THROWING THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATH WATER By James Harvey, Executive Director of the National Superintendents Roundtable Forty-year veterans in our schools can’t recall a time when public education wasn’t the object of unrelenting criticism. A school superintendent who retired a few years ago told me that, from the day she entered the classroom, her entire career in education had been spent amidst public complaints about school performance. The criticisms come in two parts, one clearly unjustified. That criticism is that public education is failing across the board. Putting the nation at risk, in fact. That’s demonstrably not true. On the next page, you’ll see an infographic from the National Superintendents Roundtable and the Horace Mann League. It makes clear that public education is one of the great success stories of the United States. Consider: only 34 percent of young adults had a high school diploma in 1950, compared to nearly 90 percent in 2016. Graduates can’t read? Nonsense. Every major racial and ethnic group, at ages 9, 13, and 17, is scoring higher on recent NAEP reading achievement tests than they were in 1971. (The same holds true for mathematics).
But there exists a justified criticism. It revolves around equity. As the infographic also demonstrates, we have a lot of ground to make up if we want to equalize outcomes. While around 90 percent of Asian and White students graduate on time, the
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proportion declines precipitously when students of color, the poor, and those with disabilities are examined. The on-time graduation rates for Hispanics (79 percent), economically disadvantaged students (78 percent), African-American (76 percent), Native American (72 percent) and students with disabilities (66 percent) are shockingly low, a consequence of a combination of structured discrimination within the school system and government abandonment of the communities in which many of these students live. So, we find the fourth major component of the infographic focused on out-of-school factors that require attention. The United States is almost off the international charts in terms of high levels of student poverty and low levels of support for families with children. Where do we find Finland, often held up as a model for what our schools should accomplish? Why, off the charts in the other direction—generous levels of support for families and very low levels of student poverty. But there is a danger that in responding to the legitimate complaints of leaders of communities of color and the poor that “reformers” with their proposals for vouchers and charters will throw the baby out with the bathwater. It’s the special needs of special populations that require focused attention. We shouldn’t pretend this is easy but meeting those needs will not be accomplished without honestly addressing the dimensions of the challenge.
American Consortium for Equity in Education
