Urban Education: A Board Member's Perspective

School boards and school administrators are not the problem with urban public education, in Mr. Wilson's view. The real problem is lack of funding. We in the United States of America are a civilized people. One of the strongest instincts of every civilization is the desire to care for and nurture our offspring, the next generation. Beyond satisfying their immediate physical needs for food, clothing, and shelter, such nurturing involves education. That's what preserves our civilization. The increasing complexity of civilization and the explosion of information have led us to work collectively to provide adequate education through professional institutions. Where civilization relies on democratic government, as it does in the United States, the need for high-quality, universal education becomes more critical. Accordingly, our public schools are very important, and politics will inevitably play a role in their operation. Given their importance, we are naturally anxious to know how our public schools are doing. And given the interplay between politics and education, there is a perennial debate over the quality of the schools and over how they can be made better. The public perception - and the perception of many school board members - is at best schizophrenic. Polls tell us that people all across the nation are generally pleased with their local schools (about which they are more directly knowledgeable) and that they are disenchanted with the public schools generally (about which they tend to rely on opinion leaders for information and analysis). In the 25th annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup education poll, 47% of Americans give an A or a B to their local public schools, while only 19% give an A or a B to American public schools generally. Those most knowledgeable about public schools conclude that, by numerous measures, U.S. public schools are as good as, if not better than, ever before. Meanwhile, business leaders, politicians, and pundits continue to lament that the sky is falling and to call for fundamental, albeit ill-defined, systemic reform. I would submit that both groups are right. Public schools in this country are better than they have ever been at doing what we have traditionally expected of them. They are, at the same time, woefully inadequate to the task before them. Consider if you will the following facts: the average Scholastic Aptitude Test scores for college-bound high school seniors have remained essentially unchanged or improved slightly over the past decade; over the past 50 years, student retention through high school has gone up steadily from a meager 38% to over 85%; the number of Advanced Placement exams being taken by juniors and seniors in the U.S. in English, math, science, and history has increased by 51% since 1986; science achievement between 1977 and 1990 rose for 9- and 13-year-olds and was unchanged for 17-year-olds; math achievement went up for all three categories from 1978 to 1990; verbal skills, as measured by the Graduate Record Examination, have remained unchanged for the past 20 years, while the math and critical thinking skills have shown steady improvement; and, according to standardized tests such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the California Achievement Tests, the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, the Stanford Achievement Test, the Metropolitan Achievement Tests, and the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills, achievement is at an all-time high in nearly all test areas. As for international comparisons, Americans average more years of schooling than citizens of any other nation (12.2 years), send more students to college than any other nation (60%), and have the highest percentage of citizens with a university degree of any nation (19%). Ours is the most literate population on earth. Our education system is simply designed differently from those of many other nations. Their students may go to school more days each year, but ours go to school more years. …