There is a constant drumbeat heard that America's education system is failing the nation's children. Everywhere we turn around, you hear that traditional public schools in shambles; the teachers are failing and so are the kids' scores. (The only saving grace seeming to be charter schools, which operate outside of the traditional model.) School drop-out rates are said to be stratospheric. And if, by some miracle, kids do make it to college, they don't have any real academic prowess when they get there – since we frequently hear about college students having to take remedial courses.
Last week, I was at a conference, participating in a discussion on education reform. One of the panelists – the creator of several highly acclaimed schools – essentially argued that schools are such a mess that we need to throw out the American education system and start over.
Doomsday Talk like that works to galvanize support for his programs, and it's an easy applause line.
But the trouble is that it ignores the fact the millions of kids are thriving in the traditional school system. If we only focus on the disasters, we risk being blind to this success. And the fact is that success – not failure – is actually the American educational norm.
Today, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that there were a record number of students in American colleges and universities in 2008: an incredible 14,955,000 undergraduates were pursuing their degrees. That surpassed the historically high 2007 enrollment, and the Bureau expects that 2009's enrollment is even higher still. Since 2000, the number of undergrads and grad students has skyrocketed, adding more than 3.2 million to college rolls.
As for kids still in elementary and high school – their prospects are also looking brighter, since more kids stay in school these days. According to the US Department of Education, the number of younger adults without a high school diploma or GED is the the lowest it's been since 1980.
Now, compare that to when my grandmother was growing up. In 1940, just one-fourth of the population aged 25 and over finished high school, and just four percent of Americans had college degrees.
What today's students are accomplishing when they are in school is also remarkable. More students are studying higher level math and science. 1.5 million high school student took Advanced Placement exams in 2007. That is triple what it was just a decade ago.
The usual skeptical response to the increase in college enrollment is that, although more kids are going to college, they are less prepared when they get there. But what no one noticed is that remedial rates, as high as they might be, are actually lower than they were in the 1980s. In fact, fewer colleges and universities even offer remedial programs than they did in decades past.
But even that doesn't tell the entire story. Because there is another boom in education – at the other end of the spectrum. Kids are beginning school earlier than ever before. According to the Census report, more than 50% of three- and four- year-olds are now in preschool.
So there are more kids beginning their formal education earlier. While in school, they are more prepared, studying more challenging curricula. And they stay in school for more years.
None of this comes across in the stories we hear from school reformers. They rail about the failing schools, the kids who can't read, and those who are so disconnected that they drop-out. So it feels almost paradoxical to learn about surveys that find that most high school students go to school because the subjects are interesting, and they get satisfaction from doing their coursework.
It may be hard to believe, but the vast majority of parents are actually "very satisfied" with their children's schools – from the school's quality overall to their children's specific teachers.
It isn't that US schools are perfect, or that they cannot be improved. They can be. And there are certainly children who have been failed by their schools. For the past decade, I've been tutoring kids going to some of the worst schools in the country, so I am all too familiar with these schools' problems.
However, if the reformers focus exclusively on the disasters, their approach may be working too well. From their point of view, it may seem like it's the only way to get anger, the money and resources they need to save their kids.
But the problem is that we don't get inspired to follow these leaders. We applaud their efforts, but we don't seem to be joining in their campaigns. Instead, we feel that the problems they've shown us are simply too huge, too overwhelming to fix. So we don't change the bad stuff, and we miss out on how many good things are really going on.
Everyone loves a winner – so what would happen if the school reformers focused on the success? What if they focused on the number of kids who didn't bring a weapon to a school or use drugs that day, instead of the number who did? How many of the kids were doing their homework? What would happen if we heard more about the first generation kids going to college than the drop-outs? Would be easier to get people to go help those kids fill out their college applications?
It's a classic case of not seeing the forest for the trees. The answer to saving the forest (or the trees) isn't always to suggest we burn the whole thing down.
