Public Opinion and Public Education
By Chris Pipho
Illustration © 1998 by Mario Noche
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Public Opinion and Public EducationBy Chris Pipho Illustration © 1998 by Mario Noche | ||
THE STORY that public education is failing has a tenacious hold on our nation's consciousness. Politicians and the mass media have heard the drumbeat for so long that they often reject positive information simply because repetition of old "truths" seems to hold more news value than any good news. Education writers often react to a positive story by saying, "Yes, I can write it, but my editor won't buy it without a 'problem' spin."
The first spate of international academic comparisons that followed the publication of A Nation at Risk somehow led to the belief that the United States would lose out in the global economic competition simply because of our schools. Listening to David Berliner make a recent presentation to a statewide group of legislators and members of state and local boards was very revealing. Berliner said that, when Japan and the European countries were riding on a high economic wave, you might have been able to sell the idea that schools were responsible. But now that the United States has clearly surpassed all of these countries on economic and employment measures and the stock market continues its upward spiral, education is given no credit for this success. He drove this point home with eloquence, and heads in the audience were visibly nodding. But the people in attendance were probably not moved to change laws or board policies the following week. What will it take to turn public opinion around -- or at least to change the attitude of those who might influence public opinion?
Changing the Slope of the Line
Since 1994, the slope of the line of academic achievement has turned upward, according to data and information gathered by the National Center for Education Statistics as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. But even if this is positive news, the percentage of students still below grade level is large, embarrassingly so in some urban districts. The fact that schools are starting to make slow and steady progress while they are burdened with larger numbers of hard-to-educate students and at the same time face higher state standards is a story that needs to be written. However, turning the corner on student achievement despite a larger at-risk population may be big news in education circles, but the media will probably respond that "Moving in the Right Direction" is not the kind of headline that will survive a sharp pencil on the rewrite desk.
Meanwhile, the call for higher standards grows, and this in turn leaves us with the prospect of a failure gap to explain in the near future. The new commissioner of education in Connecticut, Theodore Sergi, said in a recent interview, "I don't think we have raised the education standards nearly high enough. I know we can do a lot better." He also said that society has not really accepted these higher standards at a personal level. The common belief that mathematics, the sciences, and foreign languages are too difficult for my own children because I had a hard time with these subjects when I was in school leaves teachers with a most difficult task of turning around public opinion. Schools really have to reeducate parents to accept higher standards and then convince the public they are making progress.
In New York, the Board of Regents is proposing higher standards, but critics are saying that the standards are not detailed enough and that teachers need a grade-by-grade core curriculum to assist them in meeting the new standards. By 2003, all students in New York will have to pass a Regents Examination in mathematics, science, American history, and global history in order to graduate from high school.
In short, schools are dealing with a complex reality. No single solution will turn achievement around for all students. And while policy makers tout "phonics only" in early reading, lower class sizes, an end to social promotion, and so on, the reality is that a student who can't read will not be taught to read by a test or the passage of a law. Teachers will need better training and staff development. Curriculum, instructional materials, and even parental attitudes will have to be changed. And even if all these changes were made, the result might be just a gradual increase in the slope of the line of academic achievement. How to make that story simple and believable enough for the mass media may be a bigger challenge than the task of actually teaching the students.
In California, where Proposition 227 mandated that, beginning last September, traditional bilingual education was to be replaced with an exclusive emphasis on English, the Los Angeles Times produced a most positive editorial about the work of teachers who are implementing the mandate with more flexibility than was written into the law. Louis Sahagun, education writer for the Times, interviewed primary teachers in 13 Los Angeles elementary schools, and the editorial headline was "Teachers Show the Way." The Times ended the editorial with, "Proposition 227 may not be the complete answer to the problems of bilingual education. It may not even be the best answer. But, six months after the law took effect, something appears to be working. It goes to show that little miracles can occur in the classroom when children's needs are put ahead of adult agendas."
Some Good News from the Public
Sampling public opinion about education on a broad and impartial basis is seldom done on a scale that is believable. But for the last two years the National PTA, the Center on Education Policy, and Phi Delta Kappa have sponsored 62 local community forums around the country with the purpose of encouraging a broad discussion of how to improve the public schools. During the fall of 1998 the Joyce Foundation awarded these organizations a grant to conduct 10 local meetings in Illinois. Two forums were conducted downstate (Carterville and Quincy), two were held in Chicago (North and South Sides), and the remaining six were held in suburban communities -- Joliet, Berwyn, Homewood, Arlington Heights, Lombard, and Palos Hills.
The purpose of the forums was to encourage a broad local dialogue on how to make public schools better. A secondary purpose was to ask people which actions a new governor, the general assembly, and state and local school boards should take to improve education. Before the meeting, each participant was sent a brochure on the state laws enacted in 1997-98. The discussions were organized around three questions:
The 429 participants at the forums reflected the broad range of society, including parents with children in public and private schools, home-schooling parents, public and private school teachers, administrators, school board members, senior citizens, students, members of the clergy, businesspeople, mayors, law enforcement officers, college and university faculty members, local newspaper and television reporters, and other community people. The number of public school teachers and administrators was limited at each forum.
Jack Jennings of the Center on Education Policy moderated all the sessions and said that one of the surprising findings was the call for the schools to prepare good citizens. While this wasn't always the top priority, he said, it surfaced at each session. The ideas suggested most often as ways to improve public schools were as follows.
Jennings summarized the endeavor, saying that "local citizens have a large store of good will for the public schools and want them to succeed. They recognize that all schools, even the good ones, need to do a better job to prepare children effectively for work, citizenship, and life in the 21st century."
The three organizations will continue to sponsor forums during 1999. Additional information on the local Illinois forums can be found on the Illinois PTA website (www.prairienet.org/ipta/) and on the Center on Education Policy website (www.ctredpol.org).
Building a Sense of Community
In the past 30 or so years the walk to a neighborhood school has become rare because of court-ordered busing, school district consolidation, and changing community demographics. In Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino has released a plan to build five "walk to" neighborhood schools, and within the next six years he wants nearly all the students in Boston to be able to walk to a neighborhood school. This new/old idea could go a long way toward solving some of the problems of parent involvement and community support. But two working parents, busy streets and highways, and unsafe neighborhoods work against such a plan.
It is interesting that in nearby Wellesley, Massachusetts, Honeywell Elementary School has two-thirds of its 351 students arriving each morning by car. Only 10 students ride the bus, and the remainder walk to school. Maybe it's a phenomenon of the 1990s: the car is taking mom or dad to work, it's only a few minutes more to school, and spending time with the children, if only during the ride to school, is worth the effort. In another Massachusetts community, Melrose, more than half of the 265 students at Roosevelt Elementary School are driven in each morning. This is a school designed as a "walk to" school, with no students living more than a mile from the building.
It would be interesting to conduct some focus groups of parents whose children attend these two schools. The demands of parents' jobs may be having a larger impact than school officials realize. The concept of open enrollment -- so that a parent can seek to place work and school in closer proximity -- may be a stronger need than the need for schools children can walk to. Our system of universal public education was built around the needs of families. Families often understand their own needs before schools, districts, or states come to recognize them. This time lag fuels the call for governance changes such as charters, home schools, and open enrollment.
Maybe the time has come for policy makers to look deeper into public opinion for solutions to problems rather than to rely on politically correct mandates that miss the mark with parents.
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Last updated 15 April 1999
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