It is in the news again, so let us discuss it, again. American public schools are failing, and the students who are graduating now are effectively failures. Clearly Americans, both parents and non-parents need to analyze why and fix the system.
Root cause analysis in Quality Engineering starts by finding the root causes of a problem. The root causes of this failure are threefold. The first is the lack of support and participation of many parents. The second are unprofessional teachers, and the third is a lack of public control of public schools.
We have talked about the apathy of parents in a previous blog. Parents of public school students pay little or nothing for the education their child receives. They therefore place little or no value on that education.
Teachers, by the same token do not consider themselves or act as a professional. Professionals are widely accepted as persons who serve as a fiduciary for their clients. That means they place their clients interests first, they treat every client as an individual, and they are responsible for the outcomes of their professional efforts. They personally and professionally are responsible for their own efficacy. Teachers fit none of this criteria.
Teachers do not define who their client is. In my opinion, the client is the parent. Teachers are not responsive to concerns or directives of the parent. In most schools parents have little or no control of curriculum. Parents are not informed of the credentialing of the teacher, nor can they remove a student from a class because of perceived competency of the teacher.
Teachers do not teach each student according to their individual needs. They could, the means exist to test every student to determine their individual learning modality and teachers could tailor lessons specifically to a student’s strengths. That is what many private schools, especially those with very high achievement rates do; and that is what successful educators with advanced degrees in curriculum development do—but on the whole successful instructors with advanced degrees do not work for public schools.
Finally in public schools parents are not allowed to judge the competency of teachers. Few parents can tell you what schools their child’s teacher went to or what degrees were earned. The facts are that most public school teachers DO NOT have 4 year degrees in teaching, and more then a few do not have 4 year degrees. In short teachers are not professionals; they are members of a union, so are more concerned about their personal compensation then the effectiveness of their teaching. Ask yourself, how many teachers take continuing education to improve their teaching skills if it is not mandated by the State? How many are concerned with just improving their skills.
The final root cause is public control of schools. Public schools are, by in large, controlled by unions. School administrators are teachers, elected boards are generally teachers. Unions are a root cause of the failure of schools.
So what to do? Again the answer is so simple, you know it has been thought of and rejected for personal gain. Get rid of the teacher’s unions. Require that teachers be professionals with advanced degrees, self administered professional licensing and professional liability for failing to educate a student. Require that parents make a greater contribution to their offspring’s education. The commitment can be monetary, or physical contribution, but make it substantial enough to make parents value the education that the public is subsidizing. Also make it very clear what the cost of a student’s education is, and tax the difference between the parent’s contribution and the true cost.
The solution is so simple that only self interest would prevent it from saving our failing schools.
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