School Wars: Progressivists Vs. Traditionalists By: Anthony Pellegrino (Continuation)

A third contributing culprit to our educational whirlpool, perhaps one of the most insidious, is money. Education has emerged as a vast business empire with billions of dollars to spend. Consider the textbook companies, hardware and software providers, and thousands of consultants who are constantly trying to figure out which way the money is flowing. Then they develop programs, staff development seminars, and conferences to bring the latest innovations to the teachers. This is a multibillion dollar industry and no one is willing to bite the hand that feeds it.

A fourth group that influences the direction and quality of education and is to blame for our educational ills are the professional educators or commonly called “educrats” who have sold out to unions, politics, and progressive education. The National Education Association (NEA), the National Council of teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), the International Reading Association (IRA) and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) are just a few of the more powerful and pervasive ones.

Outlined above is a condensed view of a vast interlocking network of teacher training institutions, teacher organizations and their publications, government, both on the local and federal level, school officials, and textbook publishers and other vendors to the system. This massive bloc of force makes it exceedingly difficult for outsiders to have an impact on what is happening in education.

To escape responsibility for the inadequacies of the educational system, all of the above groups like to blame parents for declining achievement. We don’t spend enough time with our children. We don’t have high expectations. We don’t read aloud to them enough. But it is time that the “educrats” begin to bear their share of responsibility. They must examine what they are doing in the classrooms and understand that education requires discipline. hard work and systematic learning. A child’s selfesteem will grow when he attains achievement in the academic work he does in the classroom, not by being spoonfed “junk food education.n

As I stated at the beginning of this discussion, parents and the general public must become enlightened to what is happening in education. We are seeing the results in the poor quality of education for our children. Once we understand the causes, we can no longer stand idly by if we love and want the very best for our children.

I have professed repeatedly that more money is not the solution to our educational quandary. We must effectuate a change of attitudes in educators and return to the basics of learning.

The majority of us blindly trust the judgment of professionals. We are e~ther apathetic and indifferent, or we’re too willing to let other parents get excited about our schools but not us. But there are many things we can do to make changes:

1. Visit your child’s school and ask questions on how your child is being educated.

2. Ask how mueh time is actually dedicated to aeademie studies and how mueh time to nonaeademie activities.

3. Read several books about the clashing philosophies of education. One that I highly recommend is The Sehools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them by Dr. E. D. Hirsch, Jr. Another excellent and very downtoearth book written by Dr. Elaine K. MeEwan, a former teacher, principal, and distrTot administrator for over thirty years, is
Angry ParentsFailing SehooJs. She bluntly states from her vast experience what she feels is wrong with the public schools and wh~ you, as a parent, mn do about it.