Sirota: 'Consider some of the ways we already know that the dominant story line about education is, indeed, baseless propaganda.' (photo: Max Klingensmith/Flickr)
08 November 13
The right loves to demonize unions, but economic factors are much more important to success in the classroom
oogle
the phrase "education crisis" and you'll be hit with a glut of
articles, blog posts and think tank reports claiming the entire American
school system is facing an emergency. Much of this agitprop
additionally asserts that teachers unions are the primary cause of the
alleged problem. Not surprisingly, the fabulists pushing these
narratives are often backed by anti-public school conservatives and
anti-union plutocrats. But a little-noticed study released last week
provides yet more confirmation that neither the "education crisis" meme
nor the "evil teachers union" narrative is accurate.
Before looking at that study, consider some of the
ways we already know that the dominant story line about education is,
indeed, baseless propaganda.
As I've reported before, we know that American public
school students from wealthy districts generate some of the best test
scores in the world. This proves that the education system's problems
are not universal - the crisis is isolated primarily in the parts of the
system that operate in high poverty areas. It also proves that while
the structure of the traditional public school system is hardly perfect,
it is not the big problem in America's K-12 education system. If it was
the problem, then traditional public schools in rich neighborhoods
would not perform as well as they do.
Similarly, we know that many of the high-performing
public schools in America's wealthy locales are unionized. We also know
that one of the best school systems in the world - Finland's - is fully
unionized. These facts prove that teachers unions are not the root cause
of the education problem, either. After all, if unions were the
problem, then unionized public schools in wealthy areas and Finland
would be failing.
So what is the problem? That brings us to the new
study from the Southern Education Foundation. Cross-referencing
education data, researchers found that a majority of all public school
students in one-third of America's states now come from low-income
families.
How much does this have to do with educational
outcomes? A lot. Social science research over the last few decades has
shown that two-thirds of student achievement is a product of
out-of-school factors - and among the most powerful of those is economic
status. That's hardly shocking: Kids who experience destitution and all
the problems that come with it have enough trouble just surviving, much
less succeeding in school.
All of this leads to an obvious conclusion: If America
were serious about fixing the troubled parts of its education system,
then we would be having a fundamentally different conversation.
We wouldn't be talking about budget austerity - we
would be talking about raising public revenues to fund special tutoring,
childcare, basic health programs and other so-called wraparound
services at low-income schools.
We wouldn't only be looking to make sure that schools
in high-poverty districts finally receive the same amount of public
money as schools in wealthy neighborhoods - we would make sure
high-poverty districts actually receive more funds than rich districts
because combating poverty is such a resource-intensive endeavor.
More broadly, we wouldn't be discussing cuts to social
safety net programs - we would instead be working to expand those
programs and, further, to challenge both parties' anti-tax,
anti-regulation, pro-austerity agenda that has increased poverty and
economic inequality.
In short, if we were serious about education, then our
education discussion wouldn't be focused on demonizing teachers and
coming up with radical schemes to undermine traditional public schools.
It would instead be focused on mounting a new war on poverty and thus
directly addressing the biggest education problem of all.
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