Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 12, 1990                   TAG: 9004120631
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-15   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

NOT VERY MUCH KNOWLEDGE IS ACQUIRED IN SCHOOL

There is no rational justification for the explosion in the cost of education in this country, and something has to be done about it. Insulated by taxpayer subsidies, federal tuition grants and a touching confidence on the part of ordinary citizens that formal education can solve all problems, the nation's colleges have enjoyed a seller's market in which the normal laws of free-market economics have been suspended.

The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot recently published a study of per-student costs at several state institutions in Eastern Virginia in the period 1978-88. While the paper says the consumer-price index rose by 73 percent in this period, per-student costs rose by some 200 percent!

While college faculty and administrators are generally at pains to portray themselves as friends of the proverbial "little man," it would appear they are equally at pains to make certain that the "little man" pays through the nose when he partakes of their holy wares.

It wasn't surprising when the U.S. Department of Justice picked up more than a whiff of price-fixing at some of the nation's most prestigious colleges. It now appears that they had been getting together for years to compare notes. There is at least a strong suggestion that the purpose of this exercise was to make certain that wherever a student chose to enroll, costs would be pretty much the same.

Oscar Wilde observed what a pity it was that "youth was wasted upon the young." It is equally a shame, apparently, that so much costly education is wasted upon those too young (or too unwilling) to absorb very much of it.

Study after study has revealed shocking gaps in the general knowledge of high school and college students. In a recent study of college seniors by the Gallup Poll, 60 percent couldn't recognize the definition of "Reconstruction" as the period following the American Civil War. Forty-two percent couldn't even place the war itself between 1850 and 1900. Fifty-four percent had no idea that "The Federalist Papers" were written to promote ratification of the U.S. Constitution. And 23 percent believed that Karl Marx's famous dictum, "from which according to his ability, to each according to his need" appears in the U.S. Constitution.

There's nothing very new here. People have been belaboring the young from time immemorial, and we keep witnessing the advance of material progress. But let us also recognize that it was not until contemporary times that a lengthy process of formal education was raised to the status of a national icon.

It would be interesting to charge a conclave of psychologists with the task of quantifying the totality of knowledge in a large sample of human beings, and to trace its source.

We would probably be astonished to find that only a very small part of the whole was acquired in school. In terms of percentage of the whole, the largest share would probably be claimed by the period from birth to kindergarten. Our entertainments would contribute a large share. What we learn from parents, friends, co-workers, etc., would also loom large, but the largest share of the totality of our knowledge and understanding would undoubtedly fall under the heading of that which is self-taught.

It is rare that people master any subject for long that they do not perceive as being in their personal self-interest. Beyond the essential elements of reading, writing and arithmetic, the vast bulk of our knowledge must be self-taught.

When you grant that most of us will forget 99 percent of what we are "taught," it is hard to fathom the great fuss that people make over formal education. If you have the basic tools, you can get on with the main job of educating yourself. That 58 percent of college seniors could not identify Plato as the author of "The Republic" does not concern me unduly, for when was the last time any of us actually read "The Republic," much less remembered its main points. For the purpose of this article I had to take it up myself, after a separation of 25 years. Much of it is blather, but it does make a good point that the human problems with which the ancient Greeks grappled are remarkably similar to our own.

Multiple-choice polls do not tell us if a student could find "The Republic" in the library; grasp why it may be relevant to our time; or give a literate distillation of its salient points in his own words. To know that "The Federalist Papers" were written to propagandize for ratification of the Constitution is not of much use if a student doesn't appreciate the unique properties of American federalism.

Education has been sold to the American people as a panacea, and obviously it isn't. Rising levels of crime, etc., would appear to demonstrate that far from being a balm for all the ills of society, the wrong type of educational experience may actually increase those ills. If increasing the scope and cost of education could solve our problems, they would be solved.

It is high time that the pepole and their elected representatives started demanding higher productivity and better results from those paid to improve the national mind.