Save the Children: Discipline the Teachers

When Georgia was initially hit with our recent financial crisis, it was time for belt-tightening. Everyone knew it, including then Governor Sonny Perdue. And so the word went out that there would be budget cuts. Furthermore these would be across the board so that the pain would be shared.
Only they weren’t across the board. Everyone was cut by four, then six, and then eight percent—except the penal institutions and k-12 schools. This presumably made sense. We couldn’t very well let prisoners out of their cells or deny small children a good education. After all, we had to “save the children.”
Higher education was sacrificed; roads were sacrificed, but these innocents could not be sacrificed. Or was it the children that would have suffered? Somehow, the teachers made out like bandits. They, who, strange to say, had been among Perdue’s most vociferous supporters, managed to keep their own nest eggs intact.
Now we witness the spectacle of teachers besieging the Wisconsin State House. They too are claiming to fight on behalf of their students, even as they put in for so much phony sick leave that the schools must close. Nevertheless, they are altruists, whereas their enemy, the governor, is trying to destroy the future of the young.
Before this sideshow, we had heard of teachers unions demanding more pay and benefits than workers in the private sector. We had also heard stories of their defending incompetent teachers. But most people were reluctant to believe these tales. They wanted to help the children and so were willing to assist their helpers.
But now, in Wisconsin, the teachers are prepared to see their state go into default rather than make significant concessions. How is this supposed to help the children? What good will it do the young if there are no jobs waiting for them when they graduate?
Rather than answer this question, let me first share some secrets. To begin with, teachers, despite many significant exceptions, are among the least well educated of our professionals. Anyone who teaches in college (as I do) knows that the worst students congregate in the education department. There they find the least demanding courses, yet obtain the best grades.
Moreover, most of what prospective teachers learn concerns the tenets of progressive education. These essentially dictate that teachers be nice to students. That’s it; just be nice. As to the content we might expect teachers to impart, it is a tiny part of the curriculum. Perhaps the fear is that education majors cannot absorb anything too intellectually challenging.
In any event, the time has come to hold teachers to a higher standard. If they are to receive the remuneration to which they feel entitled, they need to work a little harder to accumulate genuine knowledge worthy of being passed along to the younger generation.
The second secret is that the amount of money spent on education is not correlated with educational achievement. More dollars do not necessarily improve learning. In fact, they do not. They barely make a difference. Most people refuse to believe this, but the sociologist James Coleman definitively demonstrated this truth almost a half century ago.
For those who suspect I am mistaken, I offer evidence open to everyone. We have doubled and tripled the amount spent on education over the last several decades, but have the scores on achievement tests gone up commensurately? Of course not. They have barely budged.
Or consider class size. It has been presented as the Holy Grail of education. Smaller classes, we were told, would allow teachers to provide more individualized attention. Well, class sizes have almost been cut in half, but parochial schools with much larger classes are doing better. So did the larger classes I once attended.
As Coleman long ago discovered, the most important factor in generating student success is parental attitudes. Parents who care about education have children who care about it. This is the real secret of the Asian Tiger Mothers. This is why their children are doing so well in school—not because they are more intelligent.
And so the way to get better education is to raise the standards. Raise them for teachers. Raise them for parents. Raise them for children. If we care about education, we must not be fooled into supporting what is essentially in the teachers’ interests. We must keep our eyes on the ball. Bankrupting our states to pay for something that does not help us, or our children, makes no sense.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University