If the Schools Don’t Improve, Nothing Else Will
Mark Bauerlein
10/16/2026|Updated: 10/16/2026
Commentary
As we head toward the midterms, and as we look back to November 2024, it is interesting to note that the issue of education is rarely a topic of partisan debate or campaign promises. In 2000, education was on the minds of many in office, and it resulted in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Gov. Ron DeSantis made the elimination of Common Core a centerpiece of his first term, and he also made identity politics in the schools a high-profile target. But in this election season, education is an afterthought.
The quiet is strange, for the sad and simple truth is that American kids are graduating from high school with low skills and knowledge and with poor academic habits. Grades are high, to be sure, but standardized test scores keep falling. The discrepancy indicates that a lot of teachers and schools have given up on meaningful evaluation of performance. Fewer complete books are assigned, and fewer than that are actually read. Knowledge of history, civics, art, and literature is abysmal. Even those high school grads who get accepted to competitive schools such as Harvard and University of California-San Diego sometimes end up needing remedial math instruction.
For decades, educators have concocted theories and practices to get more out of the kids. Readers my age may remember the “open classrooms” layout, where different classes met in large areas in a school building, each class a few years apart with no barriers between them. The set-up was based on the notion that walls were uncomfortable for kids and hampered their learning. The experiment didn’t last.
Then there was the self-esteem movement, which said that kids would learn more if they felt better about themselves. Go light on correction, teachers were told, and ease up on criticism. It was a nice thought, but one with no empirical backing.
The accountability movement, which started in the 1980s, shifted attention away from kids and onto those responsible for educating them. Regular testing, it said, would weed out incompetent instructors, bogus curricula, and dysfunctional schools. To some extent, it succeeded in doing that, but the slide continued. That is why reformers (mostly on the right) championed charter schools and vouchers, which let parents do the job of improvement by the simple act of withdrawing their kids from bad situations. The method was not to fix existing schools but to create new and better ones.
...
READ MORE: https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/if-the-schools-dont-improve-nothing-else-will-6103160?ea_src=frontpage&ea_med=section-2
***
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc.
Kính Chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị.
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
17102026
__________________________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là ĐỒNG LÕA với TỘI ÁC
No comments:
Post a Comment