Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 7, 1994 TAG: 9412070099
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Hillsdale College's Shavano Institute fired a big shot in the opening round of the coming debate on how to restructure the schools at a seminar held in Hawaii called ``Educating for Virtue: The New Values Revolution.'' George Roche, president of the 150-year-old Michigan school, said the reason we have a values crisis is ``because of the public schools' failure to teach the difference between right and wrong, virtue and vice.'' Roche contended that ``the education establishment has been seduced by relativism'' and that ``morals are no longer a concern to educators.''
Roche compared contemporary public education to the failed Soviet agriculture system that imposed decisions from the top down. He said the huge amount of money spent on education has subsidized failure: ``The public schools, on balance, have done more harm to education than any other source.''
Test scores comparing government schools to private schools support his view. In the latest of many surveys which, over a number of years, have confirmed a trend, Stanford Achievement and Iowa Basic Skills tests consistently show that private-school students do better in every category than their counterparts in government schools. Schools affiliated with the American Association of Christian Schools scored above the national average on the Stanford test in grades K-11 and were equal to the national average in 12th grade. Similar results were reported in the Iowa tests. Home-schoolers fared even better. Tests revealed they placed in the top one-third nationally.
Supporters of government schools contend that the statistics are skewed because they must take everyone, while private schools can be selective. That's why private-school students do better, they say.
Don't tell that to Paul Adams, a program participant, who is the principal of Providence-St. Mel School in one of Chicago's highest crime areas. Of those inner-city kids who graduate from Adams' school, 100 percent go on to four-year colleges. There are no drugs, gangs or thievery allowed. Instead, the focus is on hard work, discipline and honesty.
Adams says that academics alone aren't enough to produce the type of young person we say we want but too often fail to create. The school takes no government money. (``We don't want the government telling us how to do what they failed to do,'' says Adams.) And it is funded entirely by donations from corporations, individuals (Oprah Winfrey recently gave $1 million) and foundations. It costs $5,200 annually to educate a student at Providence-St. Mel, less than the government schools, and the product is better.
``We don't buy into the welfare mentality,'' says Adams. ``Every family must raise at least part of the tuition toward the student's education.'' While the discipline is strict, the rewards are generous. Students who get straight As receive full tuition refunds, and there are cash benefits for those who do less well but above average.
The government schools, like the postal service, remain a monopoly, and any monopoly eventually loses its qualitative edge in the absence of competition. As long as public schools remain a protected monopoly, they cannot and will not improve, no matter how much money is spent. In fact, between 1963 and 1989, when education spending increased substantially, national SAT test scores fell 77 points. Iowa Achievement scores also declined. One-fourth of students didn't finish high school during that 26-year period. At the college level, half of entering students didn't graduate and those who did were often ill-prepared and lacked basic skills.
No more reforms. What is needed is a transformation, opening up the system to competition and returning to parents the role of primary decision-makers for where their children are educated and which curriculum promotes their values.
The Swiss school system can serve as a model. In Switzerland, parents vote on whether to retain teachers in a system of accountability. Most remain because teachers work harder knowing that a good performance, not membership in a teachers' union, will protect their jobs.
It's clear that immediate, radical and workable steps must be taken to transform education in ways that will produce intellectually strong and morally sound individuals for the new millennium. The new Republican Congress can begin the process by removing the federal presence from education and returning power to the people and to local communities.
Los Angeles Times Syndicate
by CNB