Table of Contents
Preface
INTRODUCTION: The Culture Wars
CHAPTER ONE: Crisis in American Education
CHAPTER TWO: What Works in American Education, and Why
CHAPTER THREE: The American Nightmare
CHAPTER FOUR: Fighting Back
CHAPTER FIVE: The Great University Debates
CHAPTER SIX: Race and the New Politics of Resentment
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Great Cultural Divide: Religion in
American Political Life
CONCLUSION: Reflections on Being in the Fight
Epilogue
Index
Read an Excerpt
Critics of full choice for American parents in the selection of schools argue that choice isn't right: public money should go only to public and not religious schools, and so full choice would amount to a violation of the separation of church and state. They have it wrong. Voucher bills have been proposed, including the one we advanced to Congress in 1986, that are fully constitutional. Most of our critics conceded it to be so. Public money goes to Catholic and Jewish hospitals to care for the public, and public money supports fire and police forces that serve religious institutions. Public money should be for the education of the public, and a child in Catholic, Methodist, or Jewish school is every bit as much a member of the public as a child in a state-supported school.
There's another issue associated with choice as well -- social justice. At present, our most affluent families do exercise choice, by buying a home in the neighborhood of their choice, or by sending their children to private school. The poor do not now have that kind of choice. In contrast to the dismal report of the Chicago public schools, Chicago's Catholic schools are graduating 85 percent of their children at a cost of about $2,500 a year and with a fraction of the administrators per student (only 32 central-office administrators for more than 160,000 students). Since many Chicago public school teachers, knowing the relative strengths, choose private schools for their children, shouldn't others be given the same choice? It is a question of social justice.
The critics of elementary and secondary school choice should also acknowledge the inconsistency and even hypocrisy of their position. The fact is, we already have a system of choice in American higher education and people don't object to it. When we give out billions of dollars every year for students to go to college, with their Pell Grants or their Stafford Loans, they can take them to Indiana University, Notre Dame, Yeshiva, or Liberty Baptist. Indiana University isn't diminished because Notre Dame is a fine school; Liberty Baptist isn't daunted because Notre Dame is a fine school. Broad choice in higher education hasn't hurt public higher education; on the contrary, greater competition has helped it and helped students. Why, then, do we not allow it at the elementary and secondary levels, which are so much more important and formative?
There is an additional benefit to choice. If we invite parents to choose their schools, it can be a good first step in the critical effort of reenfranchising them. Choice among schools is a first involvement in the schools, a critical investment, and it may lead to further involvement, which is something teachers long for. If parents know the results by school of tests with national standards, they will choose more wisely. The more we can do to involve (or reinvolve) parents, the better.
The scholastic success of many Asian-American children has reminded us all of the importance of parental involvement. A few years ago, in the Asian-American community in Riverdale, New York City, teachers and principals were puzzled that their textbooks were being sold at a rate much faster than the number of children registered in classes could account for. They wanted to know why. After doing a little investigating, they discovered that most Asian-American families were buying two sets of textbooks. One set was for the child, and a second set was for the mother, who could better coach her child if she worked during the day to keep up with the lessons. These teachers said that Asian-American children entering school in the fall with no English ability finished in the spring at the top of their classes in every subject. At the Department of Education we repeatedly said that the parent is the child's most important teacher, the child's all but indispensable teacher.
Choice advocates have some remarkably convincing success stories to which they can point. One of the best is in the public system in local District 4 in New York's East Harlem. In the early 1970s, District 4 was an educational basket case. It ranked last in reading scores among all the city's thirty-two school districts. Then, under the leadership of superintendent Anthony Alvarado, the district allowed parents to choose for their children from among a wide variety of newly restructured schools, each offering a particular instructional focus. In some instances, several minischools were created within the same building. Before the choice program began, only 15 percent of the students in the district could read at grade level. Recent test scores show 64 percent at or above grade level in reading and 53 percent at or above grade level in math. According to William C. Myers of the Free Congress Foundation, the number of students from the district who qualified for admission to one of New York's prestigious specialized high schools increased from ten to three hundred, and today 96 percent of East Harlem graduates are admitted to college.
Today, East Harlem's teachers are energized and motivated. Lynne Kearney, director of District 4's Manhattan East School, says why: "People are here because they want to be....There's a camaraderie, because this place doesn't have to exist. We can go out of business tomorrow. If it didn't meet needs, it would fold." According to a New York Times special report on the East Harlem school district, choice has "helped send test scores, teacher morale, and parent involvement soaring."
At the end of the great Chicago school debate, the Chicago Tribune argued for full choice: "The quickest, surest way to explode the bureaucratic blob, escape from the self-seeking union and develop schools that succeed for children is to set up a voucher system. That would bring new people into school management, assure local control, empower parents, squeeze out bad schools and put the forces of competition to work for improving education."
I believe the ideas I have outlined will work. They are the same ideas we put forward to the Congress during my tenure as Secretary of Education, but almost without exception the Congress rejected these far-reaching reform proposals -- not on their merits, not because they wouldn't improve American education, but because our proposals were a direct challenge to the power of the education establishment. The political clout of the NEA and its brethren remains considerable. With few exceptions, Congress does the bidding of the education establishment and not of the general public.
This makes the job description for an Education Secretary obvious. In general, the secretaries of domestic Cabinet agencies have much less authority and power than, say, the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of State. And even more than is the case with most domestic Cabinet posts, there are intrinsic (and I believe wise) limitations on what the Secretary of Education can do. He has very little power or authority to determine the content and course of American education, since education is primarily a state and local matter. That is where 90 percent or more of the spending is done, where the curriculum is set, and where all of the hiring and firing is done.
What the Secretary of Education can try to do is influence the direction of federal programs, reinvigorate a national discussion about education, highlight what works and what doesn't, and set in motion constructive changes.
What we tried to do at the Department of Education was to move the national education debate forward. We kept the debate on educational improvement going, drew attention to what works, and got new ideas and reforms into circulation. In public policy there is often a long delay between the time when new issues are raised, debated, and studied, and when they are finally legislated. Parental choice in education is a good example. "Before the Reagan administration raised the [voucher] issue, it was considered an odd view on the fringes of the public-policy debate," according to Gary Bauer, who was my undersecretary at the Department of Education and is now president of the Family Research Council. "The constant crashing of our heads into the congressional roadblock legitimated the issue and paved the way for developments today."
At the Department of Education I tried to broaden the public discussion on education reform and get the reform movement out of the hands of the educrats and into hands of the public. I tried to bring attention to the right issues: high standards and basics, competency for teachers, educational choice, strong curriculum content, homework, sound moral education, and accountability.
One of the ways I tried to broaden the public discussion was the use of the "bully pulpit." By design, an important part of my bully-pulpit strategy meant utilizing the press. Success in domestic policy in particular depends on articulating a strong public case. Since most education reform will be done -- when it is done, if it is done -- at the state and local level, it was important for me to advance the ideas others could pick up on. I couldn't advance my ideas to a whole nation without a megaphone. For a government official, the press is often the best megaphone.
As Secretary of Education I wanted to highlight the good in American education. I wanted to draw attention to education heroes, to honor them and encourage others to emulate them. The press played a big role in this effort. The media may not determine what people think, but they can help determine what people think about. What determines what the media choose to write about, which people they choose to profile, and what they choose to think about? A responsible public official does what he can to make visible what needs to be visible.
Some of my critics disagreed. Senator Paul Simon of Illinois said of my high visibility, "There are some pluses to the visibility of the Secretary, but on balance I think the cause is better served by people who are willing to quietly do the solid, substantial things that cause fewer headlines but result in real change."
But for Senator Simon, a man who takes his every cue from the education establishment, those "quiet, solid, substantial things" mean cutting deals that please and help enrich the education establishment. That wasn't my style nor my intent. In any event, "visibility" can aid in the cause of "real change."
When, for example, in Senator Simon's home state of Illinois I called Chicago's public schools the "worst in the nation," it drew enormous attention. It helped lead to the Chicago Tribune's extraordinary seven-month examination that exposed the corruption, greed, and neglect in the Chicago public school system. It helped trigger a new wave of reform measures. This might never have happened without'the spotlight and attention. In a 1990 interview Ted Kimbrough, the new superintendent of the Chicago public schools, said, "We owe Bennett a debt of gratitude for shaking people up. That controversial statement helped get people moving toward reform." My predecessor T. H. Bell, who was critical of my "harsh" attacks on educators, said of me: "Maybe he could have been more tactful, but tact doesn't make the impact it should. In retrospect, maybe I was too tactful."
American schools are a long way from where they need to be. Today the battle lines are being drawn over what to do, how to do it, and who gets to decide how to do it. It is a battle over who will control the schools -- the educrats who gave us the educational disasters of the sixties and seventies, or parents, taxpayers, and a sizable number of dedicated and able principals and teachers? The fact is, we know what to do; we know what works; we know what we should expect.
The issue, then, is whether we have the political courage and the will to do the job. The future of American education depends on how we answer these questions: Are we willing to reward excellence (merit pay for outstanding teachers and principals)? Are we willing to penalize failure (terminate the contracts of incompetent teachers and bad principals)? Are we going to give parents more say in which schools their children attend (full parental choice)? Are we willing to "deregulate" the teaching profession by making room for men and women of energy, intelligence, and broad backgrounds (alternative teacher certification)? Are we going to insist on high standards (making the receipt of federal student aid or receipt of a high school diploma contingent on passing a qualifying test with real national standards)? Are we willing to get the litter out of the curricula and put the basic subjects back in? Are we going to return to homework? And are we going to stop accepting lame excuses for low performance?
The American people have to answer the tough questions; they have to lead the revolution; they have to take back our schools, for the sake of our children.
Copyright © 1992 by William J. Bennett
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