The program’s wider aim is to eliminate poverty, but it uses a novel approach to do so. The city will pay small amounts of money to residents for certain behaviors, incentivizing things the government wants to promote. To fight poverty, adults will receive $150 a month for holding a full time job and $50 a month for having health care. New York is using the program to incentivize good educational behavior outside of school as well. They will pay parents to make sure their kids have better high school attendance and to attending parent-teacher conferences.

Recently, the program has been expanded to pay students for certain grades, as part of a more national effort that can involve giving kids things like pizza parties or gift certificates if certain achievement levels are reached.

I think this is a good idea, and well worth trying. While critics would say paying students for grades doesn’t instill in them the love of learning for learning’s sake, I argue that you must look at the reality of the situation these children are in as well. Virginia Connelly, the principal of Junior High School 123, in the Soundview section of the Bronx, agrees:

“We’re in competition with the streets,” Ms. Connelly said. “They can go out there and make $50 illegally any day of the week. We have to do something to compete with that.”

If inventivizing good grades keeps kids off the streets and learning, that’s a good thing. And it’s not like these kids aren’t gaining knowledge. To get a reward, children have to earn the grades, which presumably means they learned something in the process.

As I said, I’m all for this experiment. What do you think?

So you can bet that Bush and congressional Republicans will fight like hell. And Democrats need to be cautious, because a number of his ideas, laid out in Monday’s State of the Union, and in a preceding agenda¹ are troublesome, dangerous initiatives.

As a liberal and someone involved in the field of education, I’ve always been bothered by the No Child Left Behind Act. Fundamentally, it targets underperforming schools and “solves” the problem by taking away the one resource that’s key to any sort of turnaround: funding.

But it goes further. The standards of underperformance that the program spells out seem to be ignorant of the education industry, and don’t address the real issues that public education struggles with, namely resources and recruitment.

I spoke recently with Dr. JoAnn Vorst, who is the head of the Lafayette (Indiana) Adult Resource Academy. As an adult education center that splits funding between federal and state sources, LARA is subject to No Child Left Behind. Already at a disadvantage because the majority of students are high school dropouts seeking GED training, Dr. Vorst must fight ridiculous NCLB standards to keep the center’s funding. Test standards. Attendance standards. Standards that seem impossible for a school whose students are almost always low-income, possibly homeless, and who generally have to split their time between class and one or two jobs.

When we talk about economic downturn, Americans defaulting on mortgages, citizens unemployed, we must talk about these kind of people. We must address their educational concerns, and here’s some cold legislation like NCLB that stands in the way of direct progress. NCLB is actually regressive—a virus that destroys employment training services like LARA. And that’s not an isolated occurrence. This administration’s education policy is destructive and sickening. Are there no educators in the Department of Education!?

Which is why I was upset to read Bush’s economic initiatives. First page: “President Bush will call on Congress to pass bipartisan legislation reauthorizing and strengthening No Child Left Behind. He will also ask Congress to support a new $300 million “Pell Grants for Kids” program to help poor children in underperforming school afford the schools of their choice and announce a White House Summit on inner city children in faith-based and other non-public schools that will be held this spring.”

Not just a call for further cementing of NCLB, but also the number two enemy of public schooling: school vouchers. Vouchers steal money from public school systems much like NCLB does, but instead of transferring it to other public schools, it gives it to private/parochial schools outside of government oversight and outside the stipulation of the Establishment Clause.

But I worry that congressional Democrats and other opponents to these problematic programs are distracted. I worry that they’ll see something like “Pell Grants for Kids” and not read “school choice” as a funding cut for underfunded schools. I worry further that as a nation we could rightly steer clear of the GOP candidates, only to get a Democratic candidate who not only voted for NCLB initially, but who supports its continuation in present form.

I hope the State of the Union speech reminded the American people to watch our president. He may only have a year left, but he’s not a lame duck if no one’s holding him accountable.

¹ - “Building A Better Future Through Trusting And Empowering The American People” - President Bush’s agenda highlights for bringing about economic change in the United States during the remainder of his term in office. Available online in PDF format from BBC News at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/28_01_08_sotu_2008.pdf

Edward VanBogaert studies Government and Economics Economics education at Purdue University, and is the host of WCCR-Purdue’s “A Metric Hour”, Sunday Nights at 10pm (ishgnurecords.com/ametrichour).

After all, for more than six years now, the law has been under assault here at home. Where were the lawyers when the ironically named “USA Patriot Act” papered over or watered down about half of the Bill of Rights? Where were the lawyers when it was revealed that the Bush Administration had ignored the Fourth Amendment and the Foreign Intelligence Security Act and illegally spied on their fellow citizens? Where were they when the administration, and then the Republican Congress, eliminated Habeas rights for, well, for practically anyone that The Decider decides is an enemy? Where were they during the politicization of the entire federal justice system, from the US Attorneys, through the Courts of Appeals, all the way up to the Supreme Court? Where were they during the confirmation of Attorney General Ashcroft? Attorney General Gonzales? Attorney General Mukasey?

For that matter, where were they after Justices Scalia and Thomas refused to recuse themselves (because of blatant conflict of interest) in Bush v. Gore?

While some members of the bar in this country fight, and fight hard, every day for an end to torture, to rendition, and unlawful detention, while some fight, and fight hard, for a restoration of Habeas Corpus and FISA, and in defense of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments, far too many of those with direct experience and a detailed understanding of the laws of the land have chosen to go about their business as if nothing much has changed here in the United States. And while American jurists are far from the only citizens who have come up light on the outrage scale, I am hard-pressed to think of a group that is better positioned—in terms of education, employment, status, and first-hand knowledge—to make a less than joyful noise about what has happened to this country’s legal principles and protections.

The jurists of Pakistan have been out in the streets everyday, protesting in the face of beatings and mass arrests, so, by all means, stand in solidarity with them–they deserve your support. But beyond shouting “No more Musharraf,” beyond simply supporting the Pakistani lawyers, it might be good to learn from them, too. How about regular gatherings of American jurists to stand in solidarity with our Constitution? How about shouts against the myriad ways that our less than legitimately elected President has abused the law and its practitioners right here at home?

. . .

I heard the head of the New York Bar on the radio speaking in support of Pakistani lawyers because, he said, the Musharraf government had tortured some of them. Well, the American government is torturing people, probably every day, probably for some six years now—do they have to torture lawyers to get you to stage protests of your own government’s behavior?

(cross posted at capitoilette)

So let’s start right here: is education, by itself, an element of social change? Does it dramatically change the landscape of American society? No, no it does not. There is no saving grace inherent in education that allows one’s existence to be any different from the current state of affairs. The virtue of being educated does not absolve you or any others of existence that is, in many respects, divided and inequality-stricken. In fact, it may make you a bit more elitist and condescending to others while ignoring deep societal problems. I won’t deny that having an education makes you smarter, more perceptive, and possibly more critical, but all that stuff is for yourself.

For instance, let’s take a look at race. I’ve mentioned before the role of education in afrocentric movements: a messianic fix-it-all that premises once one black is up, he/she can raise others (through philanthropy or transferring education, of course). But it does not get at the structures of race that pervade our society. This was the age-old debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, the former wanting only vocational education and ignoring segregation and Jim Crow for the time being, and the latter advocating the construction of a civil rights groups and affecting the emergence of the NAACP (although DuBois’s idea of the “Talented Tenth” seems to suggest the notion of a small educated class doing the social lifting of the rest of the race, but I’ve talked about this at length in the article cited above).

We also see this in the blogosphere, where vented frustration and anger established by a few bombastic individuals in a chatroom or on DailyKos is considered action-oriented, something that will change so much of society. It seems, however, to just reinforce our own elitism and confirms our belief of the “backwardness” of the masses. No matter how you play it, the blog is a luxury, a place of comfort, and is condemned to the world of education for a limited few.

Now, I’ve just said this of education alone. I didn’t say that this does not drive people to do things. It certainly does. The right tone with a spot-on message can certainly set people alight and inspire them to action. Education, as well as effective art as J-Ro has pointed out, often are elements of a powerful social movement. The Black church in the Civil Rights movement served as a place of education, as well as hymnal and inspirational messages.

That said, there should be a redefinition of education if it is to be useful for us as Netroots and activists. Education for today shouldn’t be one that fits comfortably with the realm of non-action, something that we’ve seen so much of in the current discussions of social change that occurs at universities and within intellectual circles. Education itself shouldn’t be confused with action, either. We should be interested in the notion of a progressive and critical pedagogy that doesn’t get so mired in its own existence that it doesn’t have implications for the real world. What I want to see in the progressive blogosphere is a conversation that is intrinsically tied to movements of social change. If we’re going to see an actual conversation, then we can’t just “educate” each other with superficial analyses and observations of the current state of affairs. Such an act is as abstractly negative as saying “anyone but Bush” or saying we need to get out of Iraq without proposing a comprehensive alternative.

For a good example of effective education, Ish proposed protesting in suits on September 15th in Washington D.C., and people on the web went wild with comments. Afterwards, the report back brought even more people into the discussion, sparking the movement that we now call Serious Change. Even if people don’t agree on all the points of the protest, this small example shows how the interaction between the educational and action-oriented sides of Serious Change are integrally tied to each other and how, if we were only talking about Serious Change, then the response and conversation would be completely different entities.

Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at Georgetown University cited in J-Ro’s art article above, has stated as one of his better points that narrative is good, but it certainly has to be “informed narrative”, that is, you ain’t just makin’ up shit, speaking a language that’s in your head without acknowledging objective conditions. An education devoid of the insight and follow-through of changing objective conditions is not political action. DuBois’s action-oriented education was a driving force behind the Civil Rights movement, demonstrating that Washington’s merely vocational education is not a critical (and therefore not an effective) education at all. One’s personal education needs to work towards establishing a new set of material conditions, one that aims to eliminate oppression where ever it lies.

The results of last week’s poll about the biggest problem with education were understandably scattered. With so many choices, no clear winner emerged. However, 25% of voters (the largest segment) felt that the culture or standardized testing left in the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act was the biggest obstacle facing public schools today. Many others pointed to funding issues (16%), management issues (17%), or untrained teachers (9%) and unmotivated students (11%). Only a few felt the teacher’s union was a major problem (11%) and almost none (1%) felt the privatization of America’s schools was the largest issue.

This week we ask you about the chances for restarting the Israeli/Palestinian peace process. Yesterday, Condi Rice called for an independent Palestine, saying, “Frankly, it’s time for the establishment of a Palestinian state.” She plans to restart peace talks and work towards a two-state solution as quickly as possible. The signs may not be in her favor, however, with the Israelis saying a document detailing a solution is not a prerequisite for having talks and Palestinians saying it is. On top of that, leaders in the larger Arab world, such as Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran, calling for a boycott of any talks.

So, do you think we will see real progress on the Israeli/Palestinian issue before George Bush leaves office? Voting begins in the sidebar at right. Feel free to leave your reasoning for your vote in the comments here.

I’m one of those rare people who had both a private school and a public school education, which was a real honor. The private school I went to for grades 6-8, where everyone called each other by their first names and there were only about 85 people, was quite political and is the single reason I’m as liberal as I am. Participating in Model UN was mandatory, field trips to science museums were constant, we had a school-wide bowling day and we had recess. Recess folks, and when the weather got nicer I don’t think we ever stayed inside for more than an hour.

Then I went to a public high school. The same high school as two other authors here at The Seminal, the same high school as both of my parents, my uncles, and of course my older brother. I even had some of the same teachers. Where do I start?

In preparation for this rant I emailed some friends from high school and asked them to compare the person I was then to who I am now. Many said that thinking back, they could see me doing what I do now, but they also pointed out that in high school I was far more interested in other things. My best friend is a doctor…I didn’t see that coming at all, and Mrs. Elzey, if you’re reading this I have a quick item for you: When you told me my junior year of high school that I wasn’t going to “amount to much because of my approach to life,” I want to thank you, because I think of you every time I cash my huge paychecks for giving advice to people who run the world. Thanks for giving me an F on the book report for the only book you made me read that I actually read and enjoyed (Slaughterhouse 5) because I wrote “more than required,” and yes, I did cheat on the Moby Dick test right before Christmas break. That book sucked, the movie with Jean Luc Picard sucked harder, and the only question I didn’t cheat on was “What saved Ishamael?” and the only reason I knew that was because it was a quote from a movie. The fact that I convinced you I didn’t should let you know my skills. You were truly a horrible person with a horrible tan. Oh yea, you marked that answer with ½ a point because I misspelled QueeQueg (which I probably did again). Am I saying I agree with the Columbine shooters? Or course not, it’s a horrible act. Are people like you the reason for this? You bet your ass, and why it didn’t happen at my high school during my tenure there is beyond me.

I also asked my mom to find one of those stupid things that I had to fill out my first day of high school and then was given back to me by the school when I got my diploma. It was this “what I want to do with my life” garbage that I didn’t take seriously then or now, but it’s kind of cute in a way to look back on what I wrote and realize how much I haven’t changed at my core:

“I’m saying I want to be a sports agent because I have to say something, but all I really want to be is happy doing something that a lot of other people don’t do. Some people just want to be like everyone else. I don’t. I want to be me.” (I’d still love to be a sports agent, but I’m not complaining.)

One highlight of high school, aside from the great times I had with my friends, was my freshman year social studies teacher telling the class he sent his daughter to another high school because that school was more likely to help her get into college. He later became a guidance counselor, go figure. Another highlight was the “goofy” math teacher jumping out the window and running as fast as possible during a routine fire drill, leaving all his students in the room. He, funny enough, was the same teacher that told me, as I was copying answers during a test, that if I did the work myself I’d learn more. I said, “Dude, I have no plans on using this in my life.” His reply? “Good enough for me.” Turns out I was right, and I got an A on that test. My dad was impressed with an A on a math test, and when I told him I cheated and talked my way out of it I think that impressed him more.

I agree with Ish completely that the major part of high school, and public education as a whole (especially at the piece of shit we went to), is designed to make people conform to society, not question authority, and just be happy working for the man and waiting to be forgotten. Luckily, I was just as big an asshole then as I am now, and I also had my parents to help me fill in the blanks. But I don’t think my high school education prepared me for anything at all, not even college.

What, for instance, is the point of long division? When I opted to not take math beyond geometry my guidance counselor said I would suffer for it later. Well guess what? I still don’t use anything I didn’t learn in third grade. Fractions? Are you kidding me! Also, I still firmly believe that calculus was invented as a dare. Art class was fun, but I mean…it’s art class. The only classes I really enjoyed were “American Studies” type classes but I don’t think I really learned anything that I didn’t already devote time to prior to high school. (Let’s put it this way, the films Glory, JFK, and Nixon pretty much got me going at a very young age). The best class I took, I think, was a gym class…I think I still hold the record for being the only person to actually take a nap after the bench press. Actually, I did learn one thing that for SOME reason has stuck with me: I can identify the ‘BobWhite quail’ bird by its mating call. Here’s some help, it basically says “Bob White,” hence the name. Thank you Mr. Mattox, and thanks for finding time in between singing John Cougar Mellencamp songs on your guitar to teach me bird calls.

The best advice I ever got was in my first college class when the professor said: “Forget everything you learned in high school, and toss out that ridiculous 5 point paragraph thing.” Actually, my high school English teacher did tell me to avoid ever going to a loan shark…and how that relates to Walt Whitman I have no idea. Before I move on, high school wasn’t that bad…I made some good friends (some of whom still talk to me), and like Ish I really learned a lot about myself and the type of person I wanted to be, and thankfully I was encouraged to do outside reading by my parents and then attended a college that allowed me to harness my skills. I got skills people.

To be serious for a second, the main reason why I think Education in America completely sucks (other than what I listed above from personal experience) is the fact that nobody wants to teach because public school teachers don’t get paid shit. I mean, I thought about being a high school teacher, I’ve had interviews to actually teach history here in Seattle, but when I imagine myself potentially getting shot for less than $30,000 a year I decided to stick with what I do best (this is also the main reason I didn’t join the military). What sickens me most is that so many celebrities and politicians refer to teachers are “heroes” yet never give them an extra dime (also like the military, and cops, and firemen…and anyone who does something for someone else). Also, teachers in public schools who stay forever (like the ones who taught both myself and my parents) are incredibly outdated in their ways but only stay on because they’re the ones actually making money. So combine a lack of enthusiasm, grandpa teaching styles, and college grads not finding work and you get a shitty education that has America ranked behind countries that don’t enjoy our so-called freedoms.

Then again, our society is not designed to have everyone achieve their wildest dreams. When thinking about it, that’s the reason high school felt like it was just preparing us to hate our lives and be nothing more than something breathing in a cubicle. If I remember correctly, there were three types of people in my high school: Those who had, those who didn’t have, and then the third group that just did what it did and wanted it to be over. I was in the third group, but I was fortunate enough to have friends in all groups. Looking at it now, it’s kind of still the same way. Those who had went to college, those that didn’t have are still living in my hometown working at Wal-Mart, and the third group is kind of mixed up between those two.

I’m saying this because I truly feel that public education is the backbone of our society. Who we’re going to be and what we are now as a nation, in my opinion, depends in large part to the education that our masses are getting. A sub par education means a sub par society. Our society is stagnant because our education really hasn’t changed. You know why politicians rant and rave about people who made it in society with little money and no connections (Alberto Gonzalez comes to mind)? Because that doesn’t happen as often as it should! It should happen everyday. Dreams should be realized! Dreams should be encouraged! If everyone in this country who attended public school could do the things that kids in private school could do (George W. Bush comes to mind?) imagine how different our worldview would be. The people who make decisions don’t know people who have children in public high school, they don’t know how disgruntled and underpaid teachers are, and they don’t know how poor the education system really is.

I’m working for a candidate who tries to do that “I’m just like you” bullshit during stump speeches and I gave him this advice: Can that shit. Stop telling people you’re like them. Americans don’t want to be led by the same mindless drone that they are, they want to be led by the Uber-American. Tell them where you went to school, and tell them how fucking lucky you are for that opportunity. If you want to do that “just like John Q” spiel then talk about what beer you like and what football team you root for. The average American doesn’t wear Armani suits and have a forty-person entourage. Of the multiple dozen or so advisors working for this guy, I think I’m one of five that not only went to a public high school, but also a freakin public university. If you ever wanted to know what was wrong with politics and politicians and government, remember that stat.

Maybe you’d say that the only way to improve our failing public schools is to hit them where it hurts. You know, to take money directly away from them and give it to unproven, under-qualified, sometimes corrupt charter schools. Or maybe you think that our public dollars should be used to subsidize private schools, where teaching is viewed more as a charitable endeavor than a sustainable career. Whatever the fodder being used to disparage our nation’s public schools happens to be at any given moment, you can bet one thing is certain. The overwhelming majority of pubic school haters (PSHers) haven’t stepped foot in a public school in years.

Because if they had, they would see the public schools I’ve come to know after eight years of teaching in them. The same schools that take kids from the most diverse backgrounds in the history of mankind and mold them into productive, well prepared, and mostly, all around good Americans. Americans that go on to graduate from the best universities in the world. Americans that help to make up the second highest college graduation rate in the world—ahead of Japan, and far outpacing Germany and the United Kingdom.

The same Americans that fill the vast majority of jobs in the world’s biggest, most diverse, and arguably most technologically advanced economy. American’s that go on to work in one of the world’s most sophisticated health care systems, one of the world’s best judicial systems, and finally, the same Americans that go on to serve in the world’s greatest military. Even though 90% of our nation’s students attend public schools, if you listen to the PSHers, you’d think that all of these important jobs must be filled by private school graduates, home schooled kids, or possibly, even by immigrants. Surely those jobs aren’t being filled, and constantly being refilled, by public school graduates.

Yea, yea, the haters might say, but what about the kids finishing high school that can’t even read or write on 5th and 6th grade levels. We’ve all heard stories or have come into contact with these young people. How good could our public schools possibly be? Well, I’ll tell you about those students. These types of kids never even used to be in school. They were thrown away, told they were too stupid for school. They were forced to work at an early age in the America of old. Since our America has said that to be morally wrong, we are now forced to deal with some of the hard truths that accompany a system that says education isn’t a privilege, but a right.

Think about it. In 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, 85% of all Americans aged 25 and over had obtained at least a high school diploma or its equivalent. Most teachers would tell you—85% on anything, especially something as important as high school graduation rates, isn’t too shabby. Now, let’s compare that 85% to the America of old. What about turn-of-the-century America when our industrial might was just starting to flex its muscles? In 1900, only 6% of Americans graduated from high school. Okay, but how about the 1950’s, when American ingenuity could solve any problem thrown its way? In 1950, less than 50% graduated. In 1970? Just over 50%. You get the point. Our country is graduating a lot more people, at a lot higher rate than we ever have before. That’s an undisputable fact that the haters seem to gloss over.

Does our public school system always succeed in taking students with disabilities, low intelligence, or the ultimate handicap of being born into a family that doesn’t value education, and get them up to the levels of their peers? Of course not! But does any system that has over 55 million (primary and secondary) participants enjoy 100% success?

At least we can all agree that teachers, and especially their unions, are ruining public schools, right? The haters would sure have you believe that. After all, teachers only work nine months of the year, they often times don’t have any expertise in the subject they’re teaching, and on top of all of that, they try to push their radical (aka “Liberal”) values onto our children. Combine these facts with their unwillingness to change, the haters will tell you, and you have a recipe for disaster. At best these arguments are outdated. At worst, they’re insulting and flat out lies.

When was the last time you met a teacher that doesn’t put in multiple hours outside of his or her school day? When was the last time you met a teacher that isn’t qualified (overly qualified in many cases) to teach their subject matter? And, perhaps most importantly, when was the last time you met a teacher that doesn’t push the values of hard work, honesty, respect for others, and the importance of getting an education upon their students? I think we can all agree that those are American values. But that’s not all. Who coaches the vast majority of sports teams, who directs our schools’ plays, who oversees the leaders of tomorrow at our student council meetings, who guides the future geeks of our country in our math and computer science clubs? Seriously, who would provide these important jobs if not for our teachers? Unfortunately, I don’t see a lot of volunteering businessmen and/or soccer moms banging on the schoolhouse doors. Do you?

It’s gotten to the point that most people almost instinctively think our public schools are failing. That’s a shame. Maybe if teachers and administrators weren’t spending such precious time trying to meet unfunded, unrealistic, and useless Federal mandates, we could start a public relations campaign. We could tell Americans about all of the good things that are going on in our public schools. Maybe we could remind them that we are graduating more students than ever before, or that college enrollment rates are at all-time highs. Maybe we could remind Americans that over half (57%) of our nation’s 3 million public school teachers hold Master’s degrees and above, or that almost every single new teacher has an undergraduate degree (or its equivalent) in the subject(s) they are teaching. We could tell them the average American spends more time in school—12 years—than any other country’s citizens. One would like to think these facts would be welcome news—met with open arms and smiling faces. Then again, when was the last time the public school haters let facts get into the way of their pre-conceived agenda?

Kevin Curran is a teacher in the Cincinnati Public School System. He has been teaching since 2000, with the last seven years spent in CPS. During the 2006-2007 school year, over 92% of his students in 10th grade U.S. History passed the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT); compared to the state average of 76%. Mr. Curran believes that parents play the most important role in determining the academic success of students.

Last week’s poll results was one of our most lopsided. 95% of respondents voted that companies like Blackwater USA have no business in Iraq and are a problem that should be eliminated or curtailed. Only 5% voted that mercenary companies are a necessary part of waging war. At least from Seminal readers the message is clear: Blackwater USA and other mercenaries shouldn’t be used by the U.S. to wage war.

This week, we want to know your thoughts about education. The topic is amazingly complex, and almost too hard to reduce into a multiple choice poll question, but we’ll try anyway. What do you think is the biggest challenge facing our national education system today? Vote for your top choice in the sidebar at right. If you don’t see your choice on the list, come back here and leave a comment and let us know what your vote is.

Hopefully most of us have ready answers to these questions. However, spend a few weeks in virtually any American city and you’ll learn that most Americans do not seem to have answers, or at least their answers differ significantly from mine. Public schools are the establishment best able to standardize our “learned” knowledge, beliefs, and behavior, and should therefore incorporate ethics into primary and secondary school curricula. Teaching ethics, either in distinct classes or by incorporating them into other areas of study, would provide schools and teachers with a forum for exposing, discussing, and applying “community ethics” — basic notions that we are all here and inherently equal, we are all members of a larger society, and we are all indeed in it together.

The historic reasoning behind free, universal, and compulsory eduction certainly supports an ethics curriculum. Even before the 19th century brought Horace Mann’s “common school” movement, which was largely responsible for launching America’s modern public education system, philosphers and progressive thinkers accepted the notion that in any true free society and participatory democracy the government has an obligation to educate its citizenry – to teach society’s newest membes to read, write, and compute, and to give them a basic understanding of their history, society, and the natural world in which they live, in order that they can access the democratic process and realize their own intellectual and productive potential.

As a diverse society founded on ideas of religious and economic freedom and equality, Americans exclude from this educational package any spiritual or moral instruction, an approach I generally support. But there is a difference between ethical guidance that presupposes the reason for acting a certain way (e.g. a higher power, a book of rules, an Earthly mandate, etc) and that which offers good citizenship as the goal. In this sense, teaching basic community ethics in schools upholds, rather than challenges, the fundamental reasons for having a universal, free, and compulsory education system.

Anthony Tiatoria, an author and 33-year veteran of the Mansfield, Massachussets public school system, is a long-time practictionor and advocate of teching ethics in public schools. He has launched the website Ethics in Education, which provides a forum for teachers interested in including ethics in their curricula. The site “questions the wisdom of pursuing a virtues or character education model for teaching ethics and calls for a history based, critical thinking, approach.” Tiatoria writes of his experience trying to teach ethics in his secondary school social studies classes:

Beginning with a provocative question intended to engage as many minds as possible, I asked: “do you have any absolute obligation to others? Is there any scenario in which you must do good for at least one other person under at least some circumstances?” My students, nearly universally, said no! They did not recognize any responsibility to others of an absolute nature. So, I challenged them with increasingly more severe hypotheticals, probing for bottom: “you came upon a drowning man, a friend, a drowning child, your brother.” Nothing penetrated the conviction that they were free spirits unfettered by any duty….They would do it because they wanted to, not because they had to.

Following these experiences Tiatoria has written and amassed a body of material that he believes will assist teachers in providing their students with a useful ethics foundation. His collection of free workbooks and guides aim to help teachers discuss everything from Manifest Destiny to Hammurabi’s Code from an ethics standpoint. He writes:

To a large extent, ethical behavior, which is simply finding the balance between self-interest and group responsibility, is largely, but not entirely, learned behavior standing in opposition to an instinct…Not surprisingly then, many middle and high school students today will tell you that they themselves determine, as does every other individual, the standards of right and wrong….Students must commit to broadening their own understanding of ethical issues by seeking to better understand the ideas of others….It is necessary to build this into a sense of community within the class, and to encourage each student to participate energetically and cooperatively.

Tiatoria isn’t the only one who considers the lack of ethical discussion in public schools a missed opportunity. Attorney Michael Sabbeth has been collaborating with Denver public schools since 1990 to incorporate ethics training into elementary school classes. The Institute for Global Ethics has also developed materials to help teachers include ethics in their curricula for grades K-5. These developments indicate a growing receptiveness, among both educators and normal citizens, toward including ethics training in the public education system.

The applications of ethics teachings are abundant. For example, imagine the benefits of a widespread discussion of environmental ethics in public schools. How different would our children’s collective sense of environmental stewardship be if they were all exposed to basic environmental concepts in conjunction with ethical notions of communal obligation and responsiblity? (Resources ARE scarce and finite. Humans DO have the ability to exhaust these resources and destroy their own environment beyond habitability. Who, then, is responsible for stopping this from happening?)

How different would their sense of professional, political, and social interity be if history and litterature classes explored ethical questions of just cause, proportionality, intention, and authority? (What was so “wrong” with invading Poland? Could Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov have been me?)

How better prepared would our children be for the medical or technological debates of the future if ideas behind freedom of choice, individual sovreignty, and sanctity of life were discussed in an open, frank manner in science class? (Are we responsible for the consequences of our inventions? How can you justifiably control life-threatening overpopulation?)

How would their outlook on crime and citizenship change if when they were taught about government and democracy, they were challenged to consider what elements of right and wrong are legally codified, and why? (Who do laws serve, and why should I obey them? What right have I to violate them, or to try to change them? If something isn’t illegal, why might it still be wrong?) And so on.

Americans have historically opposed teaching ethics in schools, prefering to leave its discussion to families and religious establishments. We assume bringing ethics into public schools violates parents’ rights to structure their children’s moral upbringing themselves, or threatens the ideal that church and state should not only be separated in public schools, but that neither one religion nor secularism should be promoted at the expense of any other belief system.

However, it is precisely because schools represent a distinct, non-familial, non-religious setting that they are the ideal place for introducing community ethics. Public schools are where students from different economic, racial, religious, and family backgrounds come together for conditioning that is common to all of us (excluding people educated in private schools) and thus represents a vital medium for instilling a standardized, collective, universal sense of society-wide ethics.

A society’s collective sense of ethics affects its attitude toward everything from returning incorrect change to global warming. Yet, in a society as diverse and dynamic as ours, instilling any collective ethic will require that we harness the most universal form of public outreach: our public education system. Schools offer us the best means not only of offering our children knowledge, skills, and social conditioning, but of encouraging their transformation into better, wiser, and more righteous players in a vast and everchanging society.

In the article, Op-Ed columnist Bob Herbert addressed education in the United States of America, calling for “a wholesale transformation of the public school system.” Herbert offers two suggestions on how to achieve this wholesale transformation:

1.) identifying and cultivating quality teachers, achieved through job performance assessments

2.) studying alternative schools that have a precedent of success. He mentions the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) as an example worthy of study, citing its “extraordinary academic results from low-income students.”

Both of these points are sound, but suggesting we should get quality teachers and be open to ideas on how we can make improvements on our present system is not revelation. Furthermore, Herbert shies away from actually dealing with any of the issues that may arise in implementing these changes.

Herbert suggests that identifying and cultivating quality teachers can be accomplished by job performance assessments. Such a program would ensure that tenure and other performance-related incentives are granted to teachers that perform well, ie quality teachers. He fails, however, to mention the concerns that would inevitably arise within the teachers’ unions.

Generally, teachers are leery of tinkering with tenure, and specifically they object to concentration of power in the hands of the administration. By linking professional incentives to performance assessments, the school administration is given the only key. Herbert offers no guidelines for how these performance assessments should be conducted, and offers no means of ensuring that the power is not abused.

Discussion of his second solution also stops short. He rightly offers KIPP as a model, and may be correct in suggesting that their extended operating hours are the solution to our children’s educational shortcomings, but again he never makes it to the inevitable questions; how will you get unions to agree to longer work weeks? If the answer is additional compensation, where will this money come from?

In the end, the article offers nothing but two broad, hollow ideas. If this were an op-ed in a small-town paper, or a random blog entry, it would not be cause for concern. But this is the New York Times, an organization that takes pride in being the gold standard. The piece’s inclusion is a sad commentary on the level of debate on education.

Fortunately, there are some better ideas out there which deserve open discussion. The following examples are — surprise surprise — products of Washington.

Bill Richardson

Like Herbert, Democrat Bill Richardson sees the virtue of an extended school day, even extended school years. But instead of avoiding the question of payment, Mr. Richardson would institute a federal minimum wage for school teachers; $40,000. Such a program, he suggests, helps retain quality teachers and attracts qualified individuals that otherwise may have taken their talents to another profession.

A similar program was put in place by Richardson as Governor of New Mexico, and the only thing standing in the way of doing it on a federal level is funding. Given Richardson’s campaign promise of immediate withdrawal, the source of the funding is obvious, and ample.

The plan has its detractors. Some think the current system already ensures that quality teachers get the rewards they deserve, and that a $40,000 minimum wage for teachers takes away an incentive to work harder. They point to New Mexico’s school system, which they believe has not shown sufficient progress relative to the extra expense.

Dennis Kucinich

Speaking to the Iowa State Education Association’s Delegate Assembly, Kucinich summed up his plan as “Peace protecting Genius.” With a 15% reduction in what he called “the bloated Pentagon budget,” he would institute a universal pre kindergarten program. He also mentions the possibilities of fully funded elementary and secondary education, a fully funded Individuals with Disabilities Act, and universal college.

Max Baucus

The Democratic Senator from Montana plans to introduce the Education Competitiveness Act. The Act would grant full scholarships to high school graduates who will major in math or science. Upon graduation they must work or teach in a related field for a minimum four years, or else be accountable for the tuition paid on their behalf. In addition, the Act would award 25,000 merit-based scholarships for students who aspire to teach either math or science. These scholarships would be governed by the same requirements.

Critics of the plan note that Baucus has not said where the funds would come from, and wonder if free tuition in math and science would only serve to pack the classrooms with students who are not actively engaged in the subject. There’s also the issue of finding employment after graduation. If someone is actively seeking a job in their field but cannot get it, are they liable for the sum of their college tuition?

Clearly there are lots of questions to be answered about the Education Competitiveness Act, but that doesn’t dampen enthusiasm about its potential. The other, vaguer proposals being floated by Democratic candidates, which include reforms of No Child Left Behind, federally-run auctions for banks offering student loans, school-based incentive pay, and individual-based performance pay, seem prosaic in comparison.

The GOP debate on education largely revolves around a different set of ideas, the most talked about being private school vouchers. The vouchers, which come in various forms — tuition tax deductions, tuition tax credits, or low-income vouchers — would either subsidize a private school education for children, or offer tax incentives for families that choose to finance a private school education.

It should be noted that very few proponents of these ideas come from within the educational system, and advocates of vouchers have done little to address conerns surrounding the idea. Below is a sampling of those concerns.

– Vouchers clearly favor wealthy families who are already sending their children to private schools. These schools are not accountable to the public, meaning they do not have to report on money expenditures or student performance.

– The majority of private schools are religiously affiliated, meaning the state is subsidizing religious education at the expense of public, secular schools.

– Private schools receive funding that otherwise would go to improving public schools, meaning that, ultimately, this plan is a cop out. Instead of embracing the project of improving the public school system — a difficult task that requires innovation, attention and elbow grease — proponents of vouchers will simply make private schools more affordable, taking the burden, and the acccountability, off the state.

– A free-market approach to education has been implemented in various cities around the country with very little success to show for it. Milwaukee, home to the longest running free-market approach to their public school system, has been judged by many to be an abysmal failure.

Of the ideas I’ve treated favorably in this article, none is comprehensive, or completely satisfying, but at least Richardson, Kucinich and Baucus are taking steps towards the “wholesale transformation” Herbert and so many others believe is necessary.

In fairness to the New York Times, their October 4th edition contained an article on school teacher Damion Frye, whose creative thinking deserves the attention it has received. In an effort to get parents involved in their children’s schoolwork, something studies have shown to improve quality of youth education, he assigns homework to the parents. A blog has been created where parents must post responses to the readings assigned.

While this program raises concerns about its applicability on a broader scale, particularly in schools where parents may not have access to internet, at the least it offers something tangible for people to discuss. Now if only we can get Op-Ed writers to sink their teeth into ideas like this, the debate on education will be a whole lot more satisfying.