Now that Delaware and Tennessee have been awarded the first grants from the federal Race to the Top Fund, education reform, and the corresponding assumption that American schools are abysmal, is back in the news.
Along with the idea that Americans as a whole are stupid, this is one of the most pervasive myths—both in and outside of the United States—and it seems foolish to deal with this myth without handling the other. And while all of my readers that did attend public schools in the U.S. may be shaking their heads and wondering what someone educated in Europe can tell them about American schools, read on, and you'll see how it looks from the other side.
In order to write this article, I enlisted the aid of one of my friends who is legendary for his less than stellar opinion about his time in California's public school system. While most of what he said cannot be repeated here for risk of offending someone or losing my column, the one thing that he constantly returned to was the pitiful state of his school's physical plant. While I did find the tales of having an existential fear of going into school bathrooms somewhat disturbing, most of his experiences were not all that different from what I have experienced visiting public schools in those countries with top education systems.
But of course, the quality of one's education is not determined by where it occurs, so you're probably thinking: "What about all those studies where Americans score far worse than other nations? Surely the Finns do have something on us when it comes to education!" And yes, I'm not going to try and argue that the American school system is a shining example of pedagogical excellence. Especially considering that the U.S. spends more per student on education than any other developed nation save Switzerland, it's hard to say that the system is great in any way. To say that the system is failing, however, is also a stretch.
When comparing different nations' schools one must be careful to keep in mind structural differences between them. I've read many different studies that claim that Americans' academic performance is exemplary in elementary school relative to other developed nations, and then plummets as students age. Unlike in many other countries though, the worst students aren't kicked out of American formal education in tenth or even ninth grade.
This means that when the most significant tests are taken in the final years of schooling, in many European countries the only pupils around to take them are those that are almost certainly headed to universities or specialized training schools. Thus, by being relatively egalitarian, American test scores are skewed. Some studies have attempted to correct for this, but as far as I know the body of evidence contained within them is far from decisive.
Taking a broad look at education is always difficult, but looking at other, more specific complaints about the American system, it's hard to find any that really stand up to scrutiny. Many decry that American teachers get tenure, which allows bad teachers to stick around indefinitely. But at least in most cases American teachers actually have to come to class; in many European countries, teachers are almost untouchable. More than a few of my friends had teachers go absent for weeks or even months at a time, and nothing was done to them because of the strength of teachers' unions and associated legislation.
Another big complaint is that students in American schools who aren't taking honors, Advanced Placement or similar courses get relegated to being taught by inferior teachers. This is an issue, but contrasted to students getting completely removed from schools or sent to different schools where they are trained from middle school to be janitors or miners, it seems clear that in most cases, Americans have it better regarding the stratification of students in the same geographic area.
All of this supports the idea that America is not doing terribly when it comes to education, but it certainly doesn't mean the country is doing stunningly well either. It does, however, make it clear that the myth of abysmal American schools is just that. Granted, the U.S. does have the fairly unique issue of problem districts and problem states where schooling is horrid.
But on the whole, according to the education department here at Bowdoin, most Americans rate their own schools as perfectly acceptable while still believing that the nation as a whole is stuffed full of underperforming, useless institutions of education.
As even the best-case scenario has the U.S. as being average among developed nations, it's great to see some active reform. But the country needs smart reform rather than quantitative reform. Considering that the U.S. spends a frightening amount per student on education, one is forced to wonder if a $4.35 billion program like the Race to the Top Fund is really the best way to accomplish things. Plenty of underperforming school districts could use the money, but it's hard to argue that moving money around rather than throwing more money at the problem is more effective.
Presenting states with incentives to reform is a good thing, but in the short-term all it's going to do is make overspending on education even worse. Like health care, American public education mostly works, but it is getting too expensive, too fast. And like health care, if Finland can do it for less, the U.S. should be able to as well. If we stop complaining about problems that don't exist and start solving ones that do, maybe this problem, like so many others, will become more tractable.