Being Realistic About Education Reform

We are quickly approaching that familiar time of year: the summer break.  Although it may have been shortened because of snow days and inclement weather, this is a tradition that school children in America have enjoyed for a little more than a century.  For many seniors, in either high school or college, this will be their last summer vacation before they move on the next great chapter of their lives.  For academic faculty and staff and the remaining students, this is a well-deserved time off to recharge the batteries. 

However, in recent years there has been a re-examination of the American academic calendar.  Particularly, as it relates to competitive student performance on the global scale, there is the debate that we are not spending enough time in school.  The standard school year in America is 180 days and children in America spend approximately 1,146 instructional hours in the classroom. 

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an international organization, comprised of 34 countries, that works to stimulate economic progress and world trade.  Every three years they work in tandem with the Program for International Student Assessment.  In their most recent study, it measured the performance of 15 year olds of its member nations in Reading, Science, and Math.  These results showed that 15 year olds in the United States are not leading the pack.  Our scores show that we are ranked 14^th in Reading, ranked 17^th in Science, and ranked 25^th in Math. 

Another number that stood out was the 180 days that American children are in school.  This shows us to have one of the shortest school years for all the countries tested.  I don’t think that eliminating summer vacation would solve all our problems, especially since most research shows that teacher quality is the biggest influencer, but maybe a little more class time could help.  From a comparative standpoint, South Korea has 220 days and a number 2 ranking in Math.  But Finland has the first place ranking in Math and Science with a school year of 190 days.  Is ten extra days keeping us from a first place showdown with Finland?

And while I endorse time off and much-needed breaks, I am also compelled to share some reasons why the summer break slows our children’s educational progress.

1)  Kids forget what they been taught.  Our brains forget what we don’t use.  On average, kids lose about a month of math skills during the summer.  Low income children lose as much as three months of reading comprehension.  A few studies have suggested that two-thirds of the achievement gap that separates income groups can be attributed to 9^th grade summer learning loss. 

2)  Kids need to be re-taught what they have forgotten.  Reteaching forgotten lessons can consume as much as the first month of the fall semester. 

3)  Kids gain weight.  Kids can gain body mass twice as fast during the summer as compared to the school year. 

In this age of reduced budgets, I understand that we don’t have the funds to pay teachers for more days, nor do we have money to keep school buildings open all year.  However, we have to find a way to step out this box we have been in for the last 100 or more years.  Our biggest obstacle is our love for what we are familiar with. 

I can remember reading an article about the “space race” of the late 1950s.  The Soviet Union was the first country to put an artificial satellite in orbit.  Upon feeling the sting of this “defeat”, our political leaders promised to have a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s.  As a result of this Sputnik moment, our schools and universities ramped up their curriculum and made our children competitively smarter.  During this time, the United States was the dominant country with the better technology. 

Are we waiting on another Sputnik moment?  What does it take for us to become innovative once more?

FYI – The International Monetary Fund recently reported that China would surpass the United States as the largest economy in 2016.  Shanghai, which is China’s most populous city, ranks number one in the OECD education reports. 

Tough on Crime is Tough on Taxpayers

American politics is full on commonly used (and overused) clichés. If you think hard enough, you may have many of them on many different occasions. Whether it was a stumping politician shaking hands and kissing babies or whether you attended a town hall meeting, you have heard “I represent the little guy” or “I want to work for you”. In the most recent election cycle, the most used cliché had to be “we’re taking our country back”. But the universal phrase that has been most frequently on either side of the aisle is “I’m tough on crime”.

Being tough on crime had its start as a GOP campaigning point. Drugs were becoming a major problem. And after that, guns were added to the drug problem. The final part of the equation was the addition of gang activity. The evening news reported crime after crime after crime and it seemed not enough was being done to curb the problem. The best solution, it seemed, was to get “tough on crime”. The plan for being tough on crime became catch the drug users (as opposed to drug dealers), put them in jail, and throw away the key. Being tough on crime did not begin and end with drug-related offenses. Other offenses, most notably those involving handguns, were included in the “tough on crime” category, as well.

As various election cycles arrived, it became time for the GOP to talk about being tough on crime. They now had numbers to validate how dangerous people with their deadly handguns and illegal drugs had been taken off the streets, presumably making the streets safer. This provided the track record they need to establish their “tough on crime” policies. And by making voters feel safe, this pretty much guaranteed their re-election. Democrats eventually took notice of how creating and drafting tough on crime policies turned into re-election victories. They, too, began to draft their own policies, make their own speeches, and lock up drug users, as well. Thus, the cliché of being “tough on crime” become a fixture in American political discourse.

Now, let’s fast forward to 2010. The United States population is roughly estimated at around 360 million people, which is roughly 5% of the population of the entire world. The United States prison population exceeds 2.1 million people…which is 25% of the world’s incarcerated population. Our prison population is twice that of China and their population exceeds 1 billion people.

Also in 2010, there was born an intense focus on government spending. Many citizens, along with advocacy and grassroots began to question where their tax dollars were going. In an effort to establish common ground on this issue, some unlikely partnerships began to take shape. Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, Former Secretary of Education Rod Paige, and David Keene, formerly of the American Conservative Union joined NAACP President Ben Jealous to launch a campaign to influence state budgets and federal policy in order to reduce incarceration.

Recently the NAACP released a report entitled, Misplaced Priorities: Over Incarcerate, Under Educate. The report offers details on how our habit of excessive spending on incarceration ultimately undermines the ability to fund educational opportunity. One of the more surprising figures given in the report shows that during the last two decades, state spending on prisons grew at six times the rate of state spending on higher education. NAACP President Ben Jealous offers being “smart on crime” as the alternative to being “tough on crime”.

In Arkansas, we expend almost $24,000 per prisoner compared to approximately $8,000 per public school pupil. It would seem that the state of Arkansas was paying close attention to those expenditures. In this most recent legislative session, Democratic and Republican lawmakers, along with prosecuting attorneys from across the state worked to draft a bill that decreased the recidivism rate, lowered the prison population, and kept violent offenders behind bars.

According to surveys from the Pew Center on the States, Arkansas is second to only Alaska with a recidivism rate of about 44%. This meant that in 2004, almost 2,772 offenders returned to prison within three years of their release. Just in case you were wondering, footing the bill for these 2,772 prisoners is roughly $66,528,000.

What began as a common cliché to address a common issue has now become the common ground for which lawmakers from both parties can develop solutions that work for everyone.

Civil Discourse and the Civil War

Across the country, many will gather to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. It was on April 12, 1861 that Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter. Shortly after that, 11 states seceded from the United States of America to form the Confederate States of America.

It’s been recorded that no one died during the artillery battle before Fort Sumter surrendered, but the Civil War would claim the lives of more than 600,000 Americans during its four year span. To date, the American Civil War remains one the bloodiest American conflicts of all time.

During this week, all across America, there will be many re-enactments of famous battles of the Civil War. These re-enactments have become the norm during this time of year. Over the last few decades it has become a tradition. We are reminded of the heroes of the war and the roles they played. We will be reminded of Sherman’s March to the Sea, the sacrifice of David O. Dodd, the professionalism of Robert E. Lee, and the strategy of Ulysses S. Grant. In a few instances, we may even be reminded of the services of black soldiers and slaves in the Civil War. More than 170,000 black soldiers fought on behalf of the Union. And there is information that support black soldiers served in the Confederate army, as well.

Another tradition within the remembrance of the Civil War is the debate over why the war was fought in the first place. As I’ve read about and studied wars throughout school and the many documentaries I’ve seen, I have always concluded that wars were fought over the following reasons: (1) territory and (2) economics. I would guess that the American Civil War is no different. Territory was an issue, as evidenced by the secession of 11 states. Economics can also be seen as a reason, as the South was primarily agricultural and the industrial revolution was slowly coming over the horizon.

The debate for the Civil War usually hinges on slavery. There are some that completely place the reason as slavery and others that base the reason as states’ rights. With the rise of revisionist history, political conservatives make the claim that the Civil War is only about the interference of big government. Not to be outdone, there is a liberal who will state that the use of humans as personal property tugged at the heartstrings of elected officials. As I did my own search, via the Internet, I couldn’t help but notice that slavery was an ever present theme. Without slavery there would have been no Civil War. Slavery may not have been THE issue, but it drove the debate on every issue.

The following are also mentioned as causes of the Civil War:

(1) Economic and social differences between the North and the South
The cotton gin was able to reduce the time it took to separate seeds from the cotton. However, at the same time the increase in the number of plantations willing to move from other crops to cotton meant the greater need for a large amount of slave labor. As a result, the southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton and therefore on slavery.

(2) States Rights versus Federal Rights
This is essentially a battle that has been waged since the founding of the United States. States believed that they had the right to decide if they wanted to accept certain federal acts. The federal government denied the states the right of nullification, in which the states would rule certain federal acts as unconstitutional. States felt that since they could not nullify federal acts, they were not respected. In a nutshell, the states wanted to act independently and exercise their right to continue owning slaves. The federal government didn’t agree.

(3) The Election of Abraham Lincoln
When Lincoln was elected in 1860, South Carolina issued its Declaration of the Causes of Secession. Many southern states believed that Lincoln was anti-slavery and in favor of Northern interests. Before Lincoln moved into the White House, seven states had seceded from the Union.

And if these reasons don’t convince you that slavery was the central cause of the Civil War, ask yourself this question…what was the almost immediate result of the Union’s victory? The immediate result was the emancipation of almost 4 million slaves. Additionally, as the war neared its end, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were added to the United States constitution.

The common ground that we have to reach with this discussion depends on each of us having an open mind and reviewing the root cause of this great conflict. But the happy ending is that this “peculiar institution” no longer exists and many of us share many freedoms.

I think Jon Meacham said it best with this quote: “At such a charged moment, we must remember our nation’s history fully, and not selectively. If we truly want to be faithful stewards of the past, we must recall what the Civil War was about – slavery and the definition of human liberty.”

The Civil War was fought so that we could do away with what is one of the darkest chapters in American history. But as that chapter ended, it helped us write new chapters in which the future is not always determined by your skin color or your gender. We now have the chance to write chapters that place everyone on a level playing field. These new chapters involve finding the common ground that allows us to participate in a civil discourse which will determine our brightest futures.