Let's face it: U.S. schools need reform
Jay Evensen
In the case of Referendum 1, the school voucher issue in Utah, campaign season has produced mostly smoke and distractions, like a competition among carnival barkers along the midway of a state fair. One side accuses the other of being against public education. The other side counters with accusations that the teachers' union is controlled by liberal out-of-state interests.
Each sees the other as emerging from a colonial-era witness list at a witch trial, complete with hallucinations and frothing at the mouth. One person went so far as to send out an e-mail saying the other side is "from Satan."
Readers of this column know of my support for vouchers, but I have to admit I that I know the leaders on both sides of this issue, and I honestly feel they have the interests of Utah's schoolchildren at heart. They just have different ideas as to what that means.
So why have those good intentions turned into fertilizer in the garden of good and evil?
Or maybe former Tennessee senator and labor secretary William E. Brock said it best recently when he identified the biggest impediment to reform as "the attitude that we're trying very hard and already doing the best we can for our children." People get angry when they think reformers are implying they've been neglectful.
Both of these men, by the way, are voucher opponents. But they recognize that education in this nation is in need of drastic reform.
Brock visited the Deseret Morning News editorial board last week, along with other members of The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. That commission, funded by the likes of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, has issued a report that is creating a stir in some states — just not in Utah, yet.
People tout how well Utah's students do on national achievement tests. Brock says Utah kids aren't competing against other kids in the United States. Ultimately, they will compete for jobs against kids in Holland, Denmark, Sweden, China, India, Singapore and a host of other nations. And students in the United States perform dreadfully against those kids.
Not only that, developing nations such as India are producing engineers who are happy to work for $7,500 a year. Even if we succeed in matching the education levels of these Indian graduates, the report asks, "why would the world's employers pay us more than they have to pay the Indians to do their work?"
Recent comments
There is a powerful case for expanded school choice that few will...
Tom Shuford | Oct. 22, 2007 at 5:52 p.m.
I have to say that the concept of public education being an "...
jeremykidd | Oct. 22, 2007 at 11:27 a.m.
FYI, there are some independently run schools that are trying REAL...
Rabbi | Oct. 22, 2007 at 8:37 a.m.
