Synthesizing Education

Considering the amount of frustration that parents, educators, and political pundits throw at our system of schooling, one can only wonder why there is minimal support for a complete overhaul of the structure. The reality is that the only way our educational system will experience a complete alteration is through a paradigm shift that looks the way that Marxists describe a Proletarian Revolution. The entire country has to get loud enough and mad enough that an entity will step in and say, “This looks nothing like our previous education system, but we are doing it anyway!” What I am saying is that professional development, merit pay, standardized testing, The Race to the Top, Charter Schools or any other “silver bullet” theory will not cause serious, sustainable reform in schools across the country.

There is a simple rationale to why this is true. Schooling in America has been widely unaltered for over one hundred years. Essentially we have changed the oil, lights, and interior but kept the same car. It is an organization that is deeply ingrained in our culture with a strong personal attachment. Almost everyone in our country has experience in school and convincing people that a structure that has existed for this length of time now needs overhaul is rather difficult.

Politicians largely do not want overhaul of our public school system simply because they are supposed to be models of its quality. The same rationale goes for 99% who have gone through the American public school system and continued with some degree of success. You can almost hear them saying, “I will service with new oil and headlamps, but I don’t want any consideration of a new vehicle.” Remember: all of these different pet projects that get thrown at education are NOT reform. That’s why they come and go with the phases of the moon.

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