Dumbing Down Education

I watched John Stossel’s report on education last night or most of it. I got so disturbed that I turned it off before the end. I’m not sure why I got so disturbed. He didn’t reveal anything that I didn’t already know. In fact I had been harping about the decline in education for years. This “Dumbing of Education.” is not a new phenomenon. I’m not sure when it began but I started teaching in the sixties and retired in the eighties, and I saw first hand in those more than two decades a slow erosion of our educational system.
In the fifties and sixties there was a teacher shortage due to the influx of “Boomers” and they were hiring anyone who walked in the door. By the sixties the teacher shortage was over but “NEW” was in. There was new math, new phonetic alphabets, open classrooms and Geography became Social Studies. Everybody was on the bandwagon to devise a “NEW” way of teaching which meant getting rid of the “OLD” which emphasized learning basic facts. Then in the seventies and eighties it was “self-esteem.” Teachers were told that no child should ever receive a failing grade as it would damage his image but they weren’t shown how to reach those children so they simply lowered their grading standards. Since some children didn’t learn to read on schedule it was deemed that the reading textbooks were too hard and the books were made easier. Then the students couldn’t read the science or other subject matter texts and they were made easier. Children with mental and psychological problems and those with learning disabilities were mainstreamed. They were tossed into classrooms with teachers who had too many students and too little training so they spent the time coloring or cutting paper anything to keep them busy but very few were taught.  
A whole generation grew up not knowing how to do basic math, read a book or where or what the Great Lakes were. Then came the eighties and nineties and those children became teachers. I have walked into classrooms and there would be sentences such as: “I seen the bear.” and “Your a good boy.” written on the blackboard not by students but by teachers. A new teacher asked me what state Washington D.C. was in and told me that was a nice “pitcher” on my wall. Parents protest when lengthening the school year is mentioned and then in the late 1990’s and 2000’s the violence begins.
In Stossel’s report the consensus seemed to be that money wouldn’t cure our educational decline and that schools that were doing a poor job should be closed. I agree with both points. You hear the word accountability a lot when education is discussed but no one seems to agree on who should be accountable. Florida has the FCATS which has resulted in the teachers teaching the tests and in some cases (probably more than we know about) they give the students the answers. The failing schools are “punished” by being given more money per student. The A schools are praised.  There’s nothing wrong with testing but when getting a certain score on a test takes precedence over teaching then something’s wrong. Why not test a child at the beginning of school to see where he is academically and then at the end to see how much he’s improved. This would put the accountability where it belongs on the student and the teacher.