Blundering lawmakers doom education

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

No one would seriously complain that he just couldn't seem to set his wristwatch while wearing a baseball glove. Yet there are legislators and taxpayers who actually wonder why clumsy laws like No Child Left Behind and the Maine Learning Results can squander millions of dollars for years without significantly improving public education.

The education of each child is a complex of unique adjustments. The farther from the classroom any educational decision is made, the less effectual it will be for the student, and the more costly for the taxpayer. The so-called "educational reform" that ignores these simple facts is doomed.

Because we all have an equal right to an education, there will be people who assume that every child is equally capable of benefiting from schooling. These folks also seem to assume that the schools will transform widely different human potentials into a uniform "end product." Since no one can be allowed to fail, they believe that almost everyone is entitled to a diploma who has made an effort.

Another segment of the public demands the diploma be evidence of significant ability and achievement. It has been easier for this group to blame individual teachers and schools than to confront their real enemy -- which is the egalitarian mind-set I have just described. Frustrated by their perception of declining academic standards, these people increasingly replace real teaching with superficial testing, and enact these futile evaluations into punitive laws.

Can the public continue to support absurdly incompatible initiatives spawned from both sides of this ideological divide? It appears that too many politicians (and educators) have feared to face this issue openly. Common sense should make them all ashamed of their inept attempts to fine-tune public education using these legislative catcher's mitts.

Richard Spear

Fairfield

rspear@msad49.org