History of Education
Education began with the first child, as the family is the most important component in the total pedagogical system. It does take a village, and some formal or sensible structure can help, but from before birth (as there is evidence that “feeding” the womb information can help and providing the wrong nutrition can hurt) to the first real school day, and throughout the process and lifetime, parents, certainly, but siblings and relatives, too, are crucial. The word education, from the Latin, means to nourish or raise. I am the fortunate product of my upbringing.
That said—and appreciating the necessary focus on the budget, standardized testing, application of new technologies and politics—I will then proffer only one observation for consideration: we need to expand the teaching of the three R’s, by incorporating four more R’s. But, let us first look at the U.S. and education.
Education in the United States
Education in Colonial America was private, excluded and focused on reading, writing and arithmetic, plus Latin. Around the time of the birth of the nation in 1776, 75% of males and 65% of females were literate in the New England colonies, but lower elsewhere. There were colleges, but only for males. There is nothing in the Constitution about education.
The Common School Movement began in the mid 1800s to broaden opportunities, partly, but also to preserve social stability, reduce crime, Americanize foreigners and reduce poverty. Sounds like today, actually.
The Morrill Act of 1862, sponsored by Vermont Congressman Justin Morrill, providing 90,000 acres to each qualified state, brought higher education into prominence. His Act in 1890 extended land grants to 16 southern states. Effectively, the legislation allowed states to sell and use this land to establish engineering, agriculture and military science colleges. This is the genesis of American superiority.
By the early 1900s, universal education at all levels arrived. However, in 1900, only 5% graduated from high school and 1% went on to college. During this period, southern states made up 34% of the U.S. population, but received only 3% of the education funding. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) was formed by a diverse group representing all colors to advance the cause of African Americans in 1909 to coincide with the centennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth year. It was a painful struggle fighting legalized racial discrimination, finally coming to a kind of climax in the middle 1950s with the unanimous vote of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 striking down separate white and black schools and in 1955 by Rosa Park’s refusal to give up her bus seat.
There has been a century of good progress, as 25% of all Americans are today in school (private schools teach almost 7% of them) and 85% graduate from high school. We now have a literacy rate of 98%. At $11,000/student/year, Switzerland and the U.S. rank #1 in world-wide spending for public schools. Yet, the District of Columbia, at $13,000/student/year, about the highest nationally, shows about the worst student results. Thus, it takes more than money to educate a child. Success begins with the family and extends into the village, or ‘hood.”
Why go to school? The average annual salary of a college graduate exceeds the national average by more than $10,000. College graduates in 2003 will earn $409,959 more over the lifetime than someone who did not. A college graduate will earn about twice as much as a high shcool graduate. Or, adults with a master’s, professional or doctoral degree earned an average of $79,900 in 2005, compared with $19,900 for those without a high school diploma. To this financial advantage add productivity, prestige, status in society and lifestyle.
How should schools be governed? States run their system, but the Feds can hold funding if certain requirements are not met. There are some who feel that schools should be nationalized, and others who home school. The two primary issues today are, then, the No Child Left Behind Act pulling towards national standards and decentralized charter schools, born as recently as 1990 to minimize bureaucracy, allow for vested management by those who care and provide focus on curricula of choice.
Hawaii always compares unfavorably with the nation in standardized exams and we have the highest percentage of schools missing No Child Left Behind benchmarks. In many ways, this is analogous to the U.S seemingly falling behind the rest of the developed world in comparative tests. These conditions bring an inferiority complex to the State and general anguish on part of national educators and decision-makers.
Actually, 36% of the Hawaii population represents immigrants and their children. No doubt it is this transitioning group that is skewing the low scores. Yes, 68% of incoming freshmen to the University of Hawaii require remedial English, and, worse, 89% need remediation in math, but this group has made an important leap into higher education, on which our future depends.
Similarly, the seeming mediocrity shown by our students at the national level compared to countries like South Korea and Singapore might not be as grave as is portrayed. I will later describe why.
At the local level, educator James Shon has passed on to me books and papers on education, and we have had discussions on various aspects of the subject. I had breakfast with him in September of 2006, the day after the newspapers announced his firing by the Hawaii Board of Education. Dr. Shon, a former state legislator and a long time ago on my staff at the University of Hawaii, was executive director of the Charter School Administrative Office. He was incredibly at peace with the process and felt he had done all he could to steer the 27 charter schools, with 6,000 students and a budget $1,880/student/year less than the public schools. He was ready to move on. He believed in the charter system, and to a good degree, I agree that this concept has a lot to offer. While there are aspects of this system that provides some of the flexibility provided in No Child Left Behind, in most ways, NCLB focuses too much on government control and the traditional R’s.
Charter schools reportedly do not outperform their public counterparts, which I find surprising because they do generally involve stronger family involvement. I suspect, though, that this comparative analysis focuses on the 3 R’s, leaving out the other 4 R’s, which I have not yet been identified, the strength of charter schools.
In my opinion, charter schools are safer than home schooling, which socially handicaps the child. The parent probably provides superior 3R teaching, enabling the student to score higher on standardized tests, but I would worry about long-term life success. Yet, just getting into college might be more important than anything else, so, there are advantages to home schooling, for we will later learn that our superior national advantage is based on our world-class post-secondary education system.
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There are no major storms in the East Pacific, a weakening Tropical Storm Fred in the Atlantic and a strengthening tropical depression in the West Atlantic, to become a typhoon by mid-week.Education began with the first child, as the family is the most important component in the total pedagogical system. It does take a village, and some formal or sensible structure can help, but from before birth (as there is evidence that “feeding” the womb information can help and providing the wrong nutrition can hurt) to the first real school day, and throughout the process and lifetime, parents, certainly, but siblings and relatives, too, are crucial. The word education, from the Latin, means to nourish or raise. I am the fortunate product of my upbringing.
That said—and appreciating the necessary focus on the budget, standardized testing, application of new technologies and politics—I will then proffer only one observation for consideration: we need to expand the teaching of the three R’s, by incorporating four more R’s. But, let us first look at the U.S. and education.
Education in the United States
Education in Colonial America was private, excluded and focused on reading, writing and arithmetic, plus Latin. Around the time of the birth of the nation in 1776, 75% of males and 65% of females were literate in the New England colonies, but lower elsewhere. There were colleges, but only for males. There is nothing in the Constitution about education.
The Common School Movement began in the mid 1800s to broaden opportunities, partly, but also to preserve social stability, reduce crime, Americanize foreigners and reduce poverty. Sounds like today, actually.
The Morrill Act of 1862, sponsored by Vermont Congressman Justin Morrill, providing 90,000 acres to each qualified state, brought higher education into prominence. His Act in 1890 extended land grants to 16 southern states. Effectively, the legislation allowed states to sell and use this land to establish engineering, agriculture and military science colleges. This is the genesis of American superiority.
By the early 1900s, universal education at all levels arrived. However, in 1900, only 5% graduated from high school and 1% went on to college. During this period, southern states made up 34% of the U.S. population, but received only 3% of the education funding. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) was formed by a diverse group representing all colors to advance the cause of African Americans in 1909 to coincide with the centennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth year. It was a painful struggle fighting legalized racial discrimination, finally coming to a kind of climax in the middle 1950s with the unanimous vote of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 striking down separate white and black schools and in 1955 by Rosa Park’s refusal to give up her bus seat.
There has been a century of good progress, as 25% of all Americans are today in school (private schools teach almost 7% of them) and 85% graduate from high school. We now have a literacy rate of 98%. At $11,000/student/year, Switzerland and the U.S. rank #1 in world-wide spending for public schools. Yet, the District of Columbia, at $13,000/student/year, about the highest nationally, shows about the worst student results. Thus, it takes more than money to educate a child. Success begins with the family and extends into the village, or ‘hood.”
Why go to school? The average annual salary of a college graduate exceeds the national average by more than $10,000. College graduates in 2003 will earn $409,959 more over the lifetime than someone who did not. A college graduate will earn about twice as much as a high shcool graduate. Or, adults with a master’s, professional or doctoral degree earned an average of $79,900 in 2005, compared with $19,900 for those without a high school diploma. To this financial advantage add productivity, prestige, status in society and lifestyle.
How should schools be governed? States run their system, but the Feds can hold funding if certain requirements are not met. There are some who feel that schools should be nationalized, and others who home school. The two primary issues today are, then, the No Child Left Behind Act pulling towards national standards and decentralized charter schools, born as recently as 1990 to minimize bureaucracy, allow for vested management by those who care and provide focus on curricula of choice.
Hawaii always compares unfavorably with the nation in standardized exams and we have the highest percentage of schools missing No Child Left Behind benchmarks. In many ways, this is analogous to the U.S seemingly falling behind the rest of the developed world in comparative tests. These conditions bring an inferiority complex to the State and general anguish on part of national educators and decision-makers.
Actually, 36% of the Hawaii population represents immigrants and their children. No doubt it is this transitioning group that is skewing the low scores. Yes, 68% of incoming freshmen to the University of Hawaii require remedial English, and, worse, 89% need remediation in math, but this group has made an important leap into higher education, on which our future depends.
Similarly, the seeming mediocrity shown by our students at the national level compared to countries like South Korea and Singapore might not be as grave as is portrayed. I will later describe why.
At the local level, educator James Shon has passed on to me books and papers on education, and we have had discussions on various aspects of the subject. I had breakfast with him in September of 2006, the day after the newspapers announced his firing by the Hawaii Board of Education. Dr. Shon, a former state legislator and a long time ago on my staff at the University of Hawaii, was executive director of the Charter School Administrative Office. He was incredibly at peace with the process and felt he had done all he could to steer the 27 charter schools, with 6,000 students and a budget $1,880/student/year less than the public schools. He was ready to move on. He believed in the charter system, and to a good degree, I agree that this concept has a lot to offer. While there are aspects of this system that provides some of the flexibility provided in No Child Left Behind, in most ways, NCLB focuses too much on government control and the traditional R’s.
Charter schools reportedly do not outperform their public counterparts, which I find surprising because they do generally involve stronger family involvement. I suspect, though, that this comparative analysis focuses on the 3 R’s, leaving out the other 4 R’s, which I have not yet been identified, the strength of charter schools.
In my opinion, charter schools are safer than home schooling, which socially handicaps the child. The parent probably provides superior 3R teaching, enabling the student to score higher on standardized tests, but I would worry about long-term life success. Yet, just getting into college might be more important than anything else, so, there are advantages to home schooling, for we will later learn that our superior national advantage is based on our world-class post-secondary education system.
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