So, as all of you know, I am a teacher. I have taught for the past six years in various private institutions. I also had the great opportunity of teaching in a public school for a little while at the beginning of my career, and I have met and worked with students from both a public and a private background in the context of an online environment. That, admittedly, may not amount to a whole lot of experience professionally next to some of you, but I would submit that the following suggestions are not so much centered on a criticism of the teaching profession or education per se, but on the way that we organize the education system as a whole. In other words, what I am talking about here is the way that we integrate all of the state's learning environments into a coherent whole. And that has way more to do with politics than it does with educational praxis. So this is a sort of outline, in brief, of the various ideas I have collected over the past few years for reforming Arkansas' public educational system.
First, I think it essential that, in order to have a uniform assessment of skills regardless of educational background, we have a fairly objective system for assessing a student's qualifications at the end of his education. It does very little good to have yearly exams (most of which do not prevent a student from passing to the next grade) which are merely intended to assess the ongoing quality of instruction, if the students, at the end of the program, are not prepared to go on to higher studies. There is also the challenge that annual benchmark exams, as we used to call them in Arkansas, are very specific to each grade level and so encourage teachers to merely "teach the exam" to up their qualifications. I think this is an abuse of the whole idea of instruction. What we should be using exams to do is to help parents decide whether their children are getting the best out of their education, and that would imply a high-stakes exam leading out of high school.
So, what I would propose is that we break apart the whole separation between schools, homeschools, and private schools. Students in Arkansas would simply receive an "Arkansas High School Diploma", of which there would be two different categories. The first, taken at the end of tenth grade, would be a "Standard Level Diploma", which would essentially cover most of the material in the GED and ACT. Students who passed it would receive a diploma and could legally discontinue their education, if they chose. The Standard Level Exam would also include a number of sections for elective courses, which a student could decide to take based on his own level of confidence in the subject. It would not matter where they were educated; they would all qualify for the Standard Level Diploma in the same way.
Students who passed the Standard Level Diploma and qualified with above average or excellent scores in particular subject areas could then take courses in those areas to prepare themselves for the Advanced Level Exam, which they would take at the end of the twelfth grade. Provided that they received average or higher scores in a minimum number of subjects and at least one or two electives, they would qualify for the Advanced Level Diploma which, again, they would receive directly from the state with no involvement from the local school or school board.
I believe that this method of qualifying students would ultimately be the most equitable for students. Parents themselves could decide: Is paying money for a private education really worth it in terms of results? Can I educate my child to the qualifications necessary for them to achieve a useful diploma? I believe in freedom and choice in the realm of education, and I think that forcing the parents (and students) to look seriously at the alternatives before them would benefit everyone involved.
The next part of this is where I will probably get myself into trouble. On the one hand, I support school choice, in the sense that I do not believe that parents should have to pay taxes or fees to public schools when they choose to enroll their children in a private institution, unless, of course, those fees are redirected to the schools which parents themselves chose. This, however, I only support in the instance that the schools that parents are enrolling their children in are free of charge, meaning that they do not ask nor require those parents to pay for their children to take classes at the private school. This is because the taxes themselves are collected on an ENTIRE community to guarantee that everyone in that community receives an education, whether they can afford it or not. It is a rudimentary form of wealth redistribution, and I agree with it wholeheartedly. Just because a person can afford a better school, does not mean that funds should be withdrawn from those schools that serve everybody. It would be like letting people bring their own popcorn to the movie theater. On the other hand, if those private schools are doing a good job educating the community as a charitable organization, then of course, we should support the charitable instinct of individuals over the crushing presence of a welfare state. Another option, of course, would be to exempt individuals from paying the school property taxes and instead taxing tuition payments to private schools, but I doubt that would be any more or less popular.
Where I absolutely do not support school choice is in allowing parents whose children live in one school district to send their children to another school district unless, in exceptional circumstances, the student is simply unable to go to their local school. The reason for this is much the same. Many students, particularly those in poor neighborhoods, will be unable to afford to send their children to schools outside of their district due to additional transportation costs; and if they do decide to send their children away, the longer distance will mean less time at home with family, less time for homework, and less connection between the local community and its school. A local school is a center of knowledge and empowerment for a small community, as well as a neighborhood. If we allow students to flock to this or that public school, it will inevitably rip students out of their communities during the most foundational time of their lives and ultimately result in their integration into a general culture-less consumerist society with no morals and no background.
I also believe in small local schools. Oftentimes, small local schools become a target for accusations of waste, poor management, and poor instruction. However, consolidation has not achieved any more financial viability in the long term as unconsolidated schools, and the negative effects (peer pressure, violence, high teacher-student ratios) seem worse than the problems they were trying to fix. Yet, even from a financial and professional point of view, technology has finally caught up to the problem. It is now possible that a small school in, say, Ash Flat, Arkansas could have a course in Mandarin Chinese, taught by an instructor from Hong Kong and supervised in a large multi-level classroom with a paraprofessional supervisor. I know this because I do this job on a regular basis. It has its own challenges, of course, but in general, I have been satisfied with the results. Today, every school in every small town could have any course offered in the state of Arkansas, and qualified professionals could teach from their own hometowns in multiple districts at competitive pay without having to take jobs outside of their field. Who needs a coach to be a history teacher any more?
I also believe that the school day should be significantly shortened or opened up throughout the state. Ideally, students should be free for at least an hour in the day to study, participate in intramural sports, receive religious instruction from clergy of their choosing, or some other profitable recreation. Students do not have enough time to really process what they are learning in the modern school environment, and I think that results in very shallow presentation by the teachers to keep up with the curriculum timetable. What those periods of time set aside for leisure should NOT be used for is work. Work can happen in the classroom or after school: schools should not be in the business of turning their students into so many cogs in the industrial machine.
Finally, I think it is essential that we consider establishing specialty institutions to target boys and girls for fields in which they are underrepresented. This would require some gender segregation, but with the overall goal of making the professional field more diverse in particular areas. For example, Arkansas needs a public school of math and science that is for female students only. Imagine, also, a boys-only arts and humanities school, or an advanced academic institution for students with learning disabilities. Once again, it is essential that these institutions be either free or public (or both) and focus on enlisting students who show particular aptitude for these skills. Merely making them available would lead to a consistent downgrading of expectations to meet parents' demands.
There are, of course, many different areas where we could improve our educational system and methods. I, however, am a teacher, and if I wrote down every possible improvement (additional courses in agriculture and fine arts, people?), I would never have enough time to grade papers. As it is, I think that adopting even a few of these ideas would so radically change people's perspective on education, that a lot of other improvements might simply follow as a natural consequence.
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