True Education Reform

Many folks, politicians, educators, and film makers even, are worried that education reform is far from done. They lament, according to an article this morning on AOL News, that the President's Race to the Top program is too little too late for some students, and that more needs to be done with early childhood education. In particular, a poll of teachers shows strong support for formal education before kindergarten. Children with very early aid do better academically in the long run.

Early education certainly makes a huge difference in the life of a child. But how formal does it have to be? We have known for eons that parents who take a role in their children's learning have a tremendous effect on their educational success. We don't need formal classroom teachers to help ensure good academics: we need parents who will take an active role in the lives of their young charges.

This whole issue reeks of a ploy by those who have a special interest in education to spread the wealth among their peers, and to create more jobs in the education arena. It further allows those of us who do not support them to be labeled as against education. Indeed, we can now be called against the poor, who have a higher rate of academic failure than the middle and upper classes.

Yet we are not. We are simply recognizing that support from home cannot be replaced by any amount of professional and formal learning. That those in poor home environments generally struggle in school is a question in truth beyond the means of any sanctioned educational system. No matter how you try, even when the kids are very young, they will not, as a rule, learn even the rudimentary bits of knowledge without a stable and concerned home life to support that effort. In fact, it is safe to say that the effects of the home life trump the efforts of the education establishment, and always will.

The issue ultimately is one of misplaced emphasis. If we want academic success we need to create a nation with stable homes and, yes, nurturing environments. Good education, like good citizenship, begins at home. It usually will not begin anywhere else, as that is where children spend, or at least should spend, the bulk of their time. As it is, all we really have is a special interest group acting for the special interest: educators seeking the creation of jobs for educators. They don't want to help kids as much as they want a jobs program funded from the public coffers.

We fail to realize that education has become a business, and that businesses usually only want what is good for them. More money and more government oversight of the classroom doesn't help those who actually need it; it only protects the teaching market for those who likely would succeed anyway. This type of hyperbole fails to serve those it purports to hold dear. Yet it does insure better cars for the classroom instructor.