Some Thoughts on Public Education
Remember when you could send your children to a public school and expect that they would receive an education that prepared them to be responsible, knowledgeable citizens ready to enter the workforce, attend a trade school, join the military, or matriculate at a college or university? Funding such an education was an appropriate use of our hard-earned tax monies. And in those “good ole days” no one doubted that they were your children, endowed with the values you chose to impart from the world view your family lived.
Regrettably those expectations have been increasingly undermined by a federal government that believes our children belong to the State and that “your” values should be replaced by those the government deems most acceptable. I will fight that arbitrary controlling mentality and be your voice to return control of our education system to our local communities. Parents should have the major voice in what their children learn and how they are taught, not unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D. C. or even locally elected school boards who may hold values quite different from yours. The Department of Education, which has only existed since 1980, may have a role to assist in ensuring an equitable level of education across our country, establish policies for administering financial aid, and seeing that tax funds are ethically allocated, particularly to often neglected rural areas, but it is a very limited role. Their annual budget of $68 billion needs to be slashed by at least 50% and the monies returned to the states and their 4,400 employees reduced by 60%.
Most of us are the products of a public education system. I know I am, and we were blessed with having teachers whom we respected and who had our best interests at heart, not those of the federal government. We were taught to respect our history and to learn from both our successes and failures, not tear them down and forget our roots. What has been the result of the increased federal control of schools? We read almost daily horror stories about the failure of center city schools to produce literate, capable graduates—people capable of achieving success when they enter the workforce. But it is more than just center city schools that often do not have adequate funding or parental involvement, the criticism is more systemic and nationwide. The most recent polls taken among developed countries ranks the USA 30th of all industrial nations in math, 20th in science, and 17th in Reading.
For an admittedly anecdotal but eye-opening revelation regarding our current standard of higher education, watch some of the “person-on-the-street” interviews of college students at even so-called prestigious universities and prepare to cringe as they can’t even name the current Vice President, the 2 warring sides in the US Civil War, which country the United States won independence from, either of the 2 countries bordering the United States, or the 3 branches of federal government. And…these uninformed, dare I suggest politically and historically ignorant, individuals can vote. Sadly, some do. That is almost frightening. No wonder so many Millennials and Gen Z’s do not believe that Hamas is currently committing atrocities in Israel. Twenty percent of them “feel” that the Jews caused the Holocaust, just as they believe that Israel caused the atrocities Hamas has perpetrated on them, and they further deny that 6 million Jews were murdered by the Hitler and the Nazis. The majority of such Millennials and Gen Z’s who are even willing to admit grudgingly that the Holocaust occurred, think at most 1-2 million might have died. Our education system is in disarray.
When foreigners become citizens—become naturalized—as part of that process they must pass a citizenship test demonstrating their understanding of the basics of our history and governance. It is not a literacy test or a language test, not one that seeks to deny certain races political legitimacy, but one that demands some very basic understanding of our history and means of governance so that those wishing to join our great republic are prepared to be involved citizens who are capable of voting responsibly. The test includes difficult questions such as the following. Who is the father of this country? How many US senators are there? Who must sign a bill so it becomes law? What does the first amendment to our Constitution protect? How many states are there? Real head scratchers, right? There is a bank of 100 questions that those hoping to attain citizenship can study from. Whenever the prospective citizens are ready, sometimes after weeks of study, a federal agent asks a person 10 of those questions. To gain citizenship, and hence the right to vote, a foreigner must get just 6 correct. Why not impose that same admittedly minimal requirement on all our citizens before they can vote?
The recent Covid scare seems to have had at least one very positive effect. Because public school students were participating in on-line education, parents for the first time in years were capable of learning what their students were studying in school. They saw the content, the subjects being taught, and heard the embedded biased values. Many of us assumed—naively we now find out—that the approach to teaching the subjects studied today was the same and maybe even improved over those we had 10-50 years ago. You know, the old “Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic” triumvirate that are imperative for success in life. Sadly, such a belief was misplaced.
Our current public education system has strayed wildly away from content-based education methodology to one known colloquially as SEL, Social and Emotional Learning. This philosophy of education is embedded in every “teaching college” and university offering degrees in “education” for prospective teachers. SEL “is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions, and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.” This is the soul of public education today. If you notice that “cognitive skills” are missing from this approach to teaching, you are right on track. Traditional classic education has been thrown out in order to advance “equity” and woke values at every level of the process. Memorization of times tables, phonics, American and world history, homework, and other aspects of classical education are totally missing from the federal agenda.
I find the SEL process more an effort to indoctrinate and groom children in accordance with government directed values than to enhance genuine learning. It may be a slight exaggeration, but I see the impact of SEL on our culture as being on a par with all too well known reeducation camps staged in other countries. Once God was expelled from our public schools, content was quick to follow. I am committed to limiting the power of the Department of Education to dictate studies, subject matter, and the process of inculcation. Parents in local communities must be allowed to determine what and how their children learn.
I will fight to reinstitute a content-based classic model of education nationwide (Grammar—Logic—Rhetoric), a traditional model that believes that the mind must first be given facts then provided with the means to think logically about them and finally supplied with the appropriate tools to express their own thoughts and conclusions. Such a classical approach demands we return to the classroom the teaching of phonics, the inclusion of math basics such as times table memorization, the teaching of US history, an understanding of our founding documents, the inclusion of the great works of literature, and the traditional use homework as a means of inculcating and reinforcing learnings. Students must be taught to retain knowledge and apply learnings to new situations not just regurgitate a fact or two on an end-of-course multiple choice test. Perhaps most important, elected school boards need to be accountable to the parents of the children in their schools, not just to the federal government or teacher unions.
One way to ensure such education takes place is to work to have more teachers who have degrees in their primary subject matter, not just degrees in teaching methodology. Today the degree most often held by public school teachers in all grades is a BA in education—not a specific subject. Two thirds of high school teachers teaching physics, chemistry, American history, geometry, or algebra do not have a degree in the subject they are teaching. It is very difficult to create enthusiasm for an academic subject when the teachers themselves lack such enthusiasm. I will be an advocate for greater subject matter expertise in our nation’s teachers.
In Indiana we have already taken good steps to ensure parents have a substantial say in their children’s education. I supported fully the Indiana “Parents Bill of Rights” and will work to take the same principles nationwide when elected as your Representative. Its 17 points are a great starting point. Please help me to build upon that foundation for our country.
Last but not least, on May 7th or in early voting, help me help you by voting for Mark Hurt for Congress.