Winning Back Honesty

It can be said that human beings in general are akin to water in that they seek the path of least resistance. The epidemic of cheating and unethical behavior, especially in education, has become more rampant in the past decades largely due to the inception and development of the Internet, which has made dishonesty easy. Schools as early as middle schools to as advanced as prestigious universities are experiencing this problem, thus the increase in the number of cheating and other unethical behavior events is not isolated to any specific age group, but permeates a majority of them. So the question is what can educational institutions do about this problem?

A number of individuals argue that it is important to understand the psychological triggers that lead to this unethical behavior and counter them at the source. However, the efficacy of such a mindset is put at risk when unethical behavior is motivated by rationalities such as “need good grades, but don’t want to work for them”, “I don’t need this class for the future, but it is required so cheating doesn’t matter”, “I have too many other important things to do” or even “everyone else cheats (despite having no evidence of this) so why should I have to work hard?”. How does society challenge a mindset that is basically predicated on laziness and apathy? Complicating the problem is that there is rarely a single governing reason for cheating, instead numerous reasons similar to those above are intertwined, thus attacking one reason in isolation cannot be the strategy, yet attacking multiple strategies is overly complicated and may create excess necessary work for instructors that will not be compensated.

One of the most counterproductive elements regarding cheating is how society tries to obfuscate the blame. Instead of blaming the cheaters themselves people apply blame to the school, the instructors, the parents, peers, heck it almost seems like some would rather blame Taylor Swift versus actually blaming the cheaters. Frequent is the ridiculous claim that instructors drive ‘justifiable’ cheating because they don’t clearly demonstrate the relevance of the class or make the class interesting. Even the most plausible excuse for cheating, forgiving plagiarism because students don’t have an explicit definition of it, seeks to defer blame because it suggests that someone else should have taught students both the definition of plagiarism and that it is unethical because these students are so inept they cannot do these two things for themselves. Until society is prepared to place the onus of cheating on the individuals who are actually committing the action there is little that can be done to genuinely stem the problem. The first step to placing the onus of cheating on individuals is to apply significant punishment to those who cheat.

There are three chief elements which encapsulate the problem of cheating in education: students cheating on tests, students plagiarizing work they find on the Internet including purchasing papers from paper mills and instructors changing answers on tests. Addressing the first element raises an immediate question regarding test structure. The most obvious way to address students cheating on tests is for the instructor to give essay tests. It is very difficult to cheat on an essay test when the questions are not previously known, especially when test questions are scrambled and alternated between rows. Essay tests also have the advantage of judging whether students not only understand the basics of the subject, but can also translate those basics into more complex ideas over regurgitating memorized facts. This methodology can also psychologically demonstrate to students that there is meaning behind understanding the basics. The chief disadvantage of essay tests is the additional work demanded of instructors to create and grade them, especially in large (30-40 student) classes because no additional salary or respect is drawn for this additional un-required workload.

Regardless of whether or not an instructor uses essay tests or another testing format, an important element to limiting cheating is to control the situation by creating a standard and uniform testing environment. For example one such environment is outlined below:

- On the day of the test when students enter the classroom they place their books and all other objects brought to class against a sidewall including the removal of caps and hats then students sit at their respective desks.

- The instructor creates two separate tests using the same questions, but in different order. The instructor hands out the tests facedown along with a #2 pencil to alternating students in such a way that a student is surrounded by individuals with the other test. This strategy heavily limits the positive outcomes for a student who decides to look at another student’s paper or makes it incredibly obvious to anyone proctoring the exam that someone is looking at another’s paper. For example a 30-student class with a 6 x 5 square desk arrangement with tests A and B would see a distribution as followed:

A B A B A B
B A B A B A
A B A B A B
B A B A B A
A B A B A B

- It is thought among ethicists that a vast majority of people are honest because they are not faced with temptation, not because they stare down temptation and walk away from it. This psychological reality may be why the laughable ‘Entrapment’ defense in the criminal justice system even exists. The two above steps are designed to reduce available ‘cheating’ temptations, thus reducing the amount of work any proctor has to engage in to provide honest evaluation.

- When the period begins the students will be instructed to turnover their tests and begin. During the test if the instructor sees anything that is not a #2 pencil or the test in a student’s hand or on/around his/her desk that student will receive a zero on the examination and be sent to the principle’s office.

- The instructor will proctor the exam from the front of the room watching for any inappropriate behavior. If any is witnessed the instructor will place a small token on the desk of the offending student and make a record of the offense. If a single student receives three tokens over the course of an exam then there will be a predetermined consequence. It is understandable that some individuals may view this element as worrisome because of the possible power abuse that can result. For example it is no secret that there are situations where instructors and students do not get along and that dislike can evolve into bias. In the above situation credibility involves a instructor-said student-said structure because other students are taking the exam. However, with the above testing environment it is unlikely that such a system will be heavily utilized. Students will be able to inquire on the reasoning behind any tokens after the completion of the test and will be able to appeal if he/she believes that a three token ‘performance’ was unfairly/inaccurately awarded.

- At the end of the period students will place their completed exams in a box positioned on the instructor’s desk. The instructor will remove the box eliminating the ability to turn in the test (resulting in a zero) 30 seconds after the class period has completed. If a student completes his/her exam early that student will not be allowed to retrieve possessions until the end of the period. The idea behind this restriction is to mitigate additional distractions and inter-period cheating by granting access to electrical devices.

The above outline only addresses how to stem cheating in a single class it does not address stemming cheating between classes. Normally, especially in high school when there are multiple periods of the same class and students do not have a single testing session, opportunity exists during common periods for early period students to tell friends in later periods about the test revealing unethical details. For example someone who takes the exam in 1st period may tell a friend in a common 3rd period class about the test that the second person will take during 5th period. Multiple tests eliminates this cheating opportunity because individuals may not be getting the same questions, thus any information about specifics acquired from previous test takers will not be applicable.

There are two popular means of utilizing a multiple test methodology. First, three different tests are created, 1st and 2nd period are given test #1, 3rd and 4th period are given test #2 and 5th and 6th period are given test #3. Therefore, there is no reasonable time frame in which relevant test questions can be transmitted to other individuals either electronically or verbally. Second, three different tests are created and all students randomly receive a copy of a given test.

This second strategy has strengths and weaknesses versus the first method. The chief weakness is that cheating is only limited to a random probability of 33% for success instead of basically 0% for the first strategy. The strength is that keeping the multiple tests a secret will result in a 67% chance that the latter student involved in any cheating will have a lower performance probability due to inaccurate information. Therefore, those who attempt to cheat will actually have a significant chance at putting themselves at a greater disadvantage versus not having attempted to acquire unethical information in the first place. The long-term hope is that after realizing the inaccuracy of the illicit information, individuals will no longer seek the information viewing it as a waste of time.

Overall thought it stands to reason that if the idea is to reduce the ability of individuals to cheat the consistency of the first methodology proves superior to the benefit/cost risk structure of the second methodology. However, some caution must be taken, for depending on the circumstance after the completion of the test some students may complain that certain periods received more difficult questions than other periods which would raise concern that grades are more influenced by what period an individual was in versus what that individual actually knew pertaining to the subject matter. While a possibility, the above concern is rather muted if the instructor practices appropriate test design.

The second chief element to educational cheating is students plagiarizing work they find on the Internet. The first issue when developing a counter strategy to this form of cheating is to determine whether or not the instructor will include homework and quizzes in the final grade. If the instructor will include homework/quizzes in the final grade then the instructor can give numerous small ½ to 1 page long essay assignments that can create an ‘answer fingerprint’ for given students. This fingerprint will indicate a particular style of writing, sentence structure, word choice, presentation depth, etc. that can be used by instructors as a metric for longer more detailed papers to detect inconsistencies and potential plagiarism. Issuing the quizzes in class precludes the ability to use the Internet from the beginning to contaminate the samples.

If homework/quizzes are not going to count towards the final grade then the above strategy will more than likely not be successful for most students because in modern culture most students tend not to view the intangible rewards of knowledge that come from doing homework. If material is not going to affect the final grade most judge that there is little reason to actually perform the work. If the work is not completed then there is no ability to create a reliable ‘answer fingerprint’, thus there is no standard to compare to future works. In this situation it stands to reason that the total number of graded elements will be small, suppose two to four. If this is the case then one strategy to address potential plagiarism is to split the assignment into two parts. First, the students write the paper and second the students have to defend the position taken in the paper on a ‘written test’ in class. Basically the next class day after the papers are graded will be reserved for each student to answer a three/four question mini-test about their paper.

The idea behind this strategy is two-fold. First, for individuals who actually wrote their paper they should have a grasp of the knowledge that was required to formulate the ideas that produced the paper. If an individual did not write a paper, but instead acquired it from a paper mill there is a much smaller probability that the individual has enough of a grasp of knowledge to perform well on the test. Second, the point of education is to acquire established knowledge that can be used in the future not create ephemeral knowledge that disappears after a few weeks. Therefore, even if limiting plagiarism is not a goal the above strategy serves as a valuable purpose to advancing education, thus there is reason in doing it. One might argue that instructors do not have enough time to take such a strategy as it would waste class time which is limited as it is, but recall that this strategy is tied to large quality low volume grading thus only two to four class days will be used for the method. Note that these days are not ‘sacrificed’ because they do serve the purpose mentioned above.

A supplemental strategy for addressing plagiarism has been to utilize the online service www.turnitin.com. However, the service does cost a significant amount of money (thousands of dollars for a one year license for even medium sized schools (1,000 students)). With the omnipresence of budget problems for most public schools, amplified by the continued emergence of charter schools driven by unsupported positive bias, paying this additional sum for this private service may be more detrimental to students than beneficial in how school funds are distributed.

Another strategy for reducing plagiarism is to have students hand in rough drafts of their work a week before the due date for the assignment. Such a condition limits the opportunity for plagiarism because the instructor can see the development of thought and presentation in the rough draft and use that as marker of comparison against the final copy. If there are significant differences then the instructor can ask the student why he/she decided to go in such a radically different direction between the rough draft from a week ago and the final draft. An incoherent or insufficient explanation will typically only be given if work has been plagiarized. Finally to ensure proper boundary conditions there must be clear definitions of plagiarism given at the beginning of a class year along with clear consequences. Having students sign a ‘contract’ of sorts confirming that they have received and understood these ethical standard expectations would eliminate any ‘confusion’ regarding student comprehension.

The third and final type of cheating has actually emerged as significant only over the last decade. The increased importance of standardized testing has created an environment of additional pressure for some instructors who believe that the use of the standardized testing as an evaluation metric for schools and individual instructors is weighted inappropriately. This pressure has lead some to resort to cheating for their students, with some schools even having ‘answer correction parties’ for their instructors after the completion of a given standardized test. Clearly such behavior is inexcusable and precautions must be established to ensure that it no longer occurs.

While the best option would be to replace instructors with independent test auditors for national testing days, most school districts and/or states would not want nor typically even have money budgeted to pay for these individuals. Therefore, one option may be to ‘instructor swap’ where instructors from school A administer tests at school B and instructors from school B administer tests at school A. For most schools the logistics of such a temporary swap would not be difficult, but the swap itself raises an interesting psychological question among the instructors, a question similar in nature to that of the prisoners’ dilemma (PD).

In the swap scenario there are two compelling forces that may act upon the substituted instructors. The first force is the standard comrade support structure that exists in most occupations where Person A of occupation A looks out for Person B of occupation A and visa versa solely because they both have the same occupation. Therefore, the swapped instructors may not go out of their way to help another instructor that does not teach at their institution, but may ‘bend’ the rules a bit to assist in a positive manner.

The second force is the direct principle of the PD. While there may be a natural leaning towards helping a fellow instructor, that leaning is not guaranteed, especially in the same school districts with the weight of standardized tests on bonuses in a more evaluation heavy environment. In PD the best outcome is derived from the prisoners trusting each other and both admitting guilt; however, if one fails to follow through on this trust the consequences are disastrous for the individual that admits guilt. In the competitive environment that education ‘reformers’ are trying to craft among instructors if one instructor does not reciprocate assistance it will help him/her both in salary and job security. Therefore, this aspect of the PD may suppress any occupational equality bias.

Crafting appropriate punishments for cheating is tricky because the punishment must be severe enough that students have proper respect for ethics, but not so severe that it creates a self-catalyzing negative situation. Initially it can be argued that there is no such thing as a ‘too severe’ punishment for cheating (within the scope of common sense i.e. no death penalty, etc.) because cheating does not occur by accident, it is a willful and conscious occurrence. Factors like ‘family problems’ or ‘too much stress’ are frequently mitigated as rationalities because students that use them do not make instructors aware of the situation, thus it is viewed as a scapegoat or excuse not a negative trigger. Basically assigning any punishment severity to cheating is akin to giving a motorist a $2000 speeding ticket. Whether an individual exceeds the speed limit is entirely under the control of the individual (clearly stuck accelerators are not given valid speeding tickets, etc.).

While any punishment is justified from the standpoint of free action it may not be appropriate. There are larger issues to consider in that a single mistake should not create a situation that is ‘unrecoverable’. For example it can be argued that expelling a student for a single cheating event creates an undue burden on both the student and his/her family. However, just as there must be temperance in the first offence there must be the prospect of more significant punishment in the case of relapse. Therefore, one punishment option would be for a first-time cheating event to result in a zero for the given test/paper (as mentioned above) and a calendar year long probation period where further cheating will result in automatic failure of the class in which the second event occurred. In this punishment structure the student does not receive multiple ‘first-time’ event depending on the class, if the student cheats in class A then cheats in class B he/she automatically fails class B. In this system it must be recalled that cheating is a conscious choice.

Punishment for instructors changing student answers or other cheating is rather straightforward for as adults they should understand the consequences of such behavior. There should be no quarrel if an instructor is fired after committing such an act. One could even argue that such a penalty will not be misappropriated because high quality instructors will not need to cheat because a majority of their students will be able to perform at least adequately on the examinations, thus only low quality instructors will be driven to cheat. Granted the legitimacy of this conclusion is dependent on the influencing weight of standardized tests on instructor evaluation.

Overall while addressing the root causes of cheating would be ideal unfortunately such a strategy does not appear overly viable due to the psychological factors that embody those causes. Until society is willing to judge methodology as an important element to gained results, cheating will always be regarded as beneficial. Therefore, in order to ensure the importance of genuine understanding and accomplishment in lieu of fraudulent actions society must develop the mindset to detect and punish cheating. Education is one of the prime battlegrounds for morality. The battle against cheating is two-fold: ensuring that it is not a successful strategy and demonstrating the values of ethics and knowledge.

The Class Size U-Turn

With austerity measures sweeping the nation most states have elected to cut social services including funds directed towards education. For years school reformers have championed the notion that one of the key elements to increasing student performance is to shrink class sizes. However, these near-future budget cuts will reduce the number of teachers. This reduction will increase the number of students per class in those affected environments. It seems like an important element in the school reformer plan will be placed on hold for the time being… or maybe not. Despite this pattern of singing the praises of small class sizes, like those possessed by the KIPP charter schools, school reformers, including Bill Gates, have all of a sudden changed their tune. The elimination of teachers will be a good thing because now good teachers, not bad teachers, will teach more students. Due to the fact that multiple studies have demonstrated that the quality of the instructor is one of the most important, if not the most important, element in a student’s ability to learn increasing class size is all of a sudden a great thing.

Unfortunately for school reformers that share this belief their epiphany suffers from two critical flaws. The first flaw is that instructor quality will not be taken into consideration when the vast number of teachers dismissed as a result of these cuts in social services. Currently no valid evaluation method has been established to effectively and fairly judge teaching performance; therefore, any targeted dismissal will follow standard procedures with younger teachers taking the brunt of the dismissals regardless of their overall teaching credentials and quality. With this method of ‘teacher filtration’ there is no legitimate way to judge the quality of the remaining teachers in the future environment over the quality of the teachers in the present environment. It is quite possible that the ‘higher quality’ teachers will be fired and more students will end up in front of ‘bad’ teachers.

The second flaw is that most school reformers tend not to understand what makes a quality teacher. The principle element which determines the quality of a teacher is the teaching methodology. It is irrational to believe that there is any significant difference between the way that teacher A writes a lesson on a blackboard or talks about a PowerPoint presentation over teacher B in the context of quality. Therefore, the quality characteristic for in-class performance stems largely from unique nuances in a particular teaching methodology. Most effective teaching methodologies rely on direct teacher-student interaction, especially the most effective methodology: the Socratic Method. However, with more students in a classroom the probability that any given student interacts in such a direct way with the teacher is reduced. Thus, by this probability metric it is more probable that for any methodology that utilizes teacher-student interaction the overall methodology will be less effective relative to the size of the class.

A third issue that ties back to quality teaching is how a larger class size affects teachers off-hours. One of the more misrepresented elements of teaching is the total level of work a teacher performs. Some individuals draw the conclusion that teachers do not work very hard because the official school day in a vast majority of schools is only 6 to 6.5 hours long. However, these individuals do not consider the work required by teachers in preparation for the next school day nor the work required to grade homework, quizzes and tests to determine how effectively students are learning.

Not surprisingly because these individuals do not consider these aspects of teaching they do not realize that prepping for tomorrow’s lesson and grading various items is time-consuming and difficult work, especially for those that are ‘good’ teachers because of the effort applied. Increase that off-hour work load by 1.5 to 2 times and take a wild guess about how long that teacher will remain a quality teacher frayed by a work load no reasonable person should be expected to handle. In fact under such constraints as a 40-60 student classroom, which will be common under some of these teaching termination proposals, most homework, quizzes and tests will more than likely revert to multiple choice format. Unfortunately it is common knowledge that multiple choice format testing does not lend itself well to teaching and refining critical thinking skills which will be the most important skill for citizens and workers in the future.

So larger class sizes have only an even shot at best at putting more student in front of ‘good’ teachers, increase the probability that those ‘good’ teachers will be less effective and increase the probability that these student not receive the skills that are most important for the future, will those that suddenly believe larger class sizes to be advantageous please explain how this viewpoint could possibly be logical and correct?

Key Issue Regarding Teacher Recruitment

As mentioned in a previous blog post, one of the chief strategies of the education reform movement is to attempt to attract the best college candidates by increasing teacher salary. However, it stands to reason that as publicly paid employees it would be difficult to increase teacher salaries to the point where those salaries could even begin to compete with those offered at other high quality jobs that the so-called ‘best and brightest’ would be qualified for. In addition even if the salaries could be equalized, little can equalize the gap in magnitude and variety of responsibilities associated with the more difficult teaching occupation vs. these other occupational opportunities. Such a reality is especially true for inner-city teaching positions. Therefore, a unique solution is required to increase the attractiveness of a teaching position over other opportunities.

One possibility would be to tap into the element of status. For instance why do most people drive high priced luxury automobiles? Higher gas mileage and equal, if not better, safety features can be found in lower cost automobiles, so those rationalities are out. Clearly the principle driving purpose is status. It feeds the ego to drive around in one of these automobiles largely because a large number of individuals who view the vehicle wish they were driving around in it as well. Unfortunately it is not realistic or practical to give some specialized custom Aston Martin to every teacher that signs a multi-year contract.

However, there may be an even more influential status symbol that can be offered to teachers. The teaching profession could be the first occupation that receives its own specific federal tax rate. For example regardless of income made from their teaching occupation, a public school teacher would be eligible for a rate of only 5%. Tie that specific to the occupation low federal tax rate to tax reform that eliminates deduction loop holes with an additional increase in public school teacher salary by at least 20% to those making below the national average and finally teachers could have something to brag about with respects to their jobs to other professionals. An occupation specific low federal tax rate could be regarded as the ultimate form of status.

Note that a special federal tax rate is only one way to exemplify the importance of teachers and separate them from the rest of the pack. Continuing to rely on ‘teaching as a calling’ as a recruitment strategy has long been outdated and ineffective, yet reformers have yet to move on to provide more substantial benefits and notorieties for teachers. On a side note another important element to consider when making teaching more attractive is to develop more opportunities for collaboration and cooperation among staff. One simple means to encourage this cooperation is to ensure that all teachers instructing in a given subject have the same prep period. Overall more creative ideas need to permeate the educational reform marketplace if effective solutions are going to be found because the simple reality is while teaching maybe one of the more important jobs in a society, the United States is not willing now or seemingly ever willing to treat teaching with that appropriate level of reverence.

Addressing Teacher Turnover in Education Reform

While numerous topics rage in the public forum regarding education reform, the finer details on the structure of teacher turnover are commonly pushed to the background. The only aspect of this element that acquires any significant attention are reformers pressing the point that a more effective means of firing ‘bad’ teachers needs to be developed within the scope of ending teacher tenure. Interestingly these same reformers fail to ask the question of who is going to replace all of these ‘bad’ teachers.

A simplistic idea to close the turnover loop is the belief that an increase in teacher salaries will drive a dramatic positive shift in the number of intelligent college students who select a career in teaching over something in finance or whatever else. Unfortunately individuals that tout this idea as an effective means of closing the teacher turnover loop, fire the bad ones and then use salary incentives to attract intelligent candidates, fail to acknowledge that intelligence alone does not make a high quality teacher and that salary alone does not dictate job choice. In fact the wheels may fall off this plan at the point of salary increases before even reaching the question of teacher quality.

There are two immediate problems with the notion that simply increasing salary will make teaching a more attractive option for those believed to be higher-level candidates. The first problem stems from a perceived lack of understanding of the rigors of teaching. Salary to work ratio is typically the defining factor determining whether or not an occupation can effectively recruit individuals, when specific interest in a particular profession is not a personal motivation factor. For example most medical students that have the opinion to select, due to their skill level, between a specialization or general practitioner select specializations much more often because of a higher salary and lower total work hours (basically a higher salary to work ratio).

With respect to teachers while reformers want to increase salary they also want to increase work responsibilities through various evaluation methods as well as more targeted testing, thus it is reasonable to suggest that there would be no significant change in the salary to work ratio. In fact depending on how the increase in salary is distributed (how much is added to base salary vs. how much is derived from incentives) the salary to work ratio may actually decrease making teaching a less attractive occupation for high quality college graduates. The troublesome issue is that the salary to work ratio can easily slip into a negative feedback loop where the lower it falls the less attractive teaching is to new potential candidates which mean fewer teachers replacing those that leave the profession which leads to more work for the remaining teachers dropping the real and perceived salary to work ratio even further.

The second major problem with the strategy of reformers with regards to turnover is that with 49 of 50 states currently running deficits and the public continuously wary of raising taxes to pay for civil services where is the money to raise teacher salary across the board going to come from? The procurement of funds to pay for these salary increases is another important question that most reformers fail to address. Teachers are part of the much maligned, chiefly by the Republican Party, public workforce thus it is difficult to imagine a legitimate popular outcry fueling this salary increase. Sadly one of the elements that haunt public education is the near-universal desire to pay teachers more, but the reluctance to bare the financial burden associated with that desire. Add in the problem with questions over whether government should sponsor more charter schools and/or school vouchers and the potential to raise the necessary funds to increase salary decreases further.

Why are addressing these two critical problems in the teaching turnover cycle important? Returning to the problems within the turnover issue, hiring potential is an important element because various estimates cite approximately 270,000 to 300,000 teachers leave the profession each year for some reason (retirement, quit, resign for some reason, etc.).1,2 Sadly in the next 5 to 10 years that number will increase further solely due to retirements from the slanted age demographic of the current teacher workforce. In addition to those increases suppose the zeal of firing ‘bad’ teachers sponsored by most education reformers catches on and 3% of U.S. teachers (approximately 3.5 million)3 in a given year are deemed ‘bad’ and fired over the first 5 years and then the ‘bad’ teacher ratio drops to 1%. So where are the at least 375,000-405,000 additional hires in the first 5 years going to come from with the serious potential for a decreasing salary to work ratio? What about the additional 305,000 to 335,000 for each year after this initial 5 until the demographics level off in about 15 or so years?

Unfortunately the suggestion by reformers to increase teacher salary does not even address the most popular reasons why, outside of retirement, that teachers leave their jobs. Lack of planning time (65 percent), too heavy a workload (60 percent), problematic student behavior (53 percent) and a lack of influence over school policy (52 percent) were all cited as a reason for leaving.4 Although these main surveys are from 2000-2001 based on the current environment in education it is reasonable to assume these concerns remain. Overall these responses lend more credibility to the importance of the salary-work ratio. An increase in salary may stop some teachers from leaving, but it is more rational to tackle these retention problems by addressing the issues that drive them instead of searching for indirect solutions. Until these other issues are addressed the probability of bridging the coming teacher gap will be very small.

Another element in hiring is teacher training. As is common with most proposed solutions, few specific details have been given by education reformers regarding how teacher training will change and evolve beyond simple criticisms and broad expectations. The popular idea is that teacher training needs to be more like medical residency, but few details have emerged beyond that simple comparison statement.

Clearly teacher training matters because one of the following two scenarios is accurate if there are the significant numbers of ‘bad’ teachers as reformers profess: 1. Current teacher training is adequate enough that new teachers are ‘good’ teachers when entering the classroom, but due to a lack of evaluation, general feedback and/or deteriorating teaching environment the teachers are unable to objectively determine what works and what does not work which lead to the slow corrosion of their skills changing some from good teachers to bad teachers; 2. Current teacher training is inadequate and the eventual determination of a new teacher evolving into a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ teacher falls to their natural ability and overall desire.

The first option does not appear very plausible in that while it is reasonable that some level of deterioration in skill may occur, this deterioration is more likely to be derived from overwork and stress rather than lack of evaluation; if teacher training was adequate then these new teachers would know how to recognize what works and what does not work on their own. The second option does appear to be valid in that numerous personal reports indicate that new teachers, even vaunted ‘Teach for America’ teachers, are not adequately prepared to teach upon entering a classroom for the first time after receiving their credentials.

Beyond addressing the teacher turnover issue is the fact that most school reformers do not appear to appreciate the scale issue involved in genuine and meaningful education reform. The sheer size of the public school system demands plans with stringent detail instead of the short-term applied resource specific niche systems dreamed for scale-up. If educational ‘reformers’ really want reform then it is time for them to stop looping sound bites and actually get into the specific and numerous concerns in the education arena, especially teacher turnover because if there are not enough teachers available to teach the youth of near-future all other reforms are rather meaningless.

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1. http://completionagenda.collegeboard.org/teachers-leaving-profession

2. Solnet, Rita. “Fire our way to better education: is common sense MIA?”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rita-m-solnet/fire-our-way-to-better-ed_b_801361.html

3. Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition. Bureau of Labor Statistics. United States Department of Labor. http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos318.htm

4. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Teacher Follow-up Survey (“Questionnaire for Current Teachers” and “Questionnaire for Former Teachers”), 2000–01, Table 6. Washington, DC.

Taking a Step Back in Education Reform

The education reform movement has existed for decades and yet when using the trend in national test scores for 8th and 12th graders vs. their international peers as an evaluation tool the movement has been a failure. Ignoring the irony of using these particular test scores to evaluate the education reform movement, the movement seems unaffected by this reality and continues to plow ahead blaming any ‘failure’ on bad teachers and inflexible unions that they claim are destroying any reasonable chance to educate the nation’s children. Sadly the very methodology of the education reform movement is more to blame for their failure than any teacher’s union, yet a sense of groupthink and cognitive dissidence has allowed that flawed methodology to continue unabated. So before any real widespread education reform can occur, the flaws must be removed from the rationalities used by education reformers.

The chief flaw facilitating the existence of all of the remaining flaws is that ‘problems’ in schools are typically judged on a relative level over an absolute level. What does this mean? Starting off with a question: why do most people believe the education system is broken? That belief typically springs from the simple comparison that international students perform better on a series of tests than U.S. students. If the current education system were exactly the same with the only difference being that U.S. students performed better than students from all other countries would there be any significant outcry regarding a ‘Crisis in Education’… it would be highly doubtful. Unfortunately this competitive comparison attitude also impacts the reform movement.

Most members of the reform movement do not look at specific education elements as problems because they are ineffective on an absolute level, but instead because they are not similar to what a foreign country may do. Basically x is a problem not because it has been determined that it detracts from the educational experience, but because country x does not do it and country x scores higher on international tests than the U.S. One may question the problem behind a strategy that involves copying elements from successful education environments to replace elements in less successful education environments. What is bad about replacing supposedly ineffective educational strategies with test supported more efficient strategies?

There are some significant concerns with this mindset. The most important element is that students are not static interchangeable parts, different methodologies work differently at educating different students. Ironically this chameleon element is frequently cited as a trait for quality teachers, yet while the teachers are supposed to be chameleons most reformers seem to believe that the education structure in which they work should be static and one-size fits all. A second problem also relates to the question of similarity. One cannot simply plug in a solution without determining how that change will affect other elements of the education environment.

Therefore, effective school reform must come from examination of whether or not an element works or even if it is necessary for a particular school. Thus, more incentive needs to be placed at the local level to identify these problems in an accurate and objective manner. Some might argue that such an ideal was embedded in ‘Race to the Top’, but the evaluation method applied to judge ‘Race to the Top’ applications seems to demonstrate that no in-depth ‘problem’-‘solution’ linkage was required. Without first having significant analysis of problems, generating effective solutions is difficult and instead one is left with generic broad solution suggestions that look great on paper, but their ability to actually solve the problem is unknown because they are not formulated to address a given problem in a specific situation. The educational reform movement is so intent on finding national solutions to the perceived education crisis that they will more than likely continue to make limited progress.

Scapegoating of teachers has eliminated the most important voice from the conversation. To assume that a vast majority of teachers are not committed or interested in ensuring a meaningful and effective education for U.S. children and teens is illogical and just plain wrong. Thus, where are mass public surveys to the nation’s teachers asking what they feel are the biggest obstacles to facilitating the instruction of a high quality education? This disconnect between those with front line experience and those that sit in the ‘general’s tent’ far behind the lines is an important reason why most of the proposed solutions are in conflict with what could actually work.

For example when asked ‘What is the one thing you could change in your school’ how many teachers would honestly answer ‘Well, our school is so hopeless we need to nuke it and start over by making it a charter school.’? It would be surprising to find any teacher who would give such an answer and yet such action is one of the primary responses of education reformers. Some critics would argue that of course teachers are not going to make such a suggestion because their number one priority is to protect their job; however, such cynicism does not make sense. Such cynicism stems from the general lack of respect individuals give the teaching profession. One wonders how teaching went from being a highly respected aspect of U.S. society to garnering almost no respect at all? Any one that believes a majority of teachers want to teach in an environment that is not striving to maximize its potential is simply a fool. Such a lack of respect and empathy for what teachers have to do is another aspect to why a number of educational reforms fail.

Overall one of the most important aspects of education reform has not been addressed, what those directly responsible for the education of U.S. children and teens, teachers and education administrators, believe to be the problems. Due to the lack of involvement of the principle actors in education in the future evolution of the education system one is not surprised by the gridlock that exists between the so-called reformers and the unions. To facilitate true education reform the next action must involve taking a step back and understanding that there is a standard deviation on those ‘mediocre’ U.S. test scores which generates an average for student performance. Not all schools perform as poorly as those scores indicate while not all schools perform as well. After this realization the path to real education reform can then begin with the following steps:

1. Each state should compose a survey for all of its teachers asking for input regarding education reforms; some sample questions should address (but not be limited to) the following issues:

- What do you believe is the best thing that your school does to support education?
- What do you believe is the biggest obstacle to improving the educational environment in your school?
- What do you believe is the most important thing that will change and/or influence the educational environment in the next 5 years?
- How is the general student attitude when it comes to learning and why does that attitude exist?

2. The federal government should require (pursuant to receiving any federal funding) each state to do a complete and objective audit of their educational budget to identify any points of overhead waste or general inefficiency in the distribution of funds. Note that this audit is not to make any judgments regarding whether program x should be viewed as wasteful or not, but instead simply account for all of the funds, track how they are distributed and determine whether or not those funds could be distributed more effectively.

3. Each school district should hold a conference to discuss the results of the surveys and develop a plan of action, including a prospective new financial budget for addressing the obstacles pointed out in the surveys; each district then bundles a monetary request to solve these obstacles into two categories: ‘need’ and ‘want’ which will be presented to the state;

While the above points cannot guarantee solutions to the problems with education there is a higher probability to develop solutions with the above method than the current strategy being executed now. Removing the ‘national’ element from the solution set should allow for greater flexibility and precision in applying solutions at the local level appropriate to the environment. Granted while the focus of solutions on a local level is important, it would be unwise to completely eliminate the federal government from the process. The development of national education standards should be the prerogative of the federal government. However, although the federal government should decide what U.S. students need to know, it should not dictate the methodology used by schools to teach that requisite knowledge.

The Evolution of School Reform – Part 1: Students

One of the critical flaws in most school reform plans is the abject failure to address anything beyond the role of teachers. Teachers are an important part of the education experience and significantly influence the end educational result. However, to believe that all of the problems and solutions lie in the realm of the teacher is silly and frankly rather stupid and irresponsible. Sadly even those that should know better still place almost all of the focus on the teacher in the name of reform or improving school performance. Such emphasis can be seen in the following example, the opening paragraph of “Constructing 21st-Century Teacher Education” by Linda Darling-Hammond from Stanford University.1

“The previous articles have articulated a spectacular array of things that teachers should know and be able to do in their work. These include understanding many things about how people learn and how to teach effectively, including aspects of pedagogical content knowledge that incorporate language, culture, and community contexts for learning. Teachers also need to understand the person, the spirit, of every child and find a way to nurture that spirit. And they need the skills to construct and manage classroom activities efficiently, communicate well, use technology, and reflect on their practice to learn from and improve it continually.”

Unfortunately the above paragraph basically sums up the general view of teaching in the United States. Teachers need to know this, teachers need to know that, teachers need to respect this, teachers need to appreciate that… not once does the above paragraph or any part of the remaining article suggest that the other actors involved in the process of learning (the students, the administrators, the parents) have to compromise anything with respect to classroom performance. So the teacher has to be the hard working chameleon while everyone else should feel no responsibility to adjust or evolve his/her mindset to accommodate the teacher’s personal style. This attitude is a large reason why education in the United States has taken such a negative turn, no responsibility on the students, parents or the administration for their role in the process.

For example when an 8th grader can only read at a 4th grade level, reformers are quick to blame teachers for allowing the student to slip through the cracks. Of course such blame is easy and convenient for reformers because it does not require actually thinking about the issue. If people are willing to assign blame where is the blame for the administrators of the school who allowed that student to continue to advance in grade even when that student did not possess the adequate tools for advancement? Where is the blame for the parents of the student who elected to take so little genuine interest in their student’s education that they were unaware of his/her reading deficiencies? Most of all, where is the blame for the student? Why not chastise the student for going home and surfing the Internet or playing video games instead of cracking open a book and working on improving?

One of the continuing hot buttons of school reform is the periodic standardized test evidence that frequently demonstrates a trend of poor performance of 8th grade and 12th grade students from the United States versus those from other developed foreign countries. Although a lot has been made of the difference between foreign and domestic scores, a more pressing issue should be the change in ranking between 4th grade and these upper grade levels (8th and 12th). For instance when international comparisons are first made in 4th grade the United States is near the top in math, science and language. However, as the students age the rank of the United States wanes versus other nations, so the real question is where and why does this drop-off occur?

Clearly one cannot go running to the problems/gaps in technological integration because the standardized tests used to compile the information for these comparisons do not focus on creating a PowerPoint presentation or writing a program in C++. Thus, something must change either in the students, the instructors or both as these individuals move up the educational ladder. The important first question on this issue is: is it more a matter of the foreign students improving at a faster rate than U.S. students or do U.S. students on a relative level to their younger selves actually regress? Basically think of two cars in a race, does Car A maintain a relatively constant speed while Car B increases its speed or does Car A lose speed while Car B maintains a relatively constant speed?

The reason this question is important is if the answer is the former option school reform only requires some tweeks here and there to close this achievement gap. If the answer is the latter option, then school reform is more troublesome because clearly either the students, the teachers or both are creating an environment that is hurting student achievement relative to if that student attempted to learn alone. At this point in time there is little reason to believe that the latter option is the correct one.

Instead the former is the better bet due to the general static nature of most teaching as students progress in grade versus the dynamic nature of the students receiving that teaching. In 4th grade students have a lot less going on in their lives and the material is easier, so high-quality performance is more straightforward. In 8th and 12th grade other factors enter into the equation, most notably more difficult subject matter, increasingly complicated social interaction with peers (dating, etc.), expansion of extra-curricular activities (higher pressure sports teams, employment, etc.), which increases the difficulty of education. Thus if this reality does turn out to be the case, schools need to address the critical question of student motivation before anticipating any significant improvement in reform.

With the question of motivation in mind the simple fact is that despite the publicity and hype surrounding the role of teaching in school reform, the primary actors responsible for education are the students themselves. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the job of the instructor to motivate the student to learn. It is the job of the instructor to provide an environment where the potential to learn is enhanced, but the core motivational effort is the responsibility of the student. So why is it that teachers receive the blame for this lack of motivation and later the lack of results or learning pursuant to this lack of motivation? The most probable answer is that it is always easier for the students to blame the teacher over themselves for their educational failures and parents of course side with their children over the teacher in most to all instances. Proper placement of responsibility on this issue is a necessary step to enhancing student motivation. As long as society continues to create a scapegoat in teachers and pass the buck with regards to student motivation, the probability of properly motivating students will not significantly increase.

Another important step to closing this gap is students simply growing up. Like teachers students need to realize that education is not a passive activity, involving only simply sitting at a desk listening to the instructor lecture. Students need to actively participate in classroom discussions and activities, with the understanding that learning is not always easy and/or fun. For example when the instructor asks a question to the class every student in the room should raise a hand in anticipation of answering the question, not only one or two.

Of course the school as well as the teacher must aid the student. Returning to the statement of the 8th grader that can only read at a 4th grade level, how was this individual allowed to proceed to the 8th grade in the first place? Either the school did not realize that he/she could only read at a 4th grade level or the school did not care and merely passed the student up along the food chain hoping he/she would ‘get it’ at the next level. If the school does not have a rigorous literature program through composition or language classes then it is quite possible that an individual can move through the system with a low reading level because those skills are never thoroughly tested making them unnecessary, even in the eyes of the student. Unfortunately not knowing a problem exists is not an excuse for ignoring the problem. Therefore, schools need to institute a more rigorous assessment scale for subjects either within the curriculum or as a separate examination.

One could argue that the latter option is already covered by state standardized testing, thus including an additional school specific test could easily become a waste of time for teachers and students. Such an argument would have merit if the results of the standardized testing were handled in a more appropriate feedback manner. For example suppose student A and student B take standardized test D. Student A performs well measuring in the upper 10%, but student B performs poorly, especially in all reading comprehension and vocabulary sections. What is the general school based reaction to these results?

The reaction is the same in both instances, nothing. Schools tend not to address the results in any meaningful way. Most schools do not backtrack student B’s performance in language classes to determine whether or not he/she just had a bad test day or there is a legitimate problem. Student B’s parents typically do not ask the school to assign extra work or extra study focus so student B can work through the problem. Finally student B is rarely concerned about poor results. Such a reaction is either driven through the ‘it is just one test and I don’t need this stuff in real life’ philosophy (a philosophy that is rarely true, especially for language and communication skills) or the student does not want to admit to a problem because it could result in a lower level of self-worth and more homework in order to catch up with other students.

It is a significant problem if parents, the school and even the student realize there is a problem due to poor scores in class and/or standardized testing and nothing done about to address it. The rational behind this lack of action is a culture of equality or advancement. The stigma attached to holding a student back a grade due to poor performance is a powerful one. Such students are frequently the target of ridicule from peers and excessive worry from parents. However, the global picture is better served through the generation of a more prepared and more intelligent individual instead of one that graduates with peers of the same general age, but who still has holes in general skill sets. The issue of ‘he/she is just a late bloomer’ is rather passé and is irrelevant in a vast majority of situations where an individual would be held back a grade.

Therefore, both administrators and parents need to consider the fact that the advancement structure of an educational institution should be focused on making sure that the necessary skills and knowledge are imparted to the students and not be solely concerned with the emotional ramifications and stigma of being held back a year. In addition one must recall that the door swings both ways, it is also necessary to ensure those of greater intelligence are skipped ahead to an appropriate learning environment even if it is with those of greater age. There are few things more frustrating than learning in an environment that is too difficult or too easy for one’s own ability and talents.

An alternative to holding a student back a grade is the use of summer school; however, a large number of summer school programs are not nearly as rigorous as the normal school program and act more as a cover for both the parents and the school in convincing themselves that they are doing something to handle the problem. If summer school could become a viable alternative through overhaul and more specified focus of its coursework then it would provide a valuable alternative to holding a student back to ensure proper knowledge acquisition.

Returning to the point of motivation, increasing the probability of summer school or being held back a grade for inadequate performance may motivate students to work harder, but it should not be the only element to enhance motivation. A key part of motivation is the element of focus. When one is focused on a particular goal accomplishing elements essential to that goal are typically easier than accomplishing elements that are not viewed as important to that goal. Therefore, if one wishes to enhance motivation to learn, be it reading at a certain level or some other task, one possibility would be to incorporate its accomplishment into a meaningful goal structure for the student in question. At first such a statement may sound similar to some form of financial reward program for good grades. Not a chance as such programs do an incredible disservice to society by implying that if one wants to do anything one should expect to be paid to do it. These programs also instill a detrimental precedence of immediate or instant gratification typically sacrificing long-term meaningful gain for small very short-term gain.

Instead the goal motivation should be derived from career aspirations. For being such an important part of an individual’s life, schools do very little to promote career information or education. This is not to say that it is the responsibility of the school in any way, shape or form to fill this role, but it would prove advantageous to both the student and the school if these aspirations were explored in the proper capacity. The current basis for exploration of career issues within the primary education of a student largely involves the generic ‘what are your interests’ aptitude test which loosely attempts to categorize career possibilities based on these interests. There are also visits with the guidance counselor, but these trips are typically either due to poor behavior or at the behest of the student. Due to the reality that most students, especially at a young age, do not think far enough into the future to consider what they will do for a future career, these voluntary visits are unlikely.

What could schools do to improve career information availability? One of the best methods could be to take 2 hours each day for 4th or 5th graders and use that time to significantly explore career paths over the course of the school year with each discussion taking place over the course of 1-2 weeks. For example suppose the teacher wanted to discuss the legal profession, most notably a lawyer. The first day would involve a general background of the profession, what other professions it commonly interacts with, what type of skill set is required to succeed in the profession, what type of skill set generates an advantage in the profession, what type of education is required, etc. The second day and if necessary third day would involve the general terminology and analysis of examples of the profession in action. Depending on the complexity of the profession the next 1-3 days would explore the general principles of the profession using a role-playing exercise. The lawyer example could involve splitting the class into small groups of 4 students each giving them an example case and having them draft arguments to both the prosecution and defense sides of the issue later presenting them to the class in an oral presentation. A discussion regarding how other individuals felt about the arguments could occur after everyone was finished.

The idea behind these profession introductions would be to stimulate interest in a given profession(s) while also demonstrating the tools required to succeed in that profession. With the knowledge of what is required to undertake a future in a profession that they are interested in, students will hopefully be more motivated to study and work harder in class to acquire those tools. Establishing the goal system in this context creates a system that keeps the student interested without requiring additional funds from an already cash-strapped environment as well as not requiring a continually escalating reward structure due to attained tolerance levels.

For those that believe such a methodology would take too much time away from the instruction of other subjects, the incorporation of this methodology seems compatible enough with general knowledge in that any given profession requires language, communication, math, analysis and comprehension skills that would be appropriate to teach a 4th or 5th grader. Thus little time should be wasted in their adoption. It is true that incorporating such a system would be difficult in the interim largely because of lack of experience and familiarity from the teacher’s perspective, but these initial hurdles can be overcome through training programs. Overall the above suggestion is just one possibility designed to spur the motivational fire in students. However, despite the fact that school can lend a helping hand in motivation, it is important that society understand that the responsibility for educational motivation must be removed from the teachers and placed where it belongs, on the students otherwise positive large-scale school reform will be much more difficult. In the end the responsibility of whether or not a student learns something falls on the student.


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1. Darling-Hammond, Linda. “Construction 21st Century teacher Education.” Journal of Teacher Education. DOI: 10.1177/0022487105285962

What needs to happen to improve education in the United States

This post will return to the issue of education reform, largely because there has been an abnormal increase in the number of articles written about it in mainstream news publications in the last two months. One of the saddest things that one experiences when reading these articles is that the authors seem not to genuinely care about actually reforming the education system in the United States, which make no mistake need reform, but instead they only care about their supposed method of reform. Of course such a mindset basically dooms any sense of legitimate and successful reform to failure because these individuals tend to block out the flaws in their method and demonize certain elements in the current system that do not deserve such scorn. Those who truly want to solve the problem need to systematically look at the system, identify the flaws and then act to remove those flaws instead of citing some little trendy example that seems to work, but could never be applicable as a real solution.

For example most of these new articles lament the ‘horrible’ state of education in the United States and gleefully cite charter school organizations like the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) or YES Prep as the model panacea. They dream that if only those horrid teacher’s unions could be abolished then everything would be perfect. Teachers would be judged on their performance using grades and standardized test scores giving ‘definitive’ proof of which teachers were competent and which should start looking for new jobs because without those pesky unions firing teachers would be as easy as adding 2 + 2. With the ability to fire teachers at the drop of a hat, teacher salaries could be increased attracting the best of the best to teach instantly improving the system and making the United States number 1 in the world again.

Alas, how unfortunate that reality must set in and awake Michelle Rhee and her allies from their perfect education world because such a dream world is far from perfect. The problem is that most reformers are so desperate for change they do not realize that the change they are seeking is in and of itself flawed. So where do the flaws lie in the ‘perfect’ dream of most reformers?

The first issue that many reformers seem to neglect is the very issue regarding the nature of teaching. Money is not the main attractor or detractor that determines whether or not an individual, who later would evolve into a good teacher, joins the profession in the first place. Most good teachers view the profession as a form of calling or an occupation of considerable importance. It is rational to believe that the substandard salaries that are given to most teachers may dissuade some from involving themselves in the profession, but to think that a dramatic increase in salary will magically flood applicant pools with individuals that are or will be effective teachers is less rational and more hopeful. The interesting issue is that an increase in salary may actually dilute the talent pool for quality teachers. A higher salary will indeed attract more applicants, but would those applicants have the appropriate drive and overall mindset to be an effective teacher?

The reason for the above concern is that the responsibility of teaching goes beyond what most people think. Frequent are the snipes about teachers only having to work 6-7 hour days and getting 3 months off in the summer; however, rarely is it mentioned that the quality teacher actually ends up working 12-14 hour days due to their involvement in running extracurricular activities for students and/or ensuring that the next day’s lesson is effective at instructing on the major points that need to be understood to master the given topic. Those 3 months off in the summer, good teachers spend them analyzing from a macro and micro perspective what went well the last year and what did not and for those things that did not go well what needs to change to foster improvement. Also if required these teachers, that reformers so highly value, attend workshops and training seminars to acquire new skills to ensure that their teaching efficiency does not decline with changing technology and changes in culture or society.

Of course those elements of teaching only involve the teacher. How does the requirement equation change if the pot is spiced up a bit by adding in the targets of the education? In most professions the working environment and clientele is rather homogenous as the given profession attracts and in some cases requires a certain personality to succeed. Thus person-to-person interaction is either very easy or very difficult, where those finding it very difficult quickly find themselves lacking a job. However, teachers have to interact with ‘clientele’ that run the gamut of personality traits including, but not limited to the eager to please ‘teacher’s pet’, the quiet and studious, the intelligent and arrogant, the apathetic and failing, the uncaring and rambunctious, etc.

Unfortunately that is not all. Teachers also have to interact with parents, which run the similar gamut of personality traits, but unfortunately do not always mesh up with the traits of their offspring. Add in other administration elements and a typical lack of funds due to local resident backlash against further increases to their property taxes and one can very easily see that good teachers require something much more than the offer of a large salary. Sadly most reformers do not seem to realize reality. They almost have the attitude that once the handshake acknowledging the acceptance of the job is complete the new teacher is magically imbued with the necessary traits to become a high quality, motivate the student no matter what, A or B grades for everyone instructor.

The focus on and adoration to quality programs like KIPP and YES Prep can probably be blamed for most of the delusions school reformers have about their solutions. The problem is that reformers look at a KIPP school and its successes, especially teaching Black and Latino students, who typically fair poorer on average in grades and standardized test scores in public schools. Then these same reformers look at what they regard as the gross failure of the public school system and come to the immediate conclusion that installing the KIPP school structure for the given public school will end the failure and facilitate success.

However, these reformers seem to neglect the simple fact of scales. For example the entire KIPP program consists of 82 schools [16 elementary (K-4), 55 middle (5-8) and 11 high schools (9-12)] with approximately 21,000 students whereas the entire public school system consists of over 64 million students. Even the least populous state of Wyoming has 4 times as many public school students (84,920) than the entire KIPP program. It is rational that a niche, which requires specialized talent can be very successful on a small scale, but cannot exceed a certain size and still hope for the same success with the same methodology. Such a niche is the KIPP program and similar programs, they look and operate great when they only involve 0.033% of the population; however, their model runs into significant problems when theoretically scaled up to meet higher population demands because of a simple lack of resources or time to meet those demands.

The cell phone stance is a great example of this point. The KIPP program advertises that teachers are instructed to carry cell phones so students can contact them to ask for help at any point in the day. Although on its face one may praise such an idea, the efficacy of such an idea changes dramatically with class size. The general 11-15 student KIPP class size allows for this idea, the standard 25-35 student class size for the generic public school significantly handicaps it.

The entire industry of charter schools falls under this niche umbrella. Outside of the very specialized programs like KIPP and Yes Prep, which are very small and almost need to be to generate their success, larger charter school systems have demonstrate no statistically significant improvement over the education offered at public schools despite their incredible support in the popular media. That niche characteristic is also why support for voucher programs as a means of school reform is such a joke. Voucher programs are so small that they will do nothing to help the flaws with the public school system and will actually be detrimental by pulling useful resources from the system. Suggesting that a voucher program is an element of positive reform for the education system in the United States is akin to suggesting that a bullet to the brain is a positive element for someone’s health.

Part of the problem with reformers is they are looking for solutions in the wrong places. If reformers are so eager to find a cut-and-paste example for education reform they should be looking at successful public schools instead of charter schools. The focus should be contained to the same genus. For example attempting to find a solution to the problems in the public school system in charter schools provides as little help as if a biologist trying to understand a disease in wolves looked at the uninfected local pig population instead of the uninfected local dog population. Unfortunately for reformers even looking at successful public schools will only generate broad based theories and possible solutions because of the eclectic and dynamic nature of public schools in general. However, these broad based solutions offer a place to start because one of the few things that reformers have gotten right is that reform is needed.

Before throwing around possible solutions to the myriad of problems reformers see with the education system, reformers tend not to ask the key question: what is the overall goal(s) of education? Until one develops an answer to that question proposing reforms is rather meaningless because the proposed reforms will not have a clear focus regarding their intended changes. So in order to get the ball rolling: what is the overall goal(s) of education?

Based on the actions and mission statements of various public and charter schools the intent is clearly to educate students attending the particular school; however, those statements do not go far beyond the nauseatingly general, similar in way to the generic medical student response of ‘I want to help people’ when asked why he wants to be a doctor. The problem with these broad statements is what do they really mean? There is a vast difference between providing the necessary level of education to be nuclear physicist and the education to be a radio broadcaster both in type of knowledge and amount of knowledge. For example despite the differences in type of knowledge the nuclear physicist needs to be able to think about certain issues and problems in a way that will never be required of the radio broadcaster. So if the goal is a focus on ‘education’ what type of ‘education’ should it be even in the most generic sense; the one required for the nuclear physicist or the one required for the radio broadcaster?

Overall despite all of the proclamations, it appears that most schools have one of two goals when it comes to education. First, instruct the students to the bare minimum thought to be required for the next grade level almost in a fashion of just getting rid of them. Second, instruct the student to a level required for college admission regardless of what particular level of college. Unfortunately neither of these goals are well defined with specifics, which makes it easy to claim success. Overall it is not difficult to get into college if one has the funds; if the only criterion for a successful educational experience is being accepted into college then attaining such a goal is relatively easy. However, such success may be relatively pointless, for there are many people that get into college that cannot think their way out of a paper bag. If advancing to the next grade level is the goal, success is almost guaranteed because individuals regardless of their true education level are almost never held back from advancing up the education ladder.

What would happen if education goals were better defined? Clearly a goal cannot be established for each individual or unique occupation because that would be silly and unproductive, but what about more defined general goals with specifics. To do this the first thing to do is ask the question: what is the first principle point of education, why were schools established in the first place? In a democracy for a country to reach its full potential its citizens must have the ability to analyze their situation and identify practical and reasonable solutions to any problems they encounter. Also citizens must realize that they are a single part of a much larger collective, thus it is important to consider the viewpoints and beliefs of other individuals and how they relate to society in general instead of characterize everything they do not agree with as a problem in society. It is the development of these abilities, which make up the origins and still remains the bedrock of the education system, thus it makes sense that these elements drive the goals of education. So how can these basic concepts be reconciled into a goal structure?

Although not the only way, one way is as followed:

Goals of Education –

1. Produce citizens that can make rational decisions, which will allow them to make positive contributions to society;

2. Produce citizens that can effectively form solutions to both qualitative and quantitative problems;

3. Produce citizens that can use both spoken and written word to effectively communicate their ideas and feelings to other individuals as well as understand and analyze the validity of the ideas and feelings of others;

4. Produce citizens that do not tolerate individuals that attempt to manipulate or deceive society for their own ends; further more produce citizens that do not tolerate those that practice and/or preach ignorance or idiocy for the sole purpose of satisfying their own personal beliefs;

To clarify the fourth goal, it is healthy and appropriate for well-meaning and intelligent individuals to debate on topics like the death penalty or legalization of certain drugs where there is legitimate evidence to support both sides of the argument. However, it is not appropriate and significantly detrimental to allow for the continuation of a ‘debate’ on topics that lack evidence to support one side, like discussions regarding whether or not climate change is driven by human activities. Arguing that human actions are not the primary driving force in climate change, to which there is no legitimate evidence of support, is akin to arguing that 2 + 2 is 6,891,957 instead of 4. Despite this simple and definitive reality the ‘debate’ of global warming still rages on. Thus the fourth goal seeks to ensure an end to these fruitless and time-wasting ‘debates’ because there really is nothing to debate.

So if those are the major general goals of educational institutions, what are the first steps to achieving them? The first goal can be achieved by acquiring a basic understanding of government/civics, history, contemporary social issues and math as well as detailed analysis of historical and practical cause and effect models and the methodology that was utilized in their development. The second goal can be achieved by extensive problem-solving analysis and the empirical practice of the scientific method on various topics. The third goal can be achieved through high quality language and grammar courses as well as a number of debates and discussions. Finally the fourth goal can be achieved through instant correction when a student makes a facetious argument and a follow-up challenge asking the two key questions to breaking the control of incorrect beliefs: 1. why do you believe such a thing? 2. what information/evidence would you have to see to convince you that your original opinion is incorrect?

Of course establishing goals and a general construct for achieving those goals is only the first step. There are many different elements that can still be debated on the grounds of whether or not they would enhance the efficiency of attaining these goals. That will be the motivation behind the next post regarding education, a critical analysis of how those elements need to be incorporated if they are going to be helpful to achieving the aforementioned goals of education. Overall if the education system is to improve reform will be necessary; however, to simply rest the outcome of reform on the illusionary laurels of generally flawed teacher evaluation methods and higher teacher salaries is a methodology that is doomed for failure when applied to the system as a whole.