Education
is the cornerstone of any prosperous democracy. It is a fundamental
aspect of every developing human’s life and sets the tone for our
ability to reimagine and reconstruct our circumstances. But education as
an institution in the United States is ill-prepared for the task of
enlightening youth growing up in 2019. A progressive approach to
education would redefine how and what we teach students today to better
prepare them for the world of tomorrow.
A
reinvention of youth education in the United States is necessary for
three primary reasons. First, the foundation of our present methodology
is based on a way of learning, living, and producing that no longer
bears relevance to the world our youth will mature into. Second, there
is measurable systemic disadvantage existing within our institutions
today, specifically for students of color [1]. Third, these
disadvantages are exacerbated by a school financing model that is tied
directly to municipality taxes. These flaws are systemic and highlight
an urgency to rethink how we approach educating our children.
Educational Character
Public
education has been recognized as an essential social institution
throughout the history of the United States, with the first public
school opening in colonial Massachusetts during the year 1635 [2]. The
curriculum focused on reading, writing, arithmetic with history and
geography included as well.
Work
of the time focused primarily on the sustenance work of farming and
fishing, developing specialization into manual labor such as
shipbuilding, metalworkers, tanners, and others. As the colonies
developed mercantilism surged, exporting raw materials such as fur and
timber [3].
Technological
advancements were occurring at a significantly slower pace than today,
giving people the perception that life didn’t seem all that different
from one generation to the next. Learning a trade like metalworking
meant that you’d gain a skill that would allow you to produce and
survive throughout your lifetime. Compare that paradigm of work to the
present day, where automation software innovations threaten entire
industries.
The
advent of public education in the United States was in Puritan
religious communities. It was designed to help create better model
citizens to exist within the practices of the time. Herein lies one of
the most fundamental challenges with present-day education; it is still
very much tied to the purposes of the past. Methods and structure that
do not translate into success in 2019.
To
illustrate this point, we can use U.S. schools as an example. Grade
ranking students over a wide range of subjects is a form of competition.
A hierarchical style of teaching reinforces this competitive structure.
Teachers teach, and students listen. Sharing ideas or answers in the
classroom is labeled cheating and punished appropriately. Questioning
the material accuracy or perspective is considered disobedience.
The
problem with the competitive education model is that it reinforces
ideologies within our culture that are not fitting for our present and
future circumstances. A competitive atmosphere promotes individualism,
an idea instilling the primary virtues of self-reliance and personal
independence. Individual autonomy isn’t a bad thing in itself, but when
we make it central to a child’s worldview, we are failing that
individual. Now more than ever, human beings are an interconnected
matrix; we need an education agenda that reflects that.
Progressives
looking to empower our youth to excel should work towards a fundamental
change to the character of education in the United States. Our
objective is to prioritize a form of knowledge rooted in dialogue and
discussion. Freeing youth from education models focusing on memorization
and regurgitation is motivated by the changing nature of work. The
education many of us received was intended to prepare us for industrial
era labor.
To
better illustrate this concept, we can consider the subject of history.
History is often taught from the perspective of the nation learning it.
What do you remember about American colonial history from elementary
school? If you were born in the 1980s or earlier it probably included
lessons sharing how Native Americans gave the settlers food,
agricultural technologies, and blankets during the harsh winters.
But
this method of teaching history denies future leaders the truth
surrounding our circumstances. Wherever possible, we should teach every
subject from two different perspectives. We can take the traditional
bias account of our national history and contrast it against alternative
views. For example, students could discuss the intentional genocide of
the natives by colonists [4] with American expansion.
The
teachers act less as primary information sources and more like
discussion facilitators between the students. Our earlier example allows
for the exploration of the relationship between the history of the
American empire and the present society. Discussions weighing the
historical price of progress will equip youth with a broader perspective
for the future.
Learning
becomes less about memorizing dates, times, and places, and more about
critical thinking, evaluation, and contesting ideas of the situations
that led us to the present moment. By teaching our students to evaluate
conditions from multiple perspectives, we encode a deep empathy into our
educational institutions presently lacking in the United States.
Beyond
increased dialogue, progressives should work towards structuring
education in the United States to allow students to explore a more
selective depth of topics earlier in the process. Imagine breakout
sessions occurring as early as the fourth and fifth grade, giving
students the autonomy to develop specialization and more profound
understanding of the subjects that interest them the most.
Tailoring
learning to passion pulls a method that has demonstrated success
throughout history. Entrepreneurial innovators are almost always
passionate about the work they are doing. It’s because of their
interests and focuses that they can develop vision beyond what others
can see. Applying this methodology to our educational institutions
produces a system where students can excel earlier and faster, building
confidence and teaching focus.
Because
the ultimate objective of any educational institution is to instill
autonomy into students, no discussion regarding the character of
education can be complete without a deeper embracing of technology.
Specifically, progressives should fight for every school curriculum to
include mandatory programming courses for every student in grades 3–12.
Programming is a unique trade, unlike anything we’ve ever seen in human
history. That’s because it is the only profession existing that is not
subject to the economic law of diminishing returns.
Diminishing
returns happen when organizations increase specific inputs in a
production system intending to see a return. Eventually, traditional
business models reach a point where the return on those inputs becomes
less and less valuable with each increase. Programming avoids this
constraint because its primary innovation driver is imagination. Each
programmer builds upon the works of those who came before them to create
something new. Any person armed with a deep understanding of a
programming language is limited only by their ideation of the possible.
Imagining
a world where everyone knows how to program requires us to reject
traditional economic principles such as market saturation. Under the
progressive reformation of education, we classify programming as a
second language, not a pathway to employment. By doing so, we lay the
foundation for a culture of perpetual innovation in every direction and
economical vertical. Contrasting a society of continual innovation to an
industrial age demonstrates why an education system produced for
industry can never prepare our youth for the work of tomorrow.
Breaking the Economics of Education
A
significant challenge facing the reimagination of education is the
generational disadvantage baked into the present arrangements. That’s
because the majority of funding for public schools draws from local
municipality taxes. Wealthier areas of the country have better schools,
which in turn produce individuals with a higher capacity to generate
wealth, reinforcing the cycle. More impoverished areas suffer in the
opposite direction, with schools failing to prepare students to compete
in a world with their better-educated peers, perpetuating poverty.
The
progressive argument for educational reformation is that no child,
regardless of birth lottery, deserves a less than optimal education.
Presently we punish children born into a socioeconomic status that is
less than ideal. Today school districts with the highest rates of
poverty receive about $1,000 less per student in state and local funding
than those with the lowest rates of poverty [5]. This claim is further
supported by the consistently poor educational performance of rural
conservative states when compared to progressive states.
Here
the progressive confronts a pressing challenge facing the
transformation of education. Wealthy neighborhoods may protest a more
equitable approach to learning, rejecting the notion to pay more for
schools outside of their area, and refusing to cooperate with a
reduction in school funding. Impoverished rural areas are typically
controlled by conservative legislators who will resist increasing
funding in public schools. How then does the progressive begin the work
of reform with resistance on both sides?
The
argument for a redesign of our educational model is an argument for
giving voice to the voiceless. Education is a vital component of the
human experience, one that produces benefits well beyond work. We know
that higher quality education typically correlates to a higher income,
giving more people the opportunity to reach a level of economic freedom
necessary to self-actualize [7]. Our present institutional arrangements
calcify a hard class structure and deny that opportunity to millions.
American’s focus on the short-term costs associated with an expanded
institutional structure only serves to hinder our potential for progress
in the future.
A
progressive alternative to the present model would be to federalize the
American education system. This process would begin with an evaluation
of our highest performing schools. By understanding the programs and
practices that contribute to successful institutions, we can build a
framework to export. Our goal is to remove municipality taxes from the
school funding equation entirely, transferring the burden to every
individual via a federal tax.
We
can imagine the ideal program structures exported to each school,
customized by specialists to better tailor the program to the students.
Education becomes a cooperative effort between federal, state, and local
governments, ensuring the ability to maintain standards, disseminate
best practices, and consistently explore areas for improvement. In the
scenario where a school fails to meet federal quality standards,
professionals are brought in to reform the school, bring it up to speed,
and hand it back to community control. We stop making educational
failures regional, cultural, and economic issues, and instead
collectively accept responsibility for future generations in perpetuity.
By
transitioning education to a federally mandated program, we begin the
work of radically transforming the potential of our youth. Knowing what
we know about the changing nature of the work, economy, and technology,
there is no genuine alternative to reforming education. To deny the best
possible quality education to an individual because of their parent’s
economic status is unjust and immoral. As progressives, we embrace a
perpetual campaign to challenge and change the education of our youth
consistently. Because ultimately, an investment in our youth is an
investment in ourselves.
[1] Education by the Numbers By Alice Yin New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/magazine/education-by-the-numbers.html
[2] Apr 23, 1635 CE: First Public School in America National Geographic https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/apr23/first-public-school-america/
[3] What Was the Economy of Massachusetts Based on During the 1600s? By Exa von Alt Classroom https://classroom.synonym.com/what-was-the-economy-of-massachusetts-based-on-during-the-1600s-12083064.html
[4] Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide? By Guenter Lewy George Washington University https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/7302#sthash.z9Bqaswo.dpuf
[5] Funding Gaps 2018 by Ivy Morgan and Ary Amerikaner The Education Trust http://www.edtrust.org/StateOfFundingEquity
[6] Education Rankings by Brett Ziegler U.S. News & World Report https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education
[7] A Well-Educated Workforce Is Key to State Prosperity By Noah Berger and Peter Fisher Economic Policy Institute https://www.epi.org/publication/states-education-productivity-growth-foundations/