Education Doesn't Work 3.0

Freddie deBoer on the current refinement of his idea that schools do not accomplish what they say they do. Education Doesn't Work 3.0

Our educational debates are largely useless because most people engaged in those debates assume out of hand that, absent unusual circumstances like severe neglect or abuse or the presence of developmental or cognitive disabilities, any student can be taught to any level of academic success, and any failure to induce academic success in students is the result of some sort of unfortunate error. Some tend to ascribe the failure to reach academic excellence as the result of exogenous social variables (like poverty and racial inequality) while others insist that students who have failed to learn to standard are evidence of failing schools and feckless, untalented teachers. My own perspective insists instead that as with any other kind of human ability, academic ability is unequally distributed across the population, with some destined to excel, some destined to struggle, and many destined to meet various levels of mediocrity. My belief is that this tendency is the result of some sort of intrinsic or inherent academic potential, that just as in natural talent for playing a musical instrument or playing a sport, there is such a thing as talent in school, and like all other talents, this one is not distributed equally to all people and is thus not fair. 

Please note that deBoer is very liberal, somewhere between socialist and communist, so he does not have an easy home anywhere in education discussions. His thought is because the unfair distribution of all abilities is real, and intelligence is particularly needed at some level for nearly all jobs now, a strong safety net is the only moral and fair thing to do. 

Over the last 50 years in developed countries, evidence has accumulated that only about 10% of school achievement can be attributed to schools and teachers while the remaining 90% is due to characteristics associated with students. Teachers account for from 1% to 7% of total variance at every level of education. For students, intelligence accounts for much of the 90% of variance associated with learning gains. - Douglas K Detterman

Teachers do not like being blamed for students not doing well, and if the above is true, one can see why. They can see right in front of them that things outside their control are affecting student outcomes. This is why teachers are quick to blame parents, and administrators, and school boards, and taxpayers, and the culture, and social media, and the students themselves. It isn't their fault, so it must be one of those others.  In fact, in the circle of education all of those groups blame one or all of the others, because while they all know they aren't perfect and could do better, they couldn't do that much better in order to fix what they see in front of them. Our education discussions are pretty much each of these groups blaming the other. Accountability or new programs are not going to fix things, but we want to believe that something is going to fix it. Maybe some new technological marvel will.  I doubt it.

But teachers don't want to give up taking credit for what they do, and that sort of goes with the territory. This is again true for all the other groups as well, the administrators, the taxpayers, the parents. We want credit and we don't want blame. You can't have it both ways. 

This is the place where I usually go on to point out the good things about character and habits that school do and should do. Yet this time I'm not going to. The first thing is to understand this point about differences in all abilities, including intelligence.  It is always of some importance, in every time and place, but in the last few centuries in the West it has become primary. It's not fair that this ability which is so important is not evenly distributed, but nothing is. Always, everywhere, in every environment, the number one thing people need to succeed will be unequally divided.  Blame evolution, which is ruthless. Blame fate, which is blind. Blame God, who at least might have some plan about what the unfairness is supposed to accomplish, even though it bothers us. 

But inequality is the universal.