If we are serious about celebrating Black History Month, we will understand that the second stage of the civil-rights movement will unfold through an overhaul of K-12 education. Almost no one is articulating well what must be done to wage this revolution, but it is imperative in Minnesota and across America if we are to realize a full-fledged democracy.
No one in either of the two major political parties is even close to formulating the basic precepts that must undergird the revolution. Republicans are mainly emphasizing parental choice through charter schools and private-school vouchers, and strengthening local control. But this approach is deeply flawed.
Most charter schools are worse than the regular public schools. There are not enough good private schools to accommodate the masses of K-12 students, and there is not enough surety of success in the voucher approach to justify the use of public money for students to attend private institutions. And local control is an illusion.
School boards and education bureaucracies function similarly from one school district to another. Those boards and bureaucracies are themselves largely responsible for our wretched public schools. The administrator and teacher candidates who come to them are produced by very similar preparation programs, which constitute the greatest single culprit in putting inadequate teachers in the classrooms of our precious children.
My fellow Democrats tend to be even worse than Republicans on education issues. They are beholden to the teachers unions, which do what good unions do — lobby for better wages and benefits for their members.
In no way, though, are teachers unions advocates for the best educational interests of our young people. They cling to a system in which excellent teachers and terrible teachers are treated largely the same, keeping their jobs year after year and gaining increases in pay only through a "step and lane" system that rewards years of service and continuing education of questionable quality.
Virtually every word that comes out of the mouths of Gov. Mark Dayton and Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius relating to education is rubbish. The value of universal pre-K education is vastly oversold to direct attention away from the disaster in our public schools. Thirty years after the publication of "A Nation at Risk," we should not allow ourselves to be fooled yet again by the education establishment and politicians who serve as its lackeys.
The importance of a child's brain development during the years from birth to age 5 is critical. But that development will languish if we inflict the present K-12 system upon that potentially bountiful brain.
