Over the past two months, we three St. John's students have interviewed administrators, former teachers, and founders of charter schools to discuss the topic of improving public education at the high school level. All of our interviewees have agreed that the education system is by no means perfect, and have elaborated on its problems and what they have done to help fix it. Throughout these interviews, several common themes have recurred, and we have started to realize three major points and issues.
One necessity for progress all of our interviewees agreed upon was the need for a change in mindset. The right attitude is paramount for a change in education. Whether it is for students to be focused on college, for administrators to be willing to adapt and get behind progress, for legislators to hold students' best interests at heart and not be swayed by political pressure, or for society as a whole to see the need for change in education, a fundamental change in thinking is needed. Progress cannot be made halfheartedly, and there can be no real change without the incentive to do so. Furthermore, the right mindset of the majority, be it a group of students or a collection of congressmen, can pressure peers into undertaking meaningful action.
We have also learned about the necessity of competition in the educational milieu. A competitive environment needs to exist, and the current system needs to adapt and evolve. As Feinberg said, charter schools have impacted the government's policy on education the way FedEx changed the post office. And as Cannon stated, a lack of innovation leads to stagnation and failure. There absolutely cannot be a monopoly on education if it is to succeed. As successful as charter schools in Houston such as YES, Challenge, and KIPP have been, they are only the beginning. Experimenting with what works and what does not and finding what is scalable and what is not has to occur before any meaningful change can take place. Furthermore, administrators within HISD and the government, such as Harvin Moore, need to implement these changes as well as innovate. Programs such as HISD’s new teacher evaluation policy and the Apollo 20 initiative were put in place after their success in charter schools.
Another issue we've come across is the politically influenced actions of high level officials. Political aspects of the system are a hindrance, but are they necessary? Politics, especially elections of school board officials, often imposes the status quo, but as Churchill said, "...democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." America is a country based on democracy, and impediments and hurdles in the political system are necessary evils. Even though officials like Moore have managed to achieve success, albeit slowly, one cannot help but wish the process could be more streamlined and direct. Furthermore, teacher unions, though not a big problem in Houston or Texas, also bog down other parts of the country and on the national level limit progress and change.
Yet these points are to say nothing of the teaching aspect, which was not the focus of this project. True, some aspects of administrative reform can improve the teaching front: such as KIPP's emphasis on teachers becoming involved with the administration or Moore's new teacher evaluation, but these attempts cannot really improve bad teachers and faulty methods.
Problems, tactile as well as intangible ones, do exist, and the current system is a cluttered mess. But the root of the problem undoubtedly lies with society and how it views education. We cannot improve education until we as a collective group hold it to a higher standard, until we decide that this is a major issue, until we deem it necessary to suffer the pains of change and champion the cause of quality, improved education. Once that has happened, then the individual problems can be dealt with.
But these problems are many, and perhaps the biggest lesson learned is that a group of three high schoolers cannot, in the span of weeks and with only a few interviews, even begin to solve the education problem. True, we never thought we could go in, intuitive minds blazing, and come up with a novel solution, but we at least thought we could identify the problems definitively. Instead, we have learned that the issues are not always black and white, are not clearly bad teachers or corrupt politicians, but that the questions are twisting, pervasive beasts. We must acknowledge the lifetime works of the people we interviewed, who through hard work and admirable determination, have managed to make their own impact on the system. Without a doubt, we will continue to look into this problem, to interview, to research, and maybe one day we will be able to make our own changes.
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