Downtrodden: A Public Education Story
By: Nick Wilson
Tags: Covid 19, Public Education, Teachers, Public Education System, Education

“The only thing keeping us safe from the bureaucracy is the bureaucracy itself.” — Eugene McCarthy

No, this is not a thesis about the effects of American bureaucracy in general terms but rather a close and opinionated look at what red tape and a CYA (Cover Your Ass) mentality can do to the very institutions which impact society on a daily basis.

Senator McCarthy’s famous quote about bureaucracy leads one to interpret it as if bureaucracy is an incredibly inefficient mechanism by which policy and protocol is executed. While this may be the case in some bureaucracies in the United States — not all bureaucracies are created equal — it can be said that the true essence of that statement by Senator McCarthy holds some sort of water.

Bureaucracy can be defined by the Oxford Dictionary as a system of government in which most of the important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected representatives. Why do we need bureaucracies if decision-making was intended to be solely vested in the hands of those elected into office? It comes down to convenience and effectiveness. Middle managers are required to ensure that policies are applied to corresponding situations and scenarios in the appropriate manner. Representatives and Senators in Congress cannot ensure that their districts obey all of the laws passed by the highest legislative body in the land…you need someone in the Executive Branch to apply the code to the relevant situation on the ground.

When it comes to education — public education — the government continues this model in its most magnificent form. Curriculum coordinators, directors of various offices, hierarchies galore, and the lovely maze that is both federal and state education law work together in an unplanned and uncoordinated menagerie to produce one of the most challenging and chaotic environments in which someone like a teacher could work.

Yes, I am a teacher and coach. I have been in education professionally for three years in Alabama. This is my perspective on what public education is and where it seems to be headed based on my own professional insight and observation.

Public education, as an American concept, originated with Horace Mann. He promoted public education as a benefit for the working class and as a means to educate the worker, thereby increasing his or her potential in the workplace. Was this ideal? Yes. Is this the essential goal of public education today? No.

Public education is a multi-tiered system funded by various levels of government to educate our youth and future workforce to ensure their competence at the skills essential and critical to a productive and democratic society (not a Democratic society…there is a difference). However, as a teacher, it feels like public education’s goal has shifted. I don’t regularly hear what our goal as public educators should be in respect to our impact on society. I do hear the goals of the school, the system, and the state, and usually that resembles some sort of mention of test scores and report cards. There is a strong focus on hard numbers…numbers that apparently reflect and illustrate how well or poorly a school and its staff are educating our students.

You have heard it before, “Test scores don’t tell the whole story.” I agree, but this is much bigger than a simple argument over scores and assessments. The intense focus on assessment performance by students is a strong indication as to where public education’s objectives and goals are placed. We are encouraged to engage students with thoughtful and meaningful lessons that elegantly intertwine relevant and insightful content only to have all students in all classes of all ability take some test manufactured by an algorithm sold to the state or system by a random curriculum company with the guarantee that administrators and teachers can glean some sort of magic analysis from the numbers. Does this work? To a degree. Should this be the objective which we as a society pursue with the vehicle that is public education? No.

The goal of public education should be to educate our students with the knowledge and skills to perform in today’s demanding society. We, as a society, should expect our public education system to prepare our students with the skills to fully navigate the world in which they will actively participate and lead. Teaching to a standard set of multiple-choice questions and demanding our teachers be held accountable to those standard expectations burdens the system with goals and objectives antithetical to the development of students who are prepared for a challenging world.

In my school system, our motto reads, “Every Student Prepared.” While my system does many things well, technology being one of them, how can teachers and staff prepare every single student when the burden of bureaucracy weighs heavy like the globe upon Atlas’ shoulders?

The point? The point to this longwinded vent session is that today’s educators are burdened with paperwork and assignments that take valuable time away from the core activity with which public education says it has a laser focus on: educating. However, teachers are required to sit through the same professional development sessions every year instead of spending valuable time in the classroom preparing for students because IT’S A LIABILITY ISSUE. Teachers are forced to give students standardized tests several times a year (SEVERAL) so that the state and system can say WE ARE MEASURING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM. We cut funding for teacher insurance and retirement to REMAIN FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE while teacher education programs at colleges across the nation continue to struggle to recruit new teachers to the field. We ignore the avenues by which teachers can create worthwhile relationships with students so that teachers can gain a true understanding of what makes the student think and behave in favor of following bureaucratic protocol that removes the emotional connection from the issue so that the system can COVER OUR ASS.

To bring it back, bureaucracy has led to the creation of a public education system in which administrators and officials want to create ways in which their job performance can be measured e.g. standardized tests and bureaucratic protocol. The focus has shifted from equipping teachers with the resources necessary for them to excel in the classroom, to setting standards that strip teachers of professional autonomy and educational freedom in order to meet some arbitrary bureaucratic policy. Public education cares more about graduation rates, test scores, and report cards than unique professional development opportunities for teachers, caring for students’ emotional issues, providing teachers with more planning time to develop more engaging lessons, and creating an atmosphere of freedom and opportunity for both educators and students.

The current COVID-19 situation has burdened education with even more unnecessary and inefficient red tape from a bureaucracy so disconnected from its teachers and staff, it tries to overcompensate for its mismanagement resulting in even more disastrous results in the classroom. Teachers are overworked, underpaid, and most of all — underappreciated.

We are told to “do the best we can.” This mentality leads workers and citizens to believe whatever they are doing now can be no better. “Well, we’re trying our best.” Are we truly trying our best? It can be better. Do better! If everyone did better and did what was best for the student rather than what their boss requires, public education in the United States would realign itself back into a position where teachers could teach from a place of happiness and students were prepared for life after high school.

You have heard it all before. What’s written here is nothing new. Some will criticize this article for its lack of detailing HOW changes can be made while others will praise it for its justified criticisms. I know that if things do not change, droves of good, hard-working educators will leave education. The expectation has exceeded physical possibility, and until society demands a change in how children are educated…public education will forever lose itself in the trees because it simply cannot see the forest. Don’t let bureaucracy win.