Note: This is an assignment for a class called “Context of Education” and is in response to the questions, “What are our expectations for school and schooling?” “How have these expectations changed over time?” “What is being done to try to meet these expectations?” and “Is it working?”.
Like everything in society, our expectations of school and schooling have a history. In fact, the beliefs of our country, which include the role of education, can be traced back to the founding of this nation. At this time, the nation was unquestionably Christian, staunchly democratic, and built on the proposition that “The People” are the best government. This idea – that the people themselves should govern the country – was one of the main purposes for formal education. As Kaestle writes in Pillars of the Republic:
Education could play an important role in reconciling freedom and order. A sound education would prepare men to vote intelligently and prepare women to train their sons properly. Moral training based on the Protestant Bible would produce virtuous, well-behaved citizens. Not just the three R’s but ‘an acquaintance with ethics and with the general principles of law, commerce, money and government is necessary for the yeomanry of a republican state. (1983, p. 5)
Standardized tests and benchmark assessments were irrelevant to the first proponents of schooling. What the people were expecting of schools then was that they would educate children to be good citizens, capable of making logical choices, adhering to moral codes, and obeying the laws of the land. The desired system of government depended on citizens who could make educated decisions about who would lead the country best and– if they wanted to– lead the country themself.
In a way, this is still true. We expect graduates to be able to discern what is best for the country and we are frustrated when young people fail to vote and take interest in matters of public concern. We expect that once they have been through the school system and are educated they will see the importance of their role as a citizen of a democratic nation.
Things have changed a little on the moral and ethical front thought. Americans have an almost unhealthy obsession with what they believe are their “rights” and “freedoms” (from the perspective of a British-American) and this has translated into society telling schools not to “indoctrinate” their children with anything they deem subjective. In a time when anything is permissable and ethics and morals are seen as old-fashioned if not bigoted, moral education is no longer seen as a significant component of public education. Instead, open-mindedness, critical thinking, and questioning are encouraged as progressive and American ideals. Of course students need to be able to make their own decisions and differentiate between fact and opinion but the decline of moral education in schools is a great dis-service to the future of our country and the effects are being seen already.
Things have also changed as technology has taken an increasingly prominent role in daily life. Society now demands that students are taught to use the internet safely, to be trained in digital citizenship, and to use appropriate online ettiquette. This could be the modern form of ethical and moral education.
Another new addition to expectations for American schools has to do with standardized testing and the quest for accountability. As politicians look for ways to ensure that their money and initiatives are successful and create the desired results, accountability has become more important than in previous eras. Americans now expect schools to graduate students that meet recommended or required benchmark levels of achievement. In short, success is now denoted by numbers that are either acceptable or not.
In conclusion, while some expectations of schooling have stayed the same since the founding of this country, the demands being placed on schools are increasing. Schools are going beyond providing academic instruction and attempting to provide for students’ physical, emotional, and medical needs as well.
Most Americans probably assume that education is a right afforded by the constitution and that the federal goverment funds and oversees public education to a significant degree. On the contrary, mandatory education was made law state by state and education is now largely governed on the state level with the US Department of Education providing only 8% of funding (US Department of Education, 2017).
Therefore, despite the importance we place on education (evidenced by our expectations and the fact that all states now have compulsory school laws) the federal government has a surprisingly minimal role in American education. If education is really key to maintaining a democracy as historians seem to think, it would seem that the federal government would be more invested in its success. But where “the feds” leave slack, the states step up.
Each state has requirements for teacher preparation programs, minimum instructional days per year, maximum class sizes, and some form of accountability for students and teachers. These guidelines are designed to ensure that only effective and properly-trained teachers instruct our children and that students are receiving an adequate amount of instruction. Class size caps are supposed to ensure that teachers can effectively reach all their students and state-wide reviews of standardized test scores maintain a general record of progress and success.
What is unique about our current situation in many areas of America, is that the biggest challenges schools and teachers face are not related to test scores, teacher preparation, or even lack of funding. In order to meet society’s expectations for schooling, schools are assuming more and more responsibility for American children’s wellbeing. While the expectation may be that we help students graduate with good grades and become active citizens, reality is that schools must first address issues such as hunger, pain, lack of access, inequality, trauma, exhaustion, lack of financial resources and much more. These are often immediate needs that create very tangible barriers to education.
As stated above, the demands on schools are broadening and the resources available to meet these new needs are struggling to keep up. Schools now collaborate with food pantries to provide weekend food bags, with fitness initiatives to provide after-school activities, with local organizations to provide winter coats, backpacks, and school supplies. These efforts are praiseworthy and undisputedly effective at helping many students. They are like bandaids on a broken leg though. While they may help students while they are at school or supply a needed item, these services do little to address the root of the problem. Societal poverty, lack of motivation to achieve academically, unstable family structures, and lack of safe home environments are all challenges that make education more challenging than ever.
If the success of schools is measured by their ability to achieve the expectations held by society, can we say that they are successful?
By the measure of graduating students with degrees, many schools could be called failures. Despite reports that graduation rates in WV are at an all-time high (West Virginia Department of Education, 2019) there are still hundreds of students who drop out of high school due to drugs, alcohol, family pressures and responsibilities, or obligations to a partner or child. There are many more who really don’t have the academic skills to graduate, but have been pushed through by the system by teachers who know that another year in the same environment is more likely to increase the issues than remedy them. There is also evidence that smaller schools tend to have higher attendence percentages and West Virginia’s low population density means many local schools are around 100 students, much smaller than the average in more populated areas (Cain, 2005). In general, if success is determined by high school graduation rates, the United States as a whole, at 85% in 2017, has work to do.
Looking at another expectation for schools, creating citizens, it is more difficulty to determine whether our schools could be called successful or not. Voter turnout in the 18-24 age bracket is only at around 20% which is consistent with previous years but worrying to many (United States Election Project, n.d.). There should be someway to impress upon our secondary students and even middle and elementary students that voting is not only a right, it is a responsibility. As long as citizens are not excercising their duty to vote, we are not seeing democracy in its true form.
Using the standardized testing measure of success, American schools are doing okay – but only okay. Test scores have been increasing but slowly and with occasional periods of stagnancy (Hansen, 2018). When all the recent initiatives on both state and federal levels are taken into account, it is clear that more significant improvements should be seen on test scores.
But how do we determine if we have met the expectations of moral and ethical education? If we go back to the idea of schools as an entity with a responsiblity for the moral and ethical education of our children can we say whether we are succeeding or failing? This is a challenging question and one that quickly becomes subjective. While blanket statements rarely communicate sincerity, the general assessment of the schools’ success on this front would probably be negative. There are undoubtedly high school students who graduate with a clear sense of ethics and it is quite possible that this could be attributed at least in part to the teachers he or she had but few people are applauding the schools’ efforts in this area.
This brings up the question that has bothered me throughout this semester: When do issues stop being just the schools’ problems and become society’s problems? Why should schools be held responsible for shaping citizens, scholars, and morally sound people? Where are the parents of these children and their responsibilities? It’s an well-known and over-used phrase but the African saying, “It takes a whole village to raise a child” is one Americans would do well to reconsider.
Anetta Shirky 