Episode 278: Stop trying to "Reform" Schools, Start Fresh with New Ways to Teach Our Kids

Public K12 education in the United States has become the largest government-controlled monopoly in the world, (other than the CCP controlled monopolies in China), spending nearing $1 trillion per year.  And for all the money spent, it’s been a failure. In international tests, American eighth graders score 9th in reading, 16th in science, and 34th in math. 

With few other options granted other than attending their residentially assigned district public school most Americans cannot conceive that there are other alternatives to educate their children. School reform efforts are ferociously resisted by the education monopoly. 

It’s not just teachers unions and school boards. It’s the curriculum developers, the textbook publishers, consultants, the teachers colleges. The list goes on and on. Schools and school administration are also the largest source of patronage for big city, mayors, and governors in every state. They are not going to give up control of this. 

But the dynamics may be changing. 

What happened during COVID, and the prolonged school closures, was a great parent awakening.  Parents had a front row seat into their child's classroom and they were able to see what was being taught as well as what wasn't being taught. They didn’t like what they saw, and now millions are beginning to explore and create other ways to educate their kids.

The person to talk with about this movement is Dr. Keri D. Ingraham Director of the Discovery Institute’s American Center for Transforming Education.  She is also a Senior Fellow at Independent Women’s Forum.

Here is what we agree on. 

We need to create new types of schools from the ground up. There are new, more effective ways to teach our kids. Let the old institutions atrophy and die out.

Some Key Takeaways:

• The fastest, most effective way to reform K12 public education is to allow families to exit the system. 03:24

• Public school education’s roots are in the progressive era in the 19th Century. 6:29

• On the world stage US students are not competitive. 09:07

• Critical race theory is embedded in the curriculum 10:09

• Progressive bias dominates textbook publishing, college schools of education, and teacher certifications 12:05

• The bar is low to enter teacher college programs. It's typically the easiest field to go into within the university. 15:50

• Teacher college curriculums ignore subject matter expertise. 16:23

• Don Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post and a history major at Harvard, couldn’t teach in DC public schools because he didn't have a teaching certificate. 18:12 

• Is there any examples of a government monopoly or any big bureaucracy that has successfully reformed itself? 20:46

• Big cities’ schools are among their mayor's largest form of patronage. 12;10

• When schools say “We're underfunded. We need more money.” It means the want to hire more non-teaching administrative staff. 24:19

• Great books classical education has exploded. 28:26

• Do we really need to have kids go to school and sit there for eight hours a day? 29:46

• What do you do about the inner city kids that don't have parents that are that involved? 35:29

• How do we change the teacher certification rules? 38:42

• From the beginning of the progressive era over a hundred years ago, schools were designed to get kids off the streets and under the control of what they then called the “education trust” 40:44

• In 1919, the “education trust” advocated taking children from the family into the hands of the custody of “community experts.” 41:37

• California’s Gavin Newsom recently signed a law saying that schools are not required to tell a parent of their child's gender ideology unless that child gives permission. 42:51

• In 1934, the president of the National Education Association, wrote, “we expect to accomplish by education what dictators in Europe are seeking to do by compulsion and force.” 46:02

• We're not going to be able to reform the existing public government owned K12 schools. What we can do is to create effective alternatives that are better, cheaper, more humane, and teach good values. And if we create these alternatives, this ends the K12 monopoly. 48:22