Test Case

How relying on "the experts" failed public education.

Virginia Postrel from the February 1998 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

But, say the anti-traditionalists, such standards aren't necessarily dumbed down. They simply emphasize concepts rather than rote formulas. They expect students to understand what they learn, not just to store it in short-term memory.

That sounds great. Unfortunately, it lets people who want to avoid teaching anything hard--or anything mathematical--cloak that goal in language that appeals to people who care deeply about learning. One textbook promising an "integrated" (sounds good, right?) approach to algebra is so full of politics and so empty of math, writes a Texas Board of Education member, that "I could not for the life of me decipher whether I had been studying sociology, environmental science or world history" by the time the Pythagorean Theorem appeared on page 502.

Still, asking students to make up their own problems can be a useful teaching method. Fooling around with blocks really can help some students grasp math concepts better than paper-and-pencil work--though claiming students are deriving the Pythagorean Theorem, a difficult proof, on their own indicates teaching fraud. Determining square roots (in California, the integers between which the square root will fall) is less valuable, and arguably less difficult, than setting up and solving word problems. If you could trust the teachers who say they want to concentrate on concepts to really teach them, they could make a good case for that approach.

But you can't trust them. And the reason lies in the very technocracy that claims to make schooling a matter of neutral expertise. Instead, it has insulated public schools from competition and feedback, making them worlds unto themselves. When they adopt new theories, only their students bear the consequences of failure. And those consequences can be huge: Fully half of all students admitted to the Cal State system, which takes students from the top third of their high school classes, have to take remedial math.

Based on the 1996 election results, the conventional wisdom holds that criticizing the public schools is politically dangerous. It offends soccer moms. Not criticizing the schools, however, is far more dangerous. It sacrifices not merely a political career here or there but entire generations of students. To officials too afraid to suggest that competition might be called for, here's a slogan to remember: The important thing is education.