Dropping Out and Destroying Our Dreams: Charles Murray’s Dangerous Vision?

Upon reading the headline for Charles Murray’s Sunday Times opinion piece, “Should the Obama Generation Drop Out?” I couldn’t not continue further.  Author of The Bell Curve in the 1990s and, more recently, Real Education:  Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality, critics dismiss him as elitist, though I’m sure he would argue that he is a realist, a pragmatist who eschews political correctness and, instead, implores us to consider the historical implications of the function and purpose of education, noting that times have changed, but the core composition of the population has not.  Quite simply, for Murray education is not a golden ticket to success linked to the upward mobility promised by the delusional American Dream, but a utilitarian concept linked to economic functionality –  we educate the populous to perform tasks that ultimately keep wheels turning in a free market society.  While idealists argue that education is a tool of personal enlightenment, pragmatists acknowledge it as a tool of social utility.

In his article, Murray suggests the Obama administration should “use [its] bully pulpit to undermine the bachelor’s degree as a job qualification,” in favor of emphasizing ability and skill:  “It’s what you can do that should count when you apply for a job, not where you learned to do it.”  Murray’s assertions are similar to the underlying philosophy of the Teach For America program, which draws its teacher-participants from areas outside of traditional teacher education programs — if an individual has the ability and skill to perform a job, then jumping through systemic hoops is merely bureaucracy run amok.  The average American’s goal, he says, is not receiving a liberal education and enjoying learning for learning’s sake, but “to learn how to get a satisfying job that also pays well.”

To make this connection, Murray looks to America’s past, writing that, “[a] century ago, these students would happily have gone to work after high school,” but that the requirements ushered in with the Information Age are pushing non-academically minded people into the academy, creating dissonance between vocationally-minded students and the academy’s high-minded quest to take its students on “a leisurely journey to well-roundedness.”  Where the popular call from educators and legislators alike has been that all students have the ability to achieve, Murray simply argues that this is false, goading the cheerleaders to give voice to a different reality, because “[a] large majority of young people do not have the intellectual ability to do genuine college-level work.”  He cites ambiguous data that only 10-20% of American high school seniors read at a level that allows them to negotiate college work, while stating that “[n]o improvements in primary or secondary education will do more than tweak those percentages.”

His arguments are not new.  Medford Evans and George R. Clark, writing in Harper’s Magazine in 1944, discuss “Liberal Education Versus Vocational Training” (page 60): “In every society where there is a ruling class there is one kind of education for rulers and another for the ruled. Vocational training, which confines itself to teaching skills, tends to limit the individual’s interest in general social problems and to discourage intelligent participation in political life. As such, it is the ideal education for the servants of the ruling class. It is sharply distinguished from a vital program of liberal education such as that which provides a broad general training for rulers … The real issue is a political rather than an academic one: how widely available should liberal education be? There is no more radical and democratic idea afloat in educational circles today than that of providing liberal education for everyone.”  Clearly, there has not been much ideological change in 64 years.

What is at the crux of Murray’s article, however, is both ability and desire.  His assumption is that there are two types of students who will not excel in higher education:  those who lack ability, the ones he labels “not smart enough to deal with college level material,” and those who lack desire, viewing the higher education’s requirements as “bothersome time-wasters.”  Many educators will take him to task regarding the first group, as the goal of teaching is to guide students to understanding.  Even the No Child Left Behind legislation is predicated on the idea that all students have the ability to excel given appropriate conditions and support.  Murray’s argument of appropriateness, however, differs.  While he supports continuing efforts to provide vocational education for segments of the population who would much prefer to obtain employment than open their minds to worlds that are essentially closed to them under current conditions, defining this type of education as appropriate for them, he also maintains that “keeping the bachelor’s degree as the measure of job preparedness, as the minimal requirement to get your foot in the door for vast numbers of jobs that don’t really require a B.A. or B.S.” is not appropriate.  Interestingly, the same argument is being used to challenge new higher math standards for high school students established in the aftermath of NCLB, where some question the practicality of requiring upper level math skills for all students and fear students’ inability to achieve the standard will only result in frustration and an increased dropout rate.

Murray’s solution to the bachelor’s degree as primary entrance to employment is to “substitute certification tests, which would provide evidence that the applicant has acquired the skills the employer needs.”  He likens the idea to the apprentice system of old, where students can learn on the job, build their skills, and then become masters in their trades.  Admittedly, this proposal “would not eliminate the role of innate ability — the most gifted applicants would still have an edge … [but] they would put everyone under the same spotlight.”  He closes with a proposed mantra for the new Obama administration:  “It’s what you can do that should count when you apply for a job, not where you learned it.”

I’m curious how he would propose rebuilding the current Pre K – 12 system to accommodate students who would rather focus on specific job skills as opposed to academic enlightenment.  After all, isn’t the idea of a liberal education predicated on the idea that it teaches students how to think, how to problem solve, in preparation to tackle any task required of them?  Does Murray propose we divide our society further by funneling a majority of the population into trade schools, forever barring them from achieving the endless possibilities promised to them in the elusive American dream? Is he a self-titled benevolent dictator who recognizes the existing system and seeks to establish greater efficiency without deluding the masses?  Will a person’s zip code, then, determine position and possibility? 

Or is he a realist who goes out on a limb to label the America that has always existed and has no possibility of ever changing, recognizing that there is much room in the chorus, but precious few openings for lead roles?

On Manipulation and Education: Looking Forward and Moving Backward

Our schools face backward toward a dying system, rather than forward to the emerging new society. Their vast energies are applied to cranking out Industrial Men – people tooled for survival in a system that will be dead before they are.” – Alvin Toffler

HBO’s summer showing of “Hard Times at Douglass High: A No Child Left Behind Report Card,” a documentary by Alan and Susan Raymond depicts a year (2005) at Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass High School, an historically black inner city school, as it faces reorganization for not complying with benchmarks established for Adequate Yearly Progress by Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. Amid a 50% dropout rate, 66% of staff who are not certified to teach, and an environment of apathy and helplessness, the filmmakers explore the issue of minority education in America, particularly how the achievement gap between minority and white students has become even more visible given NCLB testing mandates.

What is important for us to realize as we see the stories of our students, in the United States of America, who are treated as second class citizens in our public schools well after Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka (1954), is that NCLB is not working for them — they are indeed being left behind. Let’s be realistic here. Do you see homeless or drug addicted parents taking the time to take their children to a nearby Sylvan Learning Center, even though the school is considered a failing one and the family doesn’t have to pay any extra money for tutoring services? Highly unlikely. Former Douglass Principal Isabelle Grant discusses the plethora issues facing inner city schools. There are no easy solutions, and the problems facing inner city schools are not solely educational ones, but are rooted in the larger society, such as homelessness, drug addiction, single-parent families, and poverty. Studies show that for every dollar invested in early education and other social programs serving families, there is a $7-$10 return on that investment for society, savings seen in increased graduation rates, increased employment, lower crime rates, lower welfare rates. lower special education needs, and lower incarceration rates.

So what seems to be the problem?

There are two. Greed and control.

The idea of the government investing in the future, spending money on social programs, has been so utterly demonized by greedy neoconservative ideologues that they have scared the general masses with their overused rhetoric — repeated through every “liberal media outlet” (love that overused one as well) such as FOX News (haha) as “tax and spend liberalism” while the same two-faced Beelzebubs have been funneling the cash straight into the pockets of the moneyed elite — themselves (Halliburton, etc.) and their business owning friends (gas, oil, any military contractor) — under the guise of a free-enterprise war economy (Didn’t Eisenhower warn us about the Military Industrial Complex? That’s right … NCLB doesn’t test HISTORY!), becoming m/billionaires in the process. This is why Cheney doesn’t care what people think about him. He didn’t go into government for altruistic reasons. He became a leader to make money. Plain and simple.

Why has the government spent more money invading and occupying Iraq than it has on educating Americans? Because it receives a larger return on its investment in Iraq — especially now that four American oil companies just made a sweet deal (no-bid contracts) to service the oil fields there . The government would never reap profits that large if they put that kind of money into the American educational system. Well, let me rephrase that — their buddies wouldn’t become rich because of it.

As many know, the United States public education system is an antiquated one in need of an overhaul. NCLB attempts to do that with “standards,” educational goals, if you will, that are tested annually. This has done nothing to address what really needs to be changed in education in the United States. What is required is a complete paradigm shift. But is it in the government’s best interest to do this yet? Do they stand to profit from an educated work force yet? Or, better yet, do our businesses stand to lose money if we do not better educate our work force? That remains to be seen. Just last weekend, the New York Times reported that businesses are now looking at Asia +1, because China is becoming too expensive to produce cheap goods. What happens when Vietnamese workers become organized and too expensive? Do we then move to Africa? When there are no more global options, do businesses move back home? When do we come full circle? When do American businesses have an obligation to Americans? Or is the only obligation to their own greed? Is that the only American way? Is that what we should be teaching our students when we teach them about the American Dream?

We wonder why our schools don’t work for so many of our students? Why one-size education doesn’t fit all? Our public education system was originally designed to produce a controlled constituency — to train a workforce for labor that didn’t require much thought. Schools originally stressed order, timeliness, uniformity — all important for an industrial workforce. You needed to get to work on time, be able to stand on the line, do a repetitive job, take your break when the bell sounded, return when the bell sounded, and leave when the bell sounded. School prepared workers for that environment. Students/workers sat in rows. Teachers/bosses were not to be questioned. 

The dissonance between the current structure based on the industrial model and the requirements and expectations necessary to transform to an information age model are almost too disparate. Critics like Bill Gates and Alvin Toffler maintain we should scrap the old system and rebuild from scratch. In an article that appeared in Edutopia, Toffler argues for a radical change in the way schools operate, suggesting a system with 24-hour availability, an integrated curriculum, and students working according to their own interests and pacing. What I found most interesting about Toffler’s recommendations were his ones regarding teachers and teaching. First, he proposes that nonteaching professionals work in conjunction with teachers in the classroom, lending them real-world insight. Moreover, Toffler also believes that no teacher should spend an entire career solely in the classroom, but that teachers should alternate between spending time in the classroom and time in the private sector in order to be able to provide their students the practical world connections that go along with classroom instruction.

Interestingly, this is very similar to what the “Teach for America” program is doing. In an article in The Atlantic (July/August 2008) although Teach for America teachers lack training of traditional teachers, an Urban Institute study revealed that its teachers produced better results on state exams in math and science, even though the teachers taught in some of “the most demanding classrooms” (–”Making a Difference?: The Effects of Teach for America in High School,” by Zeyu Xu, Jane Hannaway, and Colin Taylor, the Urban Institute and The National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Educational Research).

Furthermore, a June 23, 2008 Editorial in the New York Times applauds programs like “Teach for America” that bypass the teacher certification process, because “[t]he United States has a long and dishonorable history of dumping the least-qualified teachers into schools that serve poor and minority students.” That is, if those poor and minority schools get certified teachers at all — witness Douglass High School. The Times goes on to say that both TFA and the Teaching Fellows program, a New York City program encouraging mature people with work experience to go into the classroom as teachers, are producing stronger teachers and increasing student performance. “The New York example shows that the qualification gap could be closed in a relatively short period of time if the country made it a priority,” the Times states.

But the question is, does the country WANT to make education a priority?

First, let’s briefly switch continents and move over to Algeria. Trying to break free from decades of Islamist extremist education, this year schools began to make drastic changes in their curriculum. “The schools are moving from rote learning … to critical thinking, where teachers ask students to research subjects and think about concepts … Yet the students and teachers are still unprepared, untrained and, in many cases, unreceptive. ‘Before, teachers used to explain the lesson,’ Malek said. ‘Now they want us to think more, to research, but it’s very difficult for us,’” (NYT, A8, 6/23/2008). Algeria is realizing that an education of rote memorization is archaic and is not serving its citizens well — they had a huge male dropout rate in high school that was leading to a large number of men joining groups like Al Quaeda. They decided to make a change because their curriculum was boring. Irrelevant. Sound familiar?

So what do we do in the United States?

Instead of moving forward, we’re moving backward.

Case in point: Bush’s State of Texas. At the end of May, a majority conservative republican Texas State Board of Education rewrote a 100+page proposed English Language Arts curriculum overnight, essentially eliminating months of input and work by educated English Education professionals, in favor of a curriculum proposing rote memorization in grammar instruction and reading comprehension, resulting in a curriculum that will wreak havoc on Texas children for the next decade. They’ll be great at diagramming sentences, putting the parts into boxes. But when we ask them to think, that will be another story.

Maybe we should have an exchange between the Texas State Board of Education and the Algerian Board of Education? Maybe there could be a positive dialogue there. Perhaps it would be good for the Texans to see what happens when students are forced to rotely memorize in schools, like they have in Algeria, where males drop out of high school and join Al Quaeda. Back to the basics? The basics of being bored and disengaged.

Is that what we want in America? A bored and disengaged population? One that’s uneducated? Easy to manipulate?