The Top Five US K-12 Problems
— with Solutions for each!
Despite almost universal agreement that it is a disaster (and thousands of well-intentioned people trying to fix things), our K-12 education system seems immune to meaningful reform. Why is that?
The likely answer is that almost everyone is overwhelmed by the quantity of K-12 issues, so their good efforts there are severely diluted. The businesslike solution is to identify the most important fundamental problems and then apply critical thinking to come up with solutions. Here is my perspective…
The Main K-12 Problems:
1 - There is no national agreement on what the main objectives of the US K-12 program are. Instead, we have 50(!) different sets of objectives. That is an absurd situation and a recipe for failure — which is exactly what we have!
2 - We continue a 100+ year old tradition of focusing on teaching children WHAT to think. In other words, the K-12 education emphasis is almost exclusively on Content, not Skills.
3 - The Left has taken full advantage of this focus, and (over the last 20+ years) has almost entirely taken over the Content. The results are that the Science curriculum is anti-science, the History curriculum is anti-American, the 3Rs are pedantic mush, etc.
4 - We continue a 100+ year old tradition of pedagogy, i.e., methodology for teaching (teachers lecturing to a relatively large class on various subject areas, with periodic tests, over a 6± hours day).
5 - There is zero national leadership on the multiple other K-12 issues (e.g., student/teacher safety, AI, parental involvement, age-appropriate books in libraries, etc.). To date, the Department of Education has failed to provide such leadership. The closest national leadership we have is the teachers' union — which is focused on its own power, not student success.
The K-12 Solutions:
1 - We simply MUST come to a national agreement on what the main objectives of the US K-12 program are. Although every State should then adopt those goals, it will be left up to each State as to how it meets them.
2 - We MUST change from teaching children WHAT to think, to teaching them HOW to think. That is an essential Skill that our K-12 education system should prioritize. Regretfully, the evidence (e.g., here) indicates that so far we are doing the exact opposite!
3 - We MUST get rid of the politicalization that we have allowed to infect essentially all of the K-12 subject areas. Yesterday.
4 - We MUST thoroughly and objectively assess the value of different pedagogies — e.g., what is being successfully done in Alpha schools and at Thales Academy schools.
5 - We MUST radically reform the DOEd so that it properly provides the leadership desperately needed by all fifty States, regarding all K-12 issues.
Takeaway —
Hopefully, when written in this straightforward fashion, it will become clear that meaningful fixes to our K-12 education system are absolutely doable, and in a relatively short time. So what are we waiting for?
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Once upon a time, the nation rallied around the common school. Today, that idea is known as classical education. It teaches fundamentals and then moves on to critical thinking. And it works. We need to get back to basics and use models that work. We need to get back to the common school and classical education. It’s really not that difficult.
All 5 points are very valid. You are right there is nothing more boring than having a teacher do nothing, but spout off facts in front of a class, then grade students on what they can recall. This really is not learning. I took a class in student teaching...and we had to go and observe teachers. I selected to observe my own mother (who wound up teaching 52 years) as one of my choices. I was amazed at how good she was. She engaged her students in discussions and this impressed me. When students raised their hands to say something. She responded to everyone. She did not ignore the hands that went up. Many teachers that I have observed during my years of schooling...ignored the students, when they raised their hands. Few teachers did more than rattle off information. ...boring!