\doc\web\98\08\vt.txt
Dr. Rosenkrantz has written a fine article deserving of wide
circutlation...Fran Rice
Date: 10 Oct 98 07:40:45 EDT
From: Roger.D.Rosenkrantz@VALLEY.NET (Roger D Rosenkrantz)


Fran,
Here is a revised version of my article.  I am going to spend part of the
weekend working onthe short version for Ed Week.


			FROM SCHOOLHOUSE TO POORHOUSE


America's ailing system of public schools is at a crossroads.  Conflicting
visions vie for public money and public acceptance.  But what should be a
Great
Debate about the future direction of our nation's school system is being swept
under the rug .
	Most families still dream of a good college education for their
children that will prepare them for a challenging and rewarding career.  While
their faith in the power of a traditional liberal arts education is rarely, if
ever, questioned, plans go forward to move us in a very different direction
mapped out in a letter from Marc Tucker to Hillary Clinton following the 1992
presidential election, in which he lays out how to "advance the agenda on
which
you and we have all been working ... to remold the entire American system for
human resources development".    
	A copy of Tucker's letter fell serendipitously into my hands later that
year and I showed it to my friend, Rep. Ruth Dwyer.   While she shared my dim
view of its contents, neither of us took it very seriously.  In actuality, it
is the blueprint that the Clinton administration has followed ever since under
the banner of "school-to-work" and "goals 2000".  Fortunately, I later
mentioned the letter to Fran Degasta, who immediately grasped its significance
and shared it with her associate, Fran Rice, who mailed it to several
reporters. It soon became a focal point of resistance to Tucker's vision.  In
Vermont, our collaboration led to the formation of a political action group
called Vermont People for Integrity in Education (VPIE) .  
	I would guess that very few Americans have heard of Marc Tucker or his
National Center for Education and the Economy whose Board of Trustees includes
such public figures as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mario Cuomo, an odd assortment
of corporate ceo's, and former Vermont (now New York) Commissioner of
Education, Richard Mills.  Yet, this organization has been able to ram through
much of Tucker's program and alter the course of public education.  Most
Vermonters would be bemused to learn that Vermont, under Mills, was considered
a "cutting edge"  of the Tucker reform.  
	Whenever I try to tell people about this agenda, I draw that special
stare reserved for the likes of those who spend their lives trying to prove
that Shakespeare's plays were actually authored by Francis Bacon.  Happily, I
can now direct people to very similarly worded "school-to-work"  flyers
published by many state departments of education,  a perusal of which affords
a
snapshot of the Tucker program in motion.  In broad outline, it mandates by
age
16 the acquisition of a "core" of basic skills spelled out very sketchily in
state standards or "learning results".  Students then choose among "career
pathways", which include college prep, apprenticeships, technical preparation,
occupational preparation, professional preparation, guided by "career
evaluation teams" comprised of parents, teachers, advisors and counselors. 
"Career awareness infusion" begins in the earliest grades; in fact, the Maine
state standards begin with a section titled "career preparation".  I  can
remember Governor Dean declaiming in a state of the state address that "here
in
Vermont, we do not believe in tracking students", but the Tucker program is
the
ultimate in tracking.  And by the sound of it, very few students are likely to
be counseled into the college preparatory track.  I am told that in Texas 80
percent of the high school students are already in the vocational tracks, and
that a just issued flyer from Vermont Technical College projects a like figure
for Vermont.  Even for those who are college intending, "hands-on" job-related
experience is being emphasized.  			One major question this
raises is whether the core skills and knowledge embodied in state standards
provide an adequate foundation for college level work.  If not, who is going
to
do the basic research that advances human knowledge?  Who is going to dream up
new applications of that knowledge and base on it the new technologies which
create jobs for millions of others?  Is the Tucker vision a bridge to the new
century, or a form of unilateral disarmament for the coming knowledge races?
	Two streams of evidence point to a negative answer to my first
question.  One is the recent performance of our students in comparative
international studies; the other is the low caliber of our state standards.
	Prominent among the "goals 2000" set during the Bush administration was
to make American kids first in the world in math and science by the year 2000.
As the millennium approaches, that goal has receded.  In the most recent Third
International Math and Science Study (TIMSS), our high school seniors placed
close to the bottom in general knowledge of math and science and dead last in
physics.  The scary implications of this are underscored by the fact that our
best students fared no better against their counterparts in other countries
than our worst or average students.  Among the reasons for this meltdown
stated
by Secretary of Education, Richard Riley, were watered down, unfocused math
and
science curricula ("a mile wide and an inch deep"), poorly educated math and
science teachers (28 percent of math and 55 percent of our science teachers
neither majored nor minored in those subjects in college), and weak state
standards.  I couldn't agree more.  
	The TIMSS results are reinforced by data released by the Organization
of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on its member nations, showing
that U.S. students register the smallest learning gains in reading, math and
science in given school years, and fall ever farther behind as they advance
towards graduation.  Of the more than 20 OECD countries surveyed, our per
pupil
expenditures are third highest.  In short, we already have the world's least
productive K-12 system.  As we further dumb it down, the news from abroad can
only get worse.  
	Our state standards are laughable but no laughing matter, for school
curricula, teacher training, and assessments of student learning are all tied
to them.  Their industrial-vocational flavor is evident at a glance.  While
reasoning and problem-solving are given pride of place in our national (NCTM)
math standards, they show up weakest at the state level.  The most thorough
(Fordham Foundation) evaluation of state math standards  gives only three
states an A and flunks sixteen states, including Maine.  Were they too harsh?
	Well, the Maine standards on reasoning nowhere mention deductive
reasoning, the very essence of mathematics! Nor do they require that students
be able to distinguish valid from fallacious reasoning or recognize that
supporting instances of a theorem do not amount to a proof.  The examples of
skill in reasoning they offer are all drawn from the industrial sector, none
from mathematics or science.  Example:  "Given information about travel
patterns in a local community, develop a convincing proposal for the logical
placement of a bypass".  In a draft of the Vermont standards I critiqued, the
"evidence" offered that a student "thinks or reasons abstractly" was "student
designs a product or service".  Perhaps, to paraphrase our leader, it all
depends on what you mean by "reasoning".
	The Maine "learning results" demand that each student leave school  "a
creative and practical problem solver", a very laudable goal, yet the
standards
are otherwise silent on problem-solving!   Problem-solving fares no better in
the Vermont standards which do not mention a single one of the effective
problem-solving strategies marked out and tellingly illustrated in the
well-known writings of the mathematician, George Polya.  Nor is recursion,
arguably the most powerful problem solving stratagem of all, and also crucial
to the design of efficient computer programs, mentioned or illustrated.  The
only state math standards I have seen which do a decent job with reasoning and
problem-solving are a proposed set of California standards authored mainly by
Stanford professors of mathematics.  These standards received a perfect score
of 16 in the Fordham evaluation-- better, even, than Japan's-- but were
savaged
in the media as a return to the bad old days of rote learning.  Luther
Williams, in charge of the NSF "systemic reform initiative", even threatened
California with loss of NSF funding if it adopted those Stanford standards! 
Obviously, these turf wars have little to do with education and much to do
with
social control and who gets to exercise it.  And they also have much to do
with
whether Mr. Tucker's agenda continues to advance at the expense of traditional
academics.
	The NSF funded "states systemic initiative" spawned organizations like
VISMT (the Vt. Institute for Science, Math and Technology) whose ostensive aim
was to further the integrated teaching of these subjects and train teachers to
this end.  Six years and 10 million dollars of taxpayers' money later, there
is
still not a single high school in Vermont that has installed an integrated SMT
curriculum or even a single such course.  At the same time, VISMT and its
sister organizations, like the Maine Math Science Alliance, have been highly
instrumental in producing those "world class" (or is it world crass?)  math
and
science standards.  Make no mistake,  state standards are the chief mechanism
being used to dumb down the entire system.  Little wonder the academic
community has been rigorously shut out of the whole process.   As Ralph Raimi
and Larry Braden note in their Fordham Foundation evaluation of state math
standards, "the most obviously missing voice in this listing of those
influential in school mathematics today is that of the mathematics profession
itself".   
	In response to a question I put at the meeting of the State Board which
released the Vermont state standards, then Acting Commissioner, Doug Walker,
assured me that mathematicians had been consulted and "provided valuable
input".  But when I had the secretary of the UVM math department read me their
roster, I found that not one member of that department was listed on the
"commission" which set the state's math standards.  Intrigued, I sent for a
UVM
catalog and quickly confirmed my darkest suspicions:  not one member of a UVM
academic department was listed on any of the committees which set the Vermont
state standards in any of the three academic areas listed.   Nor is there any
academic representation on the State Board itself!  What are we to make, then,
of State Board Chairwoman Diane Wolk's recent call to "strengthen this
partnership between K-12 schools and colleges and universities"?  What
partnership?  Indeed, when she adds to that a call to align college courses
with Vermont's substandard standards, she is in reality threatening to extend
this malignant growth from lower to higher education.  
	That is not at all surprising.  If the public education system can no
longer turn out students prepared for college level work, it does the next
best
thing.  It dilutes the college curriculum, substituting indoctrination for
education and feel-good fluff for intellectual substance. No wonder the
academic community is being excluded, for it cannot be counted upon to join in
the general dumbing down of the curriculum or give its blessing to the effort
to substitute vocational training for a liberal education.
	One thing that does surprise me is the extent to which people who
should know better have swallowed the line that  "you cannot eat a college
degree".  They need to reexamine their position.  In Maine, where
school-to-work is in full  flower, a county by county breakdown reveals an
almost picture perfect correlation between income and education.  In
Cumberland
County (where Portland lies), the median income of around $32,000 is the
highest in the state, and so are the percentages of high school graduates
(85%)
and those earning (at least) a bachelors degree  (27.6%).  In coastal Waldo
county, the percentage of college graduates dips to 16.8% and median income
plunges to $23,000, while in neighboring Lincoln county, with a higher college
graduation rate of 22%, median income climbs to $28,000.  In the poorest
counties, Aroostook and Somerset, the percentages holding a college degree are
a state low of 12.5 and 10.5 percent.  Maine has, overall, one of the lowest
college matriculation rates in the nation despite the fact that its 4th and
8th
graders consistently score near the top of the nation on NAEP math and science

exams.  Vermont is very similar.  The last figures I saw recorded a 37 percent
college matriculation rate, and Ruth Dwyer tells me that studies  of Vermont
have shown the same correlation between educational level and median income.  
Jobs may not be waiting for college grads to the extent they once were, but
most of them do  find their way to rewarding careers.  They may not use
specific things they learned in this or that course, or even in their major,
but they do use the critical thinking, communication, study and problem-
solving
skills they acquire as part of a college education.  At the same time, we must
ask whether the glittering promise of "high-tech" jobs the prophets of
school-to-work dangle before us is being realized in other countries where the
system has been tried.  Germany, for example, now has an 11 percent
unemployment rate, and many of the young people coming out of the
apprenticeship programs  cannot find jobs.  We must also ask if the prophecy
is
not self-fulfilling.  If you dumb down a society enough,  a quality education
will lose its value.  If no one is interested in reading a good book, taking a
challenging course, or seeing a serious film, people capable of producing
these
goods and services will be in shorter and shorter supply.
	Plainly, we have to look beyond the  world of material goods to fully
appreciate the value of a liberal education.   The original intent was to
educate the whole person, to lead every one of us to the fullest realization
of
his or her human potential.  This country led the way in extending this goal
to
the entire population; ours has been the world's first experiment in
all-inclusive democracy and citizenship.  The educational elitists who sally
forth under the banner of "equity" now propose to turn back the clock to an
era
when a college education was the prerogative of the wealthy and privileged.
If
I am right, only those who escape the tentacles of the vocational tracks
through private or home schooling will go on to college.  And for all their
concern to motivate learners and make education "learner centered", the
vocationalization of education removes the traditional wellsprings of
learning.  
	First comes our native human curiosity.  Aristotle puts this in his
characteristically blunt manner in the very opening sentence of his
Metaphysics
when he says: "Man wants to know; this is first evident in the delight we take
in our senses".   Next comes our human need to  equal or surpass the greatest
discoveries and works of the past.  To feed that wellspring of learning, we
need to expose students to the seminal ideas and  great works of art and music
and literature.  A purely vocational education will deprive most of the next
generation of their rich cultural inheritance.  Last comes our shared need for
reflection and deeper understanding of the human condition.  Real learning, as
Robert Frost said of poetry, begins in wonder and ends in wisdom, in a
clarification of life.  		To return to earth and the economy, we
can now recognize the two competing models I alluded to at the outset.  One
model calls for a diverse system of publicly supported schools, not unlike our
college system, all competing in an open marketplace for students and
discretionary public funding.  I am firmly convinced that such a system, by
preparing higher percentages of students for serious study at the college
level,  would lead us to a similarly diversified and competitive economy based
on small home-grown entrepreneurial enterprises.    At a reunion dinner of the
Horace Mann School last fall, my HM classmate, Bob Shapiro, CEO of Monsanto
Inc., described his company's transformation from a producer of industrial
chemicals to a creator of new biotech products, like new crops, new drugs, and
better methods of pest control.  The profile of a typical Monsanto employee is
someone thoroughly grounded in the life sciences with a penchant for
applications.  I think Harvard and Stanford are more likely to turn out
graduates with this sort of profile than your local vocational training
center. 
I also think Monsanto is rather typical of the kind of company that can make
our economy grow and, at the same time, provide challenging and rewarding
careers for its employees.  
	I  carry in my mind a fairly clear conception of a smart society.  It
is one that recognizes the role of basic research in creating new products and
new technologies, like computers, television, or the internet, which provide
creative outlets for the talents of many people and entertainment or
instruction for millions of others.   It is a society that recognizes the role
of a liberal arts education in furthering basic research as well as the life
of
the mind and spirit.  It  realizes that teaching is the vital ingredient in
education and is willing to commit resources and careful thought to the
training and support of fine teachers and to accord them the respect they
deserve.  
	The alternative model of Marc Tucker views the public education system
as an arm of the industrial system. Its role is to supply the needed worker
bees.  There will be customized education plans for each student.  But a kid
who decides early on that she wants to be, say, a hairdresser or model, is
naturally going to ask: why do I need to study math, history, French, or
Shakespeare?  What will happen to late-bloomers?  There will be a general
lowering of aspirations and a general dumbing and numbing down of our culture
and civilization.  It is ironic, too,  that this program is moving forward in
a
country built by rugged, self-directed individualists.  I admit to an
unshakeable conviction, though one confirmed by plenty of research, that
autonomous self-directed people tend to live longer and happier lives than
those who follow directives set by others.   Tucker's vision of "human
resource
development" is, at bottom,  yet another experiment in collectivism and
centralized bureaucratic control.  It is a betrayal of America's highest
ideals, for our country is premised on the fullest development of the
individual in all of his individuality.    The purpose of education is to
broaden a student's horizons, not narrow them.   Even within the stunted
conception of man as producer and consumer, the picture Tucker paints of
workers trained and retrained for many different jobs over the course of a
working life is a dehumanizing one.  For much of our sense of self derives
from
the kind of work we do.  
	I am someone who happens to believe in heroes.  The brave young men who
fought and won the Second World War certainly fit my definition of heroism.
As
a society, we need betimes to remind ourselves what their sacrifice was for. 
It allowed our experiment in all-inclusive democracy to continue.  It spared
us, in Churchill's words, "a new Dark Age made more protracted by the lights
of
a perverted modern science" and allowed our civilization to write another
chapter.  I find myself wondering how these unassuming young heroes would have
felt about the present direction of American education.  Did they spill their
guts on the beaches of Anzio, Normandy and Iwo Jima to have their
grandchildren
processed through education warehouses to assembly line jobs?   Did they lay
down their lives for a society that spends more on jails than colleges?  For a
society that limits human aspirations, squanders our cultural inheritance, and
forgets our history (including their  history)?  Did they fight for freedom or
for more intrusive bureaucracies which rule by regulation and coercion?  Did
they perish so that the coming generations  could be locked into a monolithic
system of education that is settling into terminal mediocrity?  It is time for
us to address these questions, and I hope we will answer them in the same
emphatic way our soldiers, sailors and marines answered the call when the
enemy
struck at Pearl Harbor.  We owe this to our children and we owe it to
ourselves.


Roger