THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 27, 1996 TAG: 9609270028
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A17 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Keith Monroe
LENGTH: 80 lines
George Bush styled himself an education president. He championed, rhetorically at least, sets of educational improvements suggested by a conference of governors at Williamsburg, Virginia.
Then-governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton was one of the leaders of the effort. And as president he's pursued, albeit less than aggressively, a similar agenda. But we are nowhere near meeting the goals outlined.
To take one glaring instance, a commitment was supposedly made for students of the United States to be leading the world in math and science by the turn of the century. The clock is ticking, but achieving such preeminence is not in the cards.
Last week's report of the National Commission in Teaching and America's Future gives dispiriting evidence that the bold talk was largely hype and that correspondingly bold action has not been taken. (See related editorial on the opposite page).
The commission was chaired by North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt Jr. Other members included David Boren, former Oklahoma senator and president of the University of Oklahoma; Jim Edgar, governor of Illinois, the senior vice president of Procter and Gamble, the chairman of Time Warner, the head of teachers unions and the Urban League, professors and teachers, college presidents and deans.
Some of the news contained in the report of this commission is frankly shocking. For example:
In 1991, 56 percent of high school students taking physical science were being taught by out-of-field teachers. That is, by teachers who did not major in science.
27 percent of math students had math teachers who weren't math majors.
The proportions were even worse in schools with large numbers of poor or minority students. In schools that had 90 percent to 100 percent black enrollment, for instance, only 42 percent of math and science teachers had a B.S or B.A. in their field. In schools with more than 49 percent free-lunch recipients, 40 percent of math teachers lacked not just a degree or a major in math but didn't even minor in the subject.
In a country that actually cared about the education of its children, this would be a scandal and an outrage. There would be marching in the streets. It's hardly the way to achieve math and science supremacy. And we aren't.
Comparisons of 1991 math and science scores of 13-year-old students from around the world show American students testing worse than students from Korea, Taiwan, Switzerland, the former Soviet Union, Hungary, France, Israel, Canada, Scotland, Ireland, Slovenia and Spain. We did manage to beat out Jordan.
The commission report doesn't stop with math and science. It contains a blizzard of disheartening statistics on other matters. To wit, in 1991 only 73 percent of newly hired teachers were fully licensed. Among teachers who taught a second subject, 36 percent were unlicensed in the field and 50 percent lacked even a college minor in it.
It would be pleasant to report that Virginia is an exception to all this gloomy news, but it isn't. Math scores in the state match those from Slovenia but trail those for our Asian and European industrial competitors.
For 1990-91, 15.4 percent of newly hired Virginia teachers were unlicensed. Only Florida, Louisiana, Maryland and the grim District of Columbia did worse. The percent of public high school teachers in Virginia who taught at least one class without even a minor in the field was 34 percent in math, 14 percent in science and 16.7 percent in English.
In an appendix to its report, the commission rated the states on whether they are meeting bench marks needed to create and maintain a professional teacher force. The criteria for the 10-point scale include some already mentioned - percent of new hires who are licensed and out-of-field teaching. Others include teachers as a percent of instructional staff (more is better), amount of student teaching required, incentives for certification and mentoring for new teachers.
It was a tough test to ace. The state with the best score was Minnesota with just seven out of 10. Kentucky had six, Iowa had five, but Virginia (along with just two other states, Texas and Alabama) scored zero of 10.
We wouldn't tolerate that kind of performance of lawyers, doctors, auto mechanics or veterinarians. If TV repairmen scored so poorly, Mike Wallace and the 60 Minutes crew would be laying ambushes and airing exposes.
But this report on the education of our children is likely to produce only a momentary flutter. It will be filed and forgotten. Unfortunately, our children will still have to cope with the public schools it describes and with a future for which they are being ill-prepared. We all ought to be worried.
by CNB