Two threads of educational reform can be discerned during the past 25 years. Both miss the need for real reform and have contributed thereby to the further dumbing down of our public schools. One involves greater federal involvement and funding through No Child Left Behind legislation followed by Common Core initiatives extending federal involvement even further into the realm of standardized testing. The other thread of reform blames racism as an underlying cause of educational failure, and through busing and various regulatory requirements seeks more racial balance in neighborhoods and in schools.

The increase in federal control of educational policy is unconstitutional because the Tenth Amendment relegates control of all powers not enumerated in the U.S. Constitution to the several states. Common Core got around this with a deceitful strategy. Common Core says the federal government is not telling the states what to teach, only that the federal government will supply the standardized tests that will give the states greater feedback about whether they are meeting “standards.” Thus, states would begin teaching to the tests, the tests would be controlling, but the federal government – not requiring curriculum x, y, or z -- on a technicality would not be literally “in control” of state education.

At the same time as anti-constitutional forces in the body politic are attempting to federalize education via control over the mechanisms of standardized testing, another movement is striving to “desegregate” public education, especially in our cities. The civil rights movement fought against de jure segregation in the 1950’s and 1960’s, that is, segregation required by state laws, as being unconstitutional. The modern progressives are fighting to end de facto segregation, that is, segregation resulting from heavily black neighborhood-based schools which generally are showing poorer scores on standardized exams than schools with majority white or Asian students.

But this thread of educational reform implies that whites are systematically avoiding blacks and Hispanics. However, some of that “segregation” is the result of self-segregation by the minority communities. I have a black friend whose son told her he wanted to go to a high school with an almost 100% black student population because, "I want to be in high school with my people." This is a reflection of the same mentality of black students at some of our elite colleges and universities. There, we find many black college students are self-segregating in dormitories and in graduation ceremonies, so the integration paradigm is being challenged in the black community and is not simply a "lily white" institutionalization.

The assumption that institutional racism is holding back the advancement of all students or even the majority of students in New York City is questionable. Seth Barron has pointed out that “The student body of New York City is overwhelmingly ‘minority,’ so how meaningful is it really to talk about ‘racially segregated’ schools?” He further noted, “But white kids comprise less than 15 percent of the city’s entire student population…. Absent a massive program of busing, or forced population transfer, there aren’t enough white people to satisfy the progressives.”

Both threads of educational reform are unsound. Neither addresses the issues of curriculum reform and philosophical reform of the educational process. We must turn away from the Deweyan social justice models begun over 100 years ago to develop a “common faith” (Dewey’s rubric) in democracy, and, in our present context, the values of leftism and “social justice.”

Social justice is inherently unjust. It is a communist ideal in sheep’s clothing. Social justice denies the inherent worth of the individual as the end-all and be-all of a just and free society. The success of the individual to maximize his or her potential and to enjoy the fruits of a productive life within a context of Judeo-Christian morality should be the goal of public education. But social justice advocates place various “collectives” (sub-group identities) as taking primacy.

Modern classrooms using social justice concepts tend to emphasize cooperative learning rather than individual students trying to memorize and figure out how to do this or that piece of work. Cooperative learning teaches to small groups of students who engage in “discovery” of the truths of the subjects through projects. If one or two of the students in, say, a group of five do all the work, all the group members will receive an A, not only the one or two that did the work and demonstrated ability. This is the communist ideal reflected in education. Often, projects are dumbed down so that in high schools students are pasting pictures on colored construction paper and calling that a group research project.

Teachers are not teaching a body of knowledge, but are called “facilitators” who are catalysts or assistants as the students try to navigate learning at their own pace and in cooperation with their fellow students. Student dependency on the teacher has become diluted.

Bruce D. Price offers an incredible “Bill of Rights For Students 2020” which will shock the modern progressive sensibility as it so filled with common sense and clarity. These are ten “rights” which apply mainly to the elementary grades, including the ability to read based upon the proven phonics method by the end of grade one, the right to master arithmetic, the right to literature, and the right to know correct spelling. Mr. Price’s Bill of Rights For Students will be the perfect starting point for real educational reform for all ethnicities and national backgrounds.

At the secondary school levels, study of the body of knowledge of great works in literature, history, biography, and traditional math rather than the new math which give students credit for trying even if they don’t come up with the right answer. Knowledge, analysis, synthesis, concern with definitions of terms, guided research in history, ability to work with charts and graphs, less concern for contemporary relevance and more emphasis on universal principles and ideas should take precedence.

Classroom behavior should be controlled and strict. The high-five mentality between teachers and students should be discouraged and a more formal tone set. Teachers should not encourage students to call them by their first names. That which might be considered uptight should become normalized. Commercial and vocational tracks should be re-instituted in our middle schools to meet the needs of students who are not aspiring to higher education but are in need of more practical development consistent with their talents. And, lastly, teacher evaluation should emphasize content competency. Does the teacher truly have mastery of his or her subject, and are they communicating this mastery? Is their presentation slipshod, superficial, and simplified to a point where only a shadow of the subject is being taught.

Once, when teaching ancient history in a high school, this writer used photos of Roman coins to have students draw conclusions about Roman society from observing the coins. The principal observing the lesson commented that I had a good sense of humor and had a lot of energy. He said nothing about the value of studying the coins or of the historical analysis that followed.

Education can be saved. But we need to get off the hobby horse of blaming race relations or disparities in educational priorities among the 50 states as the reason for our failures.

Graphic credit: Pxhere