Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 28, 1994 TAG: 9501170017
SECTION: EDITORIALS PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``In their management and operation, the public schools are now too far removed from the people.'' ``[Schools] are not doing a satisfactory, thorough job toward training the pupils in the fundamental or tool subjects, or what are commonly known as `the three R's.'' ``[T]he public-school teaching profession, largely because of the relatively poor salaries paid, is not attracting its proper share of [talent.]'' ``[H]omes ... are not adequately backing and reinforcing the work of the schools.'' ``[T]he present method of distributing state funds ... does not operate effectively to equalize educational opportunities between the rural and the urban, or the poorer and wealthier localities.''
So what else is new?
Well, for starters, the above assessment of public education in Virginia was the work not of the current governor's education commission, but of one that reported its findings to Gov. Colgate M. Darden in December 1944.
Today's buzzwords - choice, vouchers, disparities, charter schools, outcome-based education, etc. - were not then a part of education reform's lingo. Serious efforts to improve teacher pay (and the fielding of dozens of lobbyists for that purpose by the Virginia Education Association) would not come for many years. The Darden-era commission estimated costs of various recommended school reforms in the thousands of dollars, not millions.
Yet the 50-year-old report, filled with familiar-sounding present-day criticisms, gives pause: Is it all over again? Has public education stood still all these years - making no advances despite billions of taxpayers' dollars invested in it and countless efforts, some more faddish than others, to reform it?
The answer is: No, education has not stood still. It has made advances. It has come, in some ways, a long way. Unfortunately, quality has not kept pace with rising public expenditures.
It hasn't, in part, because society's educational needs have become more demanding and complicated, its burdens on schools more pervasive and confounding. Schools also have not kept pace, though, because they have not changed quickly enough. Not quickly enough, at any rate, to serve a society and economy no longer based on agriculture or industry.
Lest we be overwhelmed, or inclined to dismiss public schools as a hopeless lot, consider a Rand study released in Washington, D. C., last week. It concludes - surprise - that America's schools have gotten better in the past 20 years. They certainly aren't the abject failures some of their critics claim them to be.
Among other things, the report cites significant advances in standardized test scores for black and Hispanic students. It suggests that desegregation and increased spending on schools, especially for programs targeting minorities, have paid off - as have early education and nutrition programs for poor children.
The study also found that smaller families and better-educated parents (many the product of post-Darden schools in Virginia) are helping today's students to learn better. It suggests two trends that trouble many - increases in working mothers and single mothers - aren't necessarily a detriment to children's learning, unless poverty grips the family.
The Rand report is a rejoinder to the Darden study. It reaffirms that public education sometimes gets a bad rap, and certainly shouldn't be scrapped as worthless, in favor of a voucher system or other means of abandonment.
But the Rand report itself stresses the need for continuing improvement. Mediocrity in education, it must be said, continues to leave the nation at risk. Schools still require sweeping reform if they are to serve a world very different from what it was 50 years ago.
by CNB