America’s public schools were one of the glories of the nation until recently. Politicians hailed them as a symbol of democracy, a public institution open to all, supported by taxpayers, and controlled by elected local boards.
Local business leaders frequently served on local school boards. Americans broadly understood that the schools prepared the rising generation to be good citizens and to sustain our democracy. Certain principles were taken for granted: public funds were never used to fund religious schools; teachers and principals were career professionals, often the most educated members of their community, and were respected.
This is not to say that everything was rosy. I have written several books about the controversies that rocked the schools, especially over desegregation, which encountered vehement resistance in both the South and the North.
But despite the battles over race, curriculum, and other matters, the public schools garnered high praise from the public and elected officials.
However, this iconic symbol began to take a drubbing in 1983, when the Reagan-era National Commission on Excellence in Education released its harshly negative report called “A Nation at Risk.” The commission claimed that the nation’s schools were mired in a sea of mediocrity, that test scores were on a downward spiral, and that the nation’s public schools were responsible for the loss of major industries to other nations.
The reaction to the report was immediate: states set up task forces and commissions to find solutions to the schools’ crisis. Higher standards for students and teachers, more time in school, tougher curricula, etc.
The one refrain that became the legacy of “A Nation at Risk” was: Our schools are failing.
But we now know that the report was a hoax. James Harvey, who worked on the commission’s staff, explained that the books were cooked to produce a negative result. The data were cherry-picked to paint the schools in the worst possible light. The conclusions were a lie. The report ignored positive findings and chose to ignore the students living in poverty, the students with disabilities, and the other socioeconomic challenges facing the nation’s schools.
So today, relying on the Big Lie of 1983 (“our schools are failing”), ideologues, grifters, tax-cutters, religious interests, and others have joined forces to grab the money now devoted to public schools.
To the original Big Lie have been added new Big Lies to advance the cause of privatization and profits:
Big Lie number one: Test scores are reliable indicators of school and teacher quality. This simple but wrong idea was the basis for No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. It overlooks the well-known fact that test scores are highly correlated with family income and are influenced more by home conditions than by teachers or schools. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of public schools were closed because of their inability to meet high test score goals. All of the closed schools were in impoverished communities. Thousands of teachers were penalized or fired because they taught the children with the biggest challenges, those who didn’t speak English, those with severe disabilities, those whose lives were in turmoil due to extreme poverty.
Big Lie number two: Teachers need not be professional to get good results. Inexperienced teachers with high expectations and a few weeks of training will get better results than career professionals. This lie undercut the profession, undermined respect for teachers, and was the founding myth of Teach for America.
Big Lie number three: the private sector will run schools more effectively than local government, therefore we need more charter schools. BUT: The charter sector has spawned scandals, with private entrepreneurs embezzling millions of dollars for themselves. Some charters get high test scores by excluding weak students, some get high scores by attrition of weak students. Many charter schools close every year due to academic or financial problems. On average, charter schools do not get better results than public schools.
Big Lie number four: vouchers will produce higher test scores. BUT: Voucher schools, funded with taxpayer dollars, are usually exempt from state testing and are not accountable as public schools are. Where voucher students do take state tests, they fall farther and farther behind their peers in public schools. Now that it’s well-known that voucher schools are academically behind public schools, their proponents have moved the goalposts to say: Parents should choose, no matter what the studies show about test scores.
The Republican Party, with few exceptions, has swallowed the Big Lies and is intent on giving every student—regardless of income—a voucher to attend a religious school, private school, or home school.
For the first time in two centuries, the very concept of public schools is in jeopardy.
Ninety percent of Americans were educated in public schools. That ninety percent made America a successful nation by most measures. Public schools built bridges among diverse communities.
What will the new paradigm contribute to our nation?
“America’s public schools were one of the glories of the nation until recently. Politicians hailed them as a symbol of democracy, a public institution open to all, supported by taxpayers, and controlled by elected local boards.”
That must have been before my time because I can’t recall any of that and I am no youngster.
Even when I was teaching over two decades ago, all I recall is politicians badmouthing public schools and teachers.
Then again, I would not consider Before Reagan “recent”
That may be the problem. Before Reagan is not ancient it is recent. It took decades to achieve their goals. So 20 years ago the trend of badmouthing Public Schools was already acceptable. 20 years later they are poised for the kill.
Before Reagan was nearly half a century ago (43 years)
That’s not particularly recent in my view.
And modern history dates back to the 15th century. Any event that happened in my adult life is certainly modern history. Reagan in particular represented a paradigm in American and Americans economic thinking. One that we are still living with and suffering from. Whether you are talking Unions , Education , taxation …
It usually requires major shocks, Black Swan events to overthrow these belief systems. The oil shocks combined with automation in the 70s, foriegn competition and desegregation created the environment to kill the New Deal Era. The Great Recession should have dispelled with the lie of neo liberalism.
Obama was not up to the task of doing it. Or had no desire to do so.
One of your best. Saved. It will be used. Thx for the succinct talking points!
agreed
Prostiticians (sic) are simply performing the servileces the Capital Corporate Financial Sector is paying them to perform. They want to convert Public Education into a tax-endowed private-profit industry on the model of Defense, Big Oil, etc. because those are the sweetest of the sweetheart deals they can possibly imagine.
Thank you, Jon.
and here I thought I was being original …
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Prostitician
❤
Nailed it, Jon.
Reagan was the ‘mouthpiece” for the far right. He was a complete DOLT.
Then came the others, who bought into the “LINES” Reagan was reading from the script he was given by the far right.
Why the DEM potuses and the other DEMS didn’t speak out is a MYSTERY to me.
American Public Education went ‘downhill’ with the onset of Charters and Vouchers.
I would like to add: “SEPARATION OF CHURCH and STATE” are most important, and many of these ‘so-called’ non-public schools are pushing their religious ideology, which should remain private and not in schools or government.
I support the separation of church and state. Look at the countries where this is not codified.
Texas Gov Abbott says that public schools “indoctrinate,” so kids need vouchers to go to religious schools, where they get an education. Not. They get indoctrination.
Kids get the indoctrination people like Abbott wants them to have by removing democracy and parents from the equation. Abbott, DeSantis and other fascists in the GOP might as well say the state they build will teach our children to think like they want them to think. With the MAGA fascists in charge, our kids won’t need parents anymore. And many parents will end up fearing their own children.
During the Third Reich, Hitler’s Nazis targeted the education of children to indoctrinate them to the point they even turn their parents in if their parents didn’t exhibit the proper thinking as defined by the Nazis.
The same thing happened During Mao’s Cultural Revolution with the Little Red Guard. Many parents in China during this era were afraid of their children turning them in, too.
Anchee Min writes about that in her memoir Red Azalea.
State Catholic Conferences have been and are leaders in the school privatization campaign. The Executive Director of the Colorado Catholic Conference was formerly with the Koch network and EdChoice.
Amy Comey Barrett’s good friend at Notre Dame, was the single most important legal scholar responsible for religious charter schools- Prof. Nicole Stelle Garnett. She is a senior fellow at the Koch’s Manhattan Institute and she clerked for Clarence Thomas.
Linda, I’m wondering how you became so fascinated by Catholicism and its influences on political affairs. Care to share?
“Why the DEM potuses and the other DEMS didn’t speak out is a MYSTERY to me.”
The influence of neoliberalism on the left and neoconservatism on the right may help explain why DEM & GOP potuses have done little to nothing to stop this self destruction.
https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2019/6/11/18660240/democrats-neoliberalism
Yvonne
“Why the DEM potuses and the other DEMS didn’t speak out ”
Kurt Anderson explains why in “Evil Geniuses ”
So after significant portions of working class Americans and Union members voted for that “DOLT” after voting for Nixon twice. Then after an orgy of Union busting initiated by Reagan, significant numbers of Union members voted for the Union buster and chief 2 more times (Shrub Senior being # 2 ). Having seen the traditional FDR New Deal base disappear. Democrats right through Obama ran with their tails between their legs away from the FDR / LBJ legacy. Liberal had become a dirty word. The new base of the Democratic Party became Minorities with no place to go. White progressives also with no alternative and the same corporate overlords as were funding the Republican Party.Whose loyalty was only as good as the economic policy a presiding party could deliver (Jamie Dimon). Paying lip service to the old working class base (including teachers ) while delivering for the donors.
Biden is attempting to break that mold. He is neither appreciated by large numbers of the working class (or union members ) nor by the nihilist Left, ie. the Dienne’s !
After confronting my “Problem Solver Caucus ” NY Congressman at several Town Halls. Who would highlight his connection to the Building Trades Unions. He invited me to meet with him in his District office.
“You realize your members /Brothers don’t vote for us”
Sadly I do the Leadership of the Union movement can no longer deliver the votes of its members as they did in the 30s -60s. Nor can they compete with money from the Oligarchy.
Wow, Diane, you’ve said it all in this short piece. I know you’ve lived a part of it–seen the changes from top down. Thanks for all you do in exposing the lie of public-school failure.
My own life has been dedicated to public education. I was lucky to grow up in a working-class family in a very prosperous Flint, Michigan of the ’50’s, where public funding and private generosity built great public schools. My last year of high school was in Southern Ohio, where I saw schools that were–good, but not equal to those of prosperous Michigan. In Southern Ohio I also saw the raw edge of segregation, where I couldn’t socialize with black or brown friends, though I could go to school with them.
The differences I saw, and the great teachers I had in both Flint and Portsmouth, inspired me to be a teacher and work for school improvement. And though my work and advocacy took me out of the classroom to union halls and government service, I went back to the place I loved, the classroom.
My own teaching career allowed me to use the “hands-on” methods of progressive education–essentially, “learn by doing.” I taught kids democracy by using debate, mock governments, mock communities, mock trials, etc–using the idea that you couldn’t learn to play football by just hearing a lecture, or reading a book, and you can’t learn democracy that way either. I taught English similarly, by having students write plays, then perform them for their parents on Saturdays.
“Nation at Risk” was in part a Republican fight-back against Carter Democrats who had created a national Education Department–at the urging of NEA–and teacher unionism, of which I was privileged to play a part.
My path to understanding what’s happening to our schools and our nation has been different than yours, but we’ve reached the same conclusions. Now, retired, I keep working at supporting our schools and our struggling democracy by my writing. I’ve had a column in at least one newspaper since the 1980’s. And I’ve read your books. We can’t give up.
Thanks for all you do!
Jack Burgess
Chillicothe, Ohio
Jack, you have led a good and worthy life. I think there’s a special place in heaven (or wherever) for those who have spent their time in lives of service. Thank you for your work.
Same, Jack!
I also grew up in working class Philly in the 1950s where the schools were clean and welcoming with well maintained buildings. The false narratives feed the false belief that privatization is the answer to shifting demographics, but it is not. Quality education requires investment, and all students deserve the opportunity to attend a clean, welcoming public school staffed by professional teachers regardless of their socioeconomic status or the color of their skin. The commodification of education is a wasteful scam.
“My last year of high school was in Southern Ohio, where I saw schools that were–good, but not equal to those of prosperous Michigan.”
Do I sense an Ohio vs Michigan rivalry?
Your students were fortunate
Correction:
“The Republican Party ALONG WITH THE DEMOCRATS, with few exceptions, has swallowed the Big Lies. . .”
exactly right
The politicians of both parties sure want the American public to swallow the lies about schools and teachers.
Whether the politicians themselves have swallowed (ie, actually believe) the lies is another matter.
False narratives feed false beliefs.
Do effective false narratives
begin where public education ends?
BTW, Sinclair Broadcasting is running nightly ‘stories’ about how superior charter and voucher schools are. It is constant drumbeat of propaganda designed to discourage parents from sending their children to public schools.
Many of the liars like Sinclair Broadcasting have a significant reach. They own about 200 stations in 100 markets and reach about 40% of the TV audience. That is a lot of people watching this biased messaging as part of the local news broadcast.
There are plenty of false narratives in the public school realm starting with the standards and testing malpractice regime.
Sadly, very few in the public school realm stand up and point out those false beliefs/narratives.
But, but, how can there
be salvation if kids don’t
learn proper english?
How can there be redemption
if kids can’t read the books,
that have yet to change the
powers that be?
The charter/voucher scam may well be the biggest scam in American history. The results of their fraudulent management is so obvious it boggles the mind.. Billions in taxpayer dollars…YOUR dollars mismanaged into the pockets of “high class” grifters. Public school teachers are well educated, gifted, caring educators. The privatization industry will knowingly, outright lie to you for no other purposes than to politicize and monitors education only to line their pockets. Do not believe the lies. Public school overwhelmingly out perform charters and vouchers, and they teach children to analyze, investigate and think critically, not blindly follow some pre-determined dogma.
Are religious charter schools a scam also?
The legal scholar most responsible for advancing religious charter schools was, formerly, a clerk for Clarence Thomas. She is a senior fellow at the Koch’s Manhattan Institute. She’s been good friends with Amy Comey Barrett since their time at Notre Dame. Prof. Garnett is still a professor at
Notre Dame. In 2012 , she opposed vouchers expressing that Catholic schools would have to conform to secular requirements. I presume that religious charter schools were the answer.
Jefferson- in every age, in every country, the priest aligns with the despot.
Republicans really, really, really want to transfer as many kids as possible into fundamentalist Christian religious schools.
“In our age, the AI aligns with the Corporation.” — SomeDAM Poet
In other words, in our age, the AI aligns with the despot.
“The charter/voucher scam may well be the biggest scam in American history.”
No, by far the standards and testing malpractice regime is the biggest scam in American public education history.
You have heard my “Tales from the Trenches” in past posts…This is what I know…I came into teaching because someone told me I would make a good teacher. Me? I doubted myself. I volunteered. I shadowed. I wanted to make sure I was good enough to develop young minds. I studied my “brains out” to pass the NTE because I didn’t have a teaching credential. I could have quit when I missed the exam by one point (660 passing — ME 659). But, I said, “I will try again. And, now I can relate to those kids who miss passing tests.” When I got into my first classroom as a long-term sub, I couldn’t believe the non-sensical crap they were teaching. It made no sense to me. Then it slowly turned to the “canned programs” and slowly took away anything one could do with their hands. There was no time for thinking or asking too many questions because these children needed to “pass the test!” I busted my rear end to help these children, but was often told, “You are spending too much time teaching! You need to be through the book by the end of the school year.” I did everything I thought would make kids love learning, but was let go as I had no tenure. Get this, they put my letter on the back of my son (he was in kindergarten and that’s how they sent information home to parents) — Wow! There was not a day that went by I told myself, “I’m done. This is it. I can’t deal with this crap anymore. They don’t let me “do my thing” that works.” But, I knew no one would advocate for these kids. As I grew more confident, I went rogue and when the doors were closed basically did what Jack did — gave the kids the advantage I could. And, in close, what the article describes reminds me of my student from Cameroon who had to pay for school. And if she had funding, they immediately kicked her out. She told me it was unbelievable she could actually talk to me and discuss her goals, dreams, and family. Students were not allowed to converse with the teachers and if they caused problems, they were beaten. Fun “shiny happy people” stuff. My heart hurts for these kids, but just to let you know many of my “non-conformists” students who never scored well on those tests, have nice families and doing well in our community. Blessings all.
Even though one might honestly argue that “A Nation At Risk” exaggerated the challenges confronting the Nation’s public schools, I believe it would be a mistake to ignore the momentum it provided to honest, nonsensical school reformers.
For example the argument that the achievement gap needed to be addressed in a systematic manner encourage many reform- minded professional educators to challenge those in the educational community whom argued that nothing could be done to narrow this gap as long as income inequalities existed.
As someone who grew up in poverty, and who benefited greatly from the support of a stream of talented teachers, my experiences taught me that teachers situated in the proper climate could make a substantial difference in the lives of their historically disadvantaged students.
Consequently, while it is important to conduct an honest assessment of the inflated promises made in A Nation At Risk, it is also important that we do not strip this report of the role it played in stimulating a host of substantial reforms in our notions of what needed to be done to close the achievement gap.
Lastly, it is essential to remember that A Nation At Risk resulted in a wave of reform efforts at the State and Local level. While the authors of this report may be correctly blamed for distorting their data, it should be noted that many of these local efforts led to the establishment of hundreds of community-based reforms.
For example, in my role as Dean of one of the nation’s leading research universities, I used the Report to generate the resources needed to establish a pioneering doctoral program to prepare a new generation of equity-minded school district leaders committed to championing evidence-based educational reforms.”
To summarize: Was “A Nation At Risk” an exaggerated account of the problems afflicting US Public Education? Of course it was. Nevertheless, like most national call to arms, it was understood that it’s purpose was not to champion minor adjustments in the status quo, but to ensure a vigorous debate, designed to rattle proponents of the status quo.
From the perspective of someone who was desperately looking for a mechanism to promote education reform, I’m pleased that this report came out when it did.
Again, I’m not suggesting that the authors of A Nation At Risk should be treated as “angels,” but it would be misleading to treat them as “the devils” portrayed in recent publications.
“. . . I believe it would be a mistake to ignore the momentum it provided to honest, nonsensical school reformers.”
Who were those “honest, nonsensical school reformers”?
I would include Diane Ravitch as a member of this group. I believe her work the US Department of Education was designed to improve opportunities for historically disadvantaged students.
A review of Albert Shaker’s columns would also show that he also sought to leverage the findings of A Nation At Risk to promote substantial educational reforms. This did not mean that he embraced Charter Schools and similar initiatives designed to privatize public education. The point I’m attempting to make is that we need not distort history to make the case that “A Nation At Risk” included a flawed analysis of the nation’s public schools.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was a flawed indicator of the performance of the nation’s public schools. Most professional educators knew this to be the case, and many, including my self, spoke out against this in various publications.
Check the archives; you’ll find many progressive political leaders and educators whom attempted to leverage the findings of “A Nation At Risk” to promote substantial improvements in the educational status quo.
Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the privatization of education has resulted in superior results The commodification of education has led to dwindling public school budgets and waste, segregation, fraud and embezzling public funds in the charter school sector. It has also led to school closures, massive disruption and the firing of many teachers. None of this is progress, and neither is all the money spent to test and collect data. While a few young people may be in a better educational setting from so-called reform, many more have paid the price for some other student’s better circumstance.
By defending A Nation at Risk in such fashion, you’re pretty much saying cautionary tales like Chicken Little and The Boy Who Cried Wolf are stories of the conflicted but big hearted. I must strongly disagree. If you’re a physician and you want your patient to stop eating saturated fat, you don’t purposely give your patient a false positive cancer diagnosis. Exaggerating danger to produce a reaction is wrong whether you hold a doctorate or your mother’s hand when your cross the street.
Not mentioning that the education status quo in 1983 was better than the education status quo in 2023. A Nation at Risk had no desirable outcomes. None.
The central theme of A Nation at Risk was that a “rising tide of mediocrity” threatened American national security and “economic competitiveness.”
There was no truth to the claim. But “reformers” acted on it to usher in such “reforms” as lots more testing, and teacher “accountability” based on test scores, and more private school vouchers.
The Sandia Report (Journal of Educational Research, May/June, 1993), published in the wake of A Nation at Risk, examined carefully its specific claims. The Sandia researchers concluded that:
“..on nearly every measure we found steady or slightly improving trends.”
“youth today [the 1980s] are choosing natural science and engineering degrees at a higher rate than their peers of the 1960s.”
“average performance of ‘traditional’ test takes on the SAT has actually improved over 30 points since 1975…”
“Although it is true that the average SAT score has been declining since the sixties, the reason for the decline is not decreasing student performance. We found that the decline arises from the fact that more students in the bottom half of the class are taking the SAT than in years past…More people in America are aspiring to achieve a college education…so the national SAT average is lowered as more students in the 3rd and 4th quartiles of their high school classes take the test. This phenomenon, known as Simpson’s paradox, sows that an average can change in a direction opposite from all subgroups if the proportion of the total represented by the subgroups changes.”
“business leaders surveyed are generally satisfied with the skill levels of their employees, and the problems that do exist do not appear to point to the k-12 education system as a root cause.”
“The student performance data clearly indicate that today’s youth are achieving levels of education at least as high as any previous generation.”
So, ‘A Nation at Risk’ was all a lie.
To suggest that its purpose was to “ensure vigorous debate and…to rattle proponents of the status quo,” in public education is to purposefully live in fantasyland.
“Although it is true that the average SAT score has been declining since the sixties, the reason for the decline is not decreasing student performance. We found that the decline arises from the fact that more students in the bottom half of the class are taking the SAT than in years past…More people in America are aspiring to achieve a college education…so the national SAT average is lowered as more students in the 3rd and 4th quartiles of their high school classes take the test. This phenomenon, known as Simpson’s paradox, sows that an average can change in a direction opposite from all subgroups if the proportion of the total represented by the subgroups changes.”
Ding ding ding. Thank you for posting something that apparently is beyond the understanding of most education reporters, and folks like Elizabeth Greene at Chalkbeat NY who has yet to apologize for her fawning profile of Eva Moskowitz in which she marveled at the miracle achieved by a high performing charter school with a shockingly high attrition rate, that clearly drums out (or flunks multiple times) students who aren’t achieving academically.
The more a school is inclusive, the lower the “average” of SAT scores are. The more ALL students are required to be in school until they are 18 or get a high school diploma, the lower the “average performance” of high school students will be.
The sad thing is that this kind of incompetent statistical-analysis by the education reform movement SHOULD be a sign to bar them from being anywhere near education (or education reporting). Any scientist knows that there is no validity to comparing results — particularly “average” results — from a truly random sample and a sample that CLEARLY excludes those who are most likely to have the worst results. When that happens in medical research, it is a scandal. When that happens in education research, NYT and Chalkbeat reporters apparently are required to include in every story about education a casual mention of the superior test results achieved by charters as unimpeachable evidence of charter superiority. Rather than unimpeachable evidence that the oversight agency has been corrupt and implicitly racist for refusing to look closely as to why so many students are essentially “counseled out” even after a high percentage are already excluded simply because of the many hoops parents are required to jump through simply to enroll their kid.
NYC parent,
Yep. So-called education reporters should – one would hope – at least be somewhat educated in the history of public education. They generally, as far as I can tell, are not. You’ve noted some of them in your comment. There are plenty of others. I can think on one in particular at The Post who has long been a shill for the College Board and Advanced Placement.
I can think of another, who’s the editor of the Education Writer’s Association, for crying-out-loud, who said in regard to the release of NAEP scores that we should we should worried that “just 43 percent“ of 8th graders met NAEP proficiency levels, and this is very serious business because those NAEP proficiency standards measure the “skills that experts say Americans must have if they are to compete in a global marketplace.
As if 8th graders hold the key – somehow – to American economic competitiveness. That supposition alone is pretty baseless. It also reflects a complete failure to understand how the American government makes economic policies, and how the global marketplace works.
As one example, Republicans still repudiate Bill Clinton for raising taxes in 1993. Not a single Republican votes FOR that increase. Here’s how Bruce Bartlett described out the result:
“According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal budget deficit fell every year of the Clinton administration, from $290 billion in 1992 to $255 billion in 1993, $203 billion in 1994, $164 billion in 1995, $107 billion in 1996, and $22 billion in 1997. In 1998, there was a budget surplus of $69 billion, which rose to $126 billion in 1999 and $236 billion in 2000 before it was dissipated by huge tax cuts during the George W. Bush administration.”
And then, Bush ignored dire warnings of imminent terrorist threats in the U.S., launched an unfunded war on a country that was not involved in the 9/11 attacks, and broke the economy. The effects of those three things on the American and world economies were IMMENSE.
But 8th grade NAEP scores.