Manufacturing Crisis: Panic Attacks in the American School System

By Matthew Dunn

                American schools are in crisis!  The school system is broken!  The failure of schools is leading to economic catastrophes!  AH I can’t breathe!  In the last few years there have been many statements such as this regarding the current state of education.  But before we allow a panic attack to fully overwhelm us, let’s take a moment and relax, before we let ourselves get out of control. 

                So what has been presented about the crisis of American education?  There have been a lot of statistics thrown around talking about how the United States is falling behind in terms of educational achievement.  According to these statistics the United States ranks near the bottom of the list for educational achievement of the economically developed countries.  The conclusion seems to be that government waste, teacher ineffectiveness, and inefficient management has caused the poor conditions in American schools.  The media has constantly reinforced these messages with news reports and films.  In recent years, education has gotten a great deal more focus because of this supposed crisis.

                With the perception that American schools are failing, policy makers have gone into action to try and address the problem of education.  The No Child Left Behind Law of 2001, set national standards that every school would have to meet or face funding cuts or closing.  In addition to this, policy makers at the state and federal level, have created policies which use market based solutions for education such as the Race to the Top initiative.  These solutions are thought to make schools more efficient because the staff who run the schools will be held accountable for the performance of the students.

So what has this supposed educational crisis done to our nation?  Has it caused other nations to threaten our sovereignty?  Has it caused the sales of our products to become substandard?  Has it negatively affected our economy?  The answers to all three of these questions is no.  As much of the world, the United States has had a great deal of economic problems over the last few years, but these were most caused by wild speculating done in various markets.  Most of this speculation was done by very well educated people.  The crisis in education is often presented as some kind of national security threat, but no educated person can argue that the United States has lost military dominance over the world.  The ease at which the United States seems to navigate multiple wars and covert actions can leave no one doubting that our military abilities are supreme.  Has our competiveness in business weakened?  According to the latest edition of Forbes magazine’s list of 25 largest public companies in the world, ten of them are American, and this nearest competitor is China with five.  Considering that China has around a billion more people than the United States, the U.S. seems to be competing and winning just fine. 

Other arguments say that our workers are not educated enough and companies must import labor from elsewhere to perform highly skilled jobs.  This argument tries to appeal to people worried about the children of America chances in the labor market.  Also it appeals to a nationalistic sense that Americans should be doing the good work in this country.  However, importing labor is nothing new in the United States.  The United States is a country where we have consistently promoted and prided ourselves on having emigrants from other countries moving here.  Since the days of Alexander Hamilton (himself and immigrant) we have tried to get some of the most talented people from around the globe to move here and help our institutions grow.  If one ever watches the quintessential American institution of baseball, we know that many of the best players are brought here from other countries. 

                In fact by judging from some international standards, the United States does not seem to be in crises at all.  According to the United Nations education index which measures level of education as being a component in well being and quality of life, the United States received a score of .978 out of a possible 1 which no nation received.  This score made the United States 13^th in the world on the educational index.  13^th may not be 1^st, but the United States ranks above such other powerful nations such as Germany, France, The United Kingdom, Japan, and China.  It should also be noted that tied for 1^st place on the educational index is Cuba, which we know does not use market based solutions for education.  Sometimes, South Korea is held up as an example that American schools should follow.  South Korea performs very well on international exams and is known as having a top notch education program.  South Korea has extensive testing and test review programs for students.  Incredible amounts of pressure are put on South Korean students to perform well on exams.  In another statistic, South Korea also has one of the highest suicide rates in the world?  Is that the kind of education system we want to be replicating?

                Most of what has been peddled by the educational reform movement has been designed to put Americans in a state of crisis over our educational system.  If the public perceives there is a crisis, than this allows policy makers to implement policies which might never go through it there was substantial public debate on them.  In fact, in New Orleans the very real crisis of Hurricane Katrina was used to close many public schools and open up the city to market based solutions such as the expansion of charter schools.  As a public we should not get too riled up about the state of our schools, because it allows policy makers to play off of our fears and create policies that we might not want.

                However, if we are concerned about the state of our schools, we might want to look at some examples of successful and unsuccessful school areas.  If we want to look at a country which is similar to our own, we can look to Canada.  Canada ranks higher than us in most educational achievement studies, and Canada has a very high percentage of teachers who are unionized and have excellent pay and benefits.  Also because education is very much a state by state issue, we might want to look at individual states.  Massachusetts, when compared to nations internationally, performs at nearly the same levels as top countries.  Massachusetts has a strong statewide curriculum and over 90% of its teachers are unionized.  So apparently when we look at these examples, government planning and unionization, which are so often portrayed as the reasons schools are failing seem to do well in many instances.  So the next time you hear someone who talks about the crises facing America’s schools, just tell them to chill.