What is Education For?
The New York Times ran a series of op-eds this week trying to answer the question “What is School For?” The authors put forth various perspectives and arrived at divergent answers to the question. For example, John Friedman concluded that its purpose is to allow for economic mobility. Heather McGhee and Victor Ray contended that school is for making citizens. Asra Nomani focused on the concept of merit and how it has been lost. Bryan Caplan cynically suggests school is a waste of time and we should therefore allow any alternative funding mechanism like vouchers to disrupt it. To see so many varied responses to a seemingly simple question was interesting in itself. Yet the series missed an opportunity to expand the debate. Unfortunately, no two authors were asked to debate the same topic. It would have been far more valuable to have had a pro and con series with the authors attacking the opposing viewpoint in addition to laying out their own position. I also found some of the pieces lacked sufficient detail to truly give the reader much useful insight into the issue.
Despite these flaws, there were some notable entries. I thought Nomani’s article on merit was the most clearly articulated in the series. She challenged the ever increasing desire in some circles to create equity by lowering standards and rigor instead of trying to increase standards and performance for all students. She contrasted this dumbing down of school with the environment at the Wall Street Journal where journalists are encouraged to compete at the highest level and the amazing results that flow from that ethic. In contrast, I found McGhee and Ray’s entry on citizenship to be thought-provoking, but in the end it missed the mark. While I agree producing citizens is a fundamental purpose of education, their guidance on how to arrive at such a grand result lacked compelling logic and evidence. Instead of showing how school can build informed citizens, it read more like a progressive polemic about anti-racism. They failed to answer the question why is it any more important to educate teens about racial inequities on wealth and incarceration than instruct them about how to distinguish fact from opinion, the merits of the Constitution, or the intricacies of the legislative process in order to become well-rounded citizens? It would seem that teaching students how to logically analyze both sides of an issue would be far more productive than proselytizing them to adhere to only one side of the debate. The least compelling article for me, however, was Caplan’s thesis that school is a waste of time. It seems straight out of the Christopher Rufo playbook–make parents believe schools are so antithetical to their set of values that the only way out is through charters, vouchers, or blowing up the entire system. While I empathize with some of the points raised by this movement, their methods seem utterly counterproductive to achieving the desired goal of creating better schools. Anarchy is very rarely the best answer to creating meaningful reform.
Coupled with this series of editorials, the Times interviewed 12 teachers and a handful of parent protesters. One of the more telling answers came from the teachers in response to the question “What one word describes your job today?” Challenging was the word most often used. The balancing act used by teachers to tackle the ever-expanding list of demands put on them by administrators, students, and parents certainly can be described as creating a challenging environment to work in. I thought some of the lengthier responses provided by teachers were also insightful about the profession. In the face of difficult times, many teachers retained a sense of hope and duty to persevere. I thought the Times also did a credible job of trying to humanize the parents’ rights movement that has swept through conservative communities. Rather than simply portraying angry parents as “terrorists” or reactionaries, the parents interviewed expressed real frustration with the current system. One parent commented that he is not trying to stifle debate or instruction on race or sexual identity but trying to balance the discussion of those topics.
The series merits a look from fellow teachers.
