James Frank Solís: Apparently, the problem with our education system is that teachers aren't very bright

01 September 2006

Apparently, the problem with our education system is that teachers aren't very bright

9:24 AM

I was just listening to John Stossel being interviewed on KOA-AM about his "Stupid in America" segment on ABC-TV recently. Because he was critical of teachers, 600 of them told him he had no business expressing an opinion on education because he wasn't a teacher.

That sort of reasoning is logically fallacious. In the segment, Stossel makes several assertions, among which are:

1. American fourth-graders do well on international tests, but by high school, Americans have fallen behind kids in most other countries.

2. The constant refrain that "public schools need more money" is nonsense. Many countries that spend significantly less on education do better than we do. School spending in America (adjusted for inflation) has more than tripled over the past 30 years, but national test scores are flat. The average per-pupil cost today is an astonishing $10,000 per student — $200,000 per classroom!

3. Most American parents give their kids' schools an A or B grade, but that's only because, without market competition, they don't know what they might have had. The educators who conduct the international tests say that most of the countries that do best are those that give school managers autonomy, and give parents and students the right to choose their schools. Competition forces private and public schools to improve.

4. There is little K-12 education competition in America because public schools are a government monopoly. Monopolies rarely innovate, and union-dominated monopolies, burdened with contracts filled with a hundred pages of suffocating rules, are worse. The head of New York City's schools told me that the union's rules "reward mediocrity."

Now, those assertions are true, or they are false. (That's logic!) And the truth or falsity of these assertions is independent of whether John Stossel has ever taught. Those assertions are not assertions about the sort of experiences one has as a teacher. Those assertions are assertions about matters of fact. It must be that these propositions are true; that teachers know these propositions are true; and that they cannot, therefore, refute these assertions. In fact, the first teacher to call in to the show could do little more than complain about the "teacher bashing."

Given the quality of thought demonstrated by the preponderance of public school educators, it isn't any wonder that our children are poor thinkers. I mean, really, what's next? When you complain about the food at a restaurant, is the cook going to tell you that you have no business expressing an opinion on food because you are not a cook? If you complain to a mechanic that your car still isn't working properly, is he going to tell you that you have no business expressing an opinion on the operation of your automobile because you are not a mechanic?

What is it Stossel says from time to time? Oh, yeah: Gimme a break!

Apparently, the problem with our education system is that teachers aren't very bright

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