France. ; The survey was based on the “perceptions” of respondents – mostly associated with the education establishment – not on student test scores.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">We do have recent studies based on student achievement. ; And what do they show?</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">According to the Program for International Student Achievement (PISA) – which studies reading, math and science scores in 79 nations – the United States is 38<sup>th</sup> in math, 19<sup>th</sup> in science and 13<sup>th</sup> in reading. ; In the all-important math category, the top seven nations are all Asian – China, Singapore, Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. ; You will note that China, Macao, Hong Kong (and arguably Taiwan) are ALL China.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">(As a personal footnote: ; I travelled to China on business often and the one thing I observed was the government’s and the parents’ devotion to their kids’ education. ; The poorest villages had schools that would be the envy of any middle-class American suburb. ; Fewer school holidays. ; Hours of classroom teaching are almost double that of the United States. And there is a myopic focus on basic math and science … and mandatory English. ; In terms of pure numbers China is becoming the most English-speaking nation in the world. ; It is also important to understand that while lawyers are the ruling class in America, the ruling class of China are engineers. ; But I digress.)</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Is our main interest the satisfaction of those running the schools or the students’ education? ; The education establishment – along with their unions – has long opposed student testing that indicates real academic outcomes in key disciplines. ; They oppose teacher testing to ascertain competence. ; They protect incompetent teachers from being replaced. ; The unions and the leftwing education establishment have – from time to time – promoted Ebonics for black children, shortened workdays, shortened school years, social promotion, concealment of dropout rate, lowering standards and opposition to successful charter and choice school programs. ; And much more. ; Instead of improving student performance, the education establishment changes (dumbs down) the evaluation of process.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Progressives currently exert massive control over the education of American children – and the curriculum. ; There has been a realignment of education from the “basics” to cultural controversies that have transformed schools from loci of education to laboratories of political and philosophic indoctrination based on the meaningless and divisiveness of identity politics, political correctness and wokeness.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Perhaps the greatest and most sinister failure of public school education is in the segregated minority communities in America’s major cities. ; This is not a natural outcome, but the results of sinister institutional racism that only advantages the political, union and education establishment that run those generationally failed schools. ;</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The education establishment mostly blames lack of funding and classroom size for the declining educational quality in America – when not blaming the parents. ; Those are canards. ; There is no correlation between funding and classroom achievement. ; Private, parochial and charter schools consistently outperform public schools despite lower costs and larger classroom sizes. ; Students – even in highly acclaimed suburban public schools – generally trend lower than their international or private school counterparts.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">America has a crisis in education. ; It will not be corrected by an educational established that relies on the current system for power and profit. ; The most promising reform is school choice – in which parents and students can use the taxpayer resources to select the best schools without being forced into inferior or misguided education by the education lobby &#8212; and the politicians it supports. ; Through competition, public schools will either improve or die off on an individual basis. ; And that is a good thing – unless you believe in supporting those who have been responsible for the dangerous decline in American education. ;</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">In researching this commentary, I came across this quote. “The legacy of the 1960s is still evident in American education today, but so are its problems.” ; It implies that the legacy of the 1960s was positive. I would contend that the legacy of the 1960s IS the problem – and we are seeing the tragic results today.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">So, there ‘tis.</p>

Progressive and Racist Education is Destroying Public Education … and It Ain’t New
