Who’s To Blame For Our Educational Woes?

Last month we learned that the United States has fallen behind other countries in an international test conducted by the Organization for Educational Cooperation and Development. China is first, with the U.S. scoring below South Korea, Singapore and New Zealand, among others. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan claims this should be “a massive wake-up call to the entire country.”

Before we panic, we should look at the tests and compare school systems (and percentage student enrollment) in the 16 countries that outpaced us. Still, even if the test has flaws, we don’t want to lag behind countries where universal public education is a recent phenomenon. Are higher standards the answer?

Or we could start with parents. Do we coddle our children, allowing them to put forward meager efforts in the classroom as we encourage socialization and extracurricular activities? Do we promote self-esteem and permissiveness at the expense of academic performance?

Amy Chua’s best-seller “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” has captured our imaginations because we, as parents, suspect we are failing our children. She allows her two children no sleepovers, no grade less than an A, no television, and no extracurricular activities other than piano or violin. Is tough love the answer?

And what of teachers? I don’t think they have changed much in the 35 years I’ve been an educator: Twenty-five percent of the teachers I know are fabulous, about 15 percent terrible, and the vast majority (60 percent) pretty good, but not stellar. That was the way it was when I was in school, and those percentages have remained consistent everywhere I’ve taught. The problem in getting rid of the 15 percent who don’t measure up is that the wrong people, up to now, have been making those decisions. (I would prefer Amy Chua to school principals any day.)

We might comfort ourselves that at least our children are secure. Yet survey results released last week, based on questionnaires from 200,000 college freshmen, reveal that only 52 percent of students said their emotional health was above average, as compared with 64 percent in 1985. Has our parental coddling backfired, or do students today have a different definition of “emotional health” than they did in 1985?

I wish I felt confident blaming parents or teachers or schools or testing or performance standards for educational woes. That would make writing this column easier. But I’m not sure whom or what to blame.

And so we muddle on, as parents and educators, doing the best we can to figure out how to improve everything that contributes to education. Is the answer stricter parenting? Smaller classes? Smarter teachers? Better testing procedures?

In the absence of answers, we have no choice but to better all aspects of education, confident that our schools and international ranking will eventually improve.

Erica Jacobs, whose column appears Wednesday, teaches at George Mason University. E-mail her at [email protected]