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For Your Consideration
“Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.” – Japanese proverb
When our founding fathers met to create a constitution for the nation, they believed the federal government should only do what states couldn’t do for themselves and states only to do what the local government couldn’t do for themselves.
This philosophy has been lost as the federal government expanded its original role and not always with great success. Education is an example.
The Morrill Act of 1862 granted each state 30,000 acres of federal land for every member of Congress representing that state. The states sold the land and used the proceeds to establish public colleges to provide a practical education for the working classes. It did not tell the states how to run the colleges.
President Andrew Johnson in 1868 established a Department of Education to collect statistics on local schools. Congress, fearing it was pushing the government too much into education, demoted it to the Office of Education, a small part of the Department of Interior with four employees and a budget of $15,000.
Over the years, education continued to be an issue for states and local government with a federal role limited to helping students by funding, like the GI Bill that provided funds for military veterans to pay for higher education.
President Eisenhower created the Department of Health, Education and Welfare on April 11, 1953, the first new cabinet-level department since the Department of Labor was created in 1913. HEW was designed originally to aid state and local programs with access to federal research, resources, and surplus property, and not for federal takeover or control of education, welfare or health services.
By 1953, Russia had caught up with the U.S. in developing atomic and later hydrogen bombs and creating a Cold War with the danger of nuclear war. In 1957, Russia launched a small satellite and America became worried we were falling behind the Russians and other nations in the area of science.
Federal funding of science education increased but the funding was directed to states and local governments to implement programs and science education improved dramatically.
During the Lyndon Johnson administration, the role and size of government dramatically expanded into education and other areas never imagined by our founding fathers. The War on Poverty created many new programs to try to improve early elementary to post-secondary level. By 1965, the office grew to more than 2,100 employees and a budget of $1.5 billion.
In May 1980, under President J immy C arter, t he D epartment of Education was made a cabinet level position and the agency has grown by leaps and bounds until in the year 2024, the department had over 4,300 employees and a budget of nearly $242 billion!
According to Department of Education research, while there have been periods of improvement, overall public school achievement in the United States has seen a decline since 1965 when federal funding and involvement in education increased.
Standardized test scores dropped significantly, and never fully recovered to previous levels. The Department of Education claimed this decline is attributed to “increased student diversity, socioeconomic disparities, and changing societal expectations impacting student motivation.”
This explanation begs the question when in U.S. education history did we not have student diversity, socioeconomic disparities, and changing societal expectations impacting on student motivation?
Not only have test scores declined, schools in Europe and Asia are having much higher student achievement. Why t he d ifference? P art may be to what schools are teaching and priorities.
For example, many European and Asians schools have physical fitness programs but sports are not part of the curriculum and are run by local sports clubs.
Drivers education is not part of the school curriculum in most foreign schools where longer and more intense training is required to get a driver’s license at individual expense.
Number of administrators and coordinators in European and Asian schools are far less than in American schools.
The expectations of students a re v ery d ifferent. I n Japan, students are the janitors in many of the schools. Kindergarten and lower elementary students are assigned to do things like dust, and work skills change as older students learn to do more skill required cleaning. Japanese educators claim it creates friendships and teamwork, pride in their schools, and early teaching of a “work ethic.”
In Asia and much of Europe, schools require uniforms - both for school identification and to show no class distinction in what students wear.
In many foreign schools, students are more academically directed; even music classes incorporate a lot of math and science.
It would appear what would make American education better is more outstanding teachers teaching solid academic subjects-- and not more administration, social programming, or federal government involvement. Thoughts for your consideration.
