The Crisis
American public education is in the midst of a major crisis. The teacher shortage is a recent example of a problem so severe as to attract widespread national attention. More recent concern is focused on the losses in achievement sustained as a result of Covid induced shutdowns and virtual instruction. However, the problem with education has been gradually evolving and Covid accelerated the downward spiral of change. Winston Churchill taught us to “never let a good crisis go to waste.” There is a lot we need to do to salvage the future generations and our country. A good start is by assessing and reframing current educational practices and methods.
The crisis in education has been evolving gradually over the years. Covid required school closures and remote online teaching and learning. These environmental changes have significantly accelerated the downward spiral of our educational system. We now have a major crisis in our hands. Our children are behind academically and our methods of teaching to catch up and learn the basics are not up to the task. Our teachers are tired and frustrated. We used to respect teachers and teach our children to value, respect, obey, and love their teacher. However, what we did not do was pay our teachers and reward properly their awesome task of preparing our children for the future.
Teachers these days encounter many children that are academically behind, many do not have basic reading skills, they are distracted, they might not follow rules, and they have not developed the love of learning. Teachers have many things to worry about including their own safety while in the school. We are teaching our children with methods that have failed for many in teaching the basics of reading, math, and communication skills. We continue to have disparities in educational opportunities that follow closely the race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status divide. We are not making significant inroads in making a difference in the educational outcomes for children of color or with disabilities. It is time to wake up and do something that is proven and practical about it. We need measurable and accountable positive results, and quickly!
Some states like Florida are proposing to replace the teachers with untrained members of the military. What does it say to a professional when it is proposed that their function can be performed by someone lacking their training and certification? On the other hand, how much respect is due a profession that has the record of public education in the United States? When whole high school classes graduate but are unable to read their diplomas? When less than half of a state's fourth graders cannot read at grade level, if at all? It is unfortunate that teachers get blamed for these statistics when the responsibility lies elsewhere. Teachers cannot be blamed for seeking other employment, especially when their compensation requires many to take part time employment elsewhere.
Crises Can Be Instrumental in Promoting Change
Sometimes we need a crisis to turn challenges into opportunities. It can be the perfect time to reset expectations and revisit established practices. The Brookings Institute published a report (April 10, 2017) by Maria Langan-Riekhof and colleagues identifying benefits of past crises. One of the best examples they noted was the Deep Water Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. It is the largest oil spill in history. It remained uncontrolled for 87 days. The damage to the environment is unmeasurable. It created a major challenge since at that time there was no technology or methodology to contain it. The spill of oil was over a mile underwater. The "Capping Stack'' that finally brought the release under control was developed, through intense collaboration, over a few months. This technology, that did not exist before the spill, allowed the stack to be installed at such great water depth. This new technology is now used as a contingency for deep water drilling operations all over the world. The challenge was met in a situation of urgent need. Never let a good crisis go to waste. Education is in an acute crisis that has evolved to the present for some time. Now, there is an urgent call to address this problem that will impact our future. We have to collaborate and work together to meet this challenge. We can turn this challenge into a most pressing opportunity.
The Challenge - Redesigning Public Education
Perhaps it is time to consider redesigning our public education system, taking advantage of knowledge gained in the last half century but not yet fully applied. We now have a mature science of behavior and a number of derived technologies that are being applied in a variety of settings other than the public schools. Examples include medical procedures such as manual breast examination, treatment of behavioral disorders in children, military training, and industrial safety training.
In any culture, the function of education is to install in the young the behavior necessary for participation in the culture. Practices that aid in building that behavior should be valued and retained while practices that fail to do so should be eliminated. The recent history of public education in America is replete with examples that defy this dictum. An example is the practice of isolating low achieving students in crowded schools staffed by individuals not deemed qualified for normal duties. The increased likelihood that these students will become delinquent and eventually wards of the correctional system illustrates the failure of this practice to benefit the culture.
The Technology of Education
Reduced to its basics, the function of education is to change the behavior of individual students in accordance with culturally valued standards. Changing behavior requires two considerations. First, that the behavior can be defined and measured directly. Reading behavior, for example, can be defined in terms of words read correctly. Math behavior may be defined by operations performed correctly or problems correctly solved. The basic unit of behavioral measurement is frequency, count per unit of time. This is the natural unit of behavioral measurement since every behavior has a frequency. Measures of frequency provide measures of function. One must be able to read the words on road signs at certain frequencies to be able to navigate safely at highway speeds, for example.
If we also measure the frequency of words misread or skipped, we can derive a measure of accuracy. Combining frequency with accuracy leads to the concept of fluency. A fluent performance is one that is performed at a certain frequency with few or no errors. Unfortunately, most traditional educational measures are percentages in which the time dimension is absent. Fifty math problems done correctly in 10 minutes is qualitatively different from 50 math problems done correctly in an hour, though both performances would be graded 100% correct.
Many educational objectives are currently stated in indirect terms. Often, these terms refer to implied causes of the behavior. “Aggression” is an example, as is “compliance.” Saying Tommy is aggressive doesn’t specify what Tommy does that causes people to label him. Tommy hits others is a clear description of the behavior; the immediate question is “At what frequency?” Five times per day is different from once per week, for example.
Technology in the Classroom
Children as young as one year can respond to sounds and images on portable devices such as phones and laptops. Some schools issue Chromebooks to entering kindergartners and use them to present engaging curricula that lay the foundation for reading. Voice recognition software can make these devices function like human teachers. Machine: “What color is this ball” while a blue ball is on the screen. The child says “Blue” and the computer says “Good job, Ajax”. If the child says “I don’t know” or names a different color, the machine can say something like “This ball is blue. Can you say ‘blue?” Child says something unintelligible. The machine says “Say BLUE”. The child makes a sound that approximates ‘blue’ and the machine says “Yes. The ball is blue. Let’s say it together, “The ball is blue.” And so on.
This sort of teaching can occupy the child for several minutes while other children are engaged in similar activities. The machine can also keep track of the child’s progress and move to more complex curricula once mastery is demonstrated at a particular level.
There are several programs that teach reading through machine interactions. For example, Headsprout is one that has been shown to be successful in classrooms in inner city Philadelphia as well as elsewhere..
Another innovation that saves enormous amounts of teacher time is peer coaching. Morningside Academy in Seattle, Washington, has perfected this practice with elementary students learning math facts. The students time each other as they solve math problems on practice sheets. Each performance is timed and scored with the results plotted immediately on the student’s personal chart.
Combining these practices with effective technologies such as Precision Teaching and Direct Instruction makes it possible for every student, regardless of race, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or family structure to achieve proficiency in reading and math. Proficiency in these two domains is an absolute prerequisite to achievement in more complex subject matter such as history, science, civics, and the like.
The second consideration essential to behavior change is the environment in which the behavior takes place. In addition to the technological factors mentioned above, the physical setting in which learning takes place is a major determinant of the effectiveness of any instructional procedure. Socrates is said to have managed the process by sitting on one end of a log with his pupil at the other end. Since then, special buildings have evolved, often without thought to the effects of their design on the learning process. The single teacher/single classroom design nicely suited the widespread practice of grouping students by age or grade. This design fostered the frequent complaint of teachers that teaching to the whole class at once meant some would be unable to keep up, some would be reached and a few would be bored to tears and seeking alternative activity, often involving behavior that disrupted the proceedings for the others.
Modern schools are characterized by highly flexible internal spaces, allowing for different combinations of students to be involved in a particular activity at the same time. Students can now be grouped by ability and lessons delivered at exactly the level that the smaller group can absorb.
Combining effective teaching technology with a well designed environment makes possible achievement of mastery level performance for every student, as mentioned above. This is not a pipedream; schools exist for which this standard is met on a daily basis. What must happen for this to become the norm for public education throughout America?
Teacher Training
The modern technologies we have highlighted require specialized training if they are to be used effectively. Many Colleges of Education are meeting this responsibility, but many are not. Graduates who enter the classroom lacking at least internship experience with, for example, Direct Instruction, are simply unable to use this system with their students. Teacher training programs, like training in the medical professions, should emphasize supervised practical experience on the way to final certification.
Local Governance
The good news is that the public is becoming more aware and more involved. What started as concern over curriculum issues such as whether to teach critical race theory and to whom morphed into concern over teaching about sexual issues to elementary school students and placement of transgender students and their role in sporting events. Now parents are voicing concern over hiring practices. The point is that the public is getting involved. It is time to bring them into contact with the facts concerning achievement in their communities and help them organize into groups that can exert political force. Ideally, their ire should be redirected at the chronic failure of the system to fulfill its societal function and not just the occasional outburst of displeasure over some fallout from the culture wars.
Elected school boards should be made aware of the scope of the problems in their districts and of the potential resources available for amelioration. Usually this function is performed by an elected or appointed superintendent. The local press can be instrumental in bringing the problems of proficiency into public awareness. Board members should be responsive to parents’ concerns about the failure rates in their district. Measures of school performance should therefore be available at all times to board members. Citizens (voters) should feel empowered to inform school board members of the existence of effective educational practices and insist that they be investigated. School boards should do more than mediate complaints from parents about curriculum.
Informed citizens can become a political force that can determine the composition of school boards. In turn, these citizens can elect individuals to the state legislatures who are informed regarding the educational problems and prospects of the children in their districts. They will then offer and support legislation that provides resources for acquisition of effective educational technologies. Such support will be sustained if the local administrators provide frequent and timely data on student achievement.
State Governance
State Departments of Education should function as sources for information concerning innovative and effective teaching practices. They can also provide supplementary resources to assist in training of existing personnel in the use of these technologies. Governors should take a leading role in promoting educational achievement in their states and make improved education a major plank in their re-election platforms, regardless of political party.
Federal Involvement
The emergence of education as a topic of national discourse provides candidates for House and Senate seats with an opportunity to unite in their commitment to reverse the embarrassing international trend toward relative mediocrity. Such a commitment to this cause might foster a sense of reunification in our badly divided political atmosphere. Who can be against children achieving their full intellectual potential? For those who might need stronger justification, the monetary cost of educational failure, measured in terms of crime statistics, incarcerations, and social unrest can be viewed as a deficit in human capital that diminishes the nation’s ability to compete in the international arena. Specifically, individuals entering the armed services lacking adequate preparation create huge additional training costs which the taxpayers must eventually absorb. Similarly, educational deficits in the emerging workforce create costs that ripple through the entire economy in terms of reduced efficiency and productivity.
At the Executive level, the U.S. Department of Education can exert essential leadership in reorienting the educational establishment toward standards of proficiency for all learners, not just those with privileged preparation. The First Lady’s well publicized identity as an educator creates for her an unique opportunity to lead by example should she adopt one or more of the powerful technologies now available at all levels of instruction. She might also revisit the disgraceful history of Project Follow Through and inspire the federal bureaucracy to never again ignore a data based demonstration of educational innovation and effectiveness.
For those interested in learning more about redesigning our education system, we highly recommended reading the work of Michael B. Horn.
Pass it on and see you next week!