Education: What Works What Doesn’t 
By Robert Maynard

In last week’s edition of TNR.com, I wrote an article entitled “Is Education an Entitlement?”  In that article I pointed out that a careful reading of the Vermont Constitution in context suggests that education is more the responsibility of religious bodies than that of the state.  Even those who acknowledge that this is technically true claim that the poor will suffer if the state does not step in. The problem is that there is no evidence to back this claim up. Here in Vermont we are among the highest in the nation when it comes to educational spending on a per child basis. Has our excessive spending on public schools helped bring greater educational opportunity to the less fortunate? The link below is to the Fordham Foundation Report of last year on the student achievement gap and reform efforts aimed at fixing that gap.  Vermont got an F and ranked dead last at 50.  The section covering Vermont is on pages 111 and 112.  http://downloads.heartland.org/20305.pdf

Our experience here in Vermont is not the only example of how much of a failure throwing more money at our public school system is when it comes to elevating the educational achievement of the poor.  The link below is a report on the most popular test case of an attempt to force a court ordered plan on a school district that would both achieve integration and raise student scores.  It details the miserable failure of a “Cost is No Object” attempt to raise the educational standards of inner city minority children.  The school district was in Kansas City, Missouri. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-298.html

I would like to follow up on the analysis of what does not work with an analysis of what does work. A shining example of success is the inspiring, but little known struggle of Black Americans to acquire a decent education under the regime of slavery and following the period of Reconstruction. This struggle is dealt with in the fourth chapter of Dr. Alan Keyes' book "Masters of the Dream: The Strength and Betrayal of Black America" entitled "Those Who Would be Free".

Under the regime of slavery it was illegal for slaves to be educated, yet some blacks pursued whatever education they could.  By 1850 Frederick Douglas could say that "literate slaves appeared everywhere, no matter how unfavorable the atmosphere".  They often did so in the face of extreme persecution.

During the period of Reconstruction, blacks continued to pursue education by every available means.  Many went to freedman's schools run by northern missionaries, both black and while, and supported by northern philanthropy and some federal funds.  The black church played a central role in this.

Of course, there was a backlash against all this when the Reconstruction period ended which brought with it a resurgence of anti-Black repression.  Public support and funding dried up and the public educational services provided for black (and white) children in 1900 and 1910 were in many ways inferior to those public services provided back in 1890.  Given the lack of public support and any formal schooling structure, one would of expected the educational achievement of blacks to have stagnated in the post Reconstruction period.  Interestingly, that was clearly not the case.  According to many sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau officials, the black illiteracy rate in 1880 was 70 percent.  By 1910 the black illiteracy rate had dropped to 30 percent.  In each decade from 1880 to 1910 the black population increased, but the number of illiterates in each age group decreased.  Given the hostility to any form of black advancement, this achievement is nothing short of amazing.

According to Dr. Keyes, the driving force behind this success was the moral values promoted by the black churches and the black family.  Those values included personal dignity and responsibility and the capacity for self government as the necessary prerequisites to become a free people.  Their biblical based beliefs pointed to the importance of freedom in the realization of their dignity of beings created in the image of God.  They also stressed educational achievement as a path to those goals.  In summary, though they had few physical resources and were facing considerable obstacles to advancement, they progressed because of their spiritual resources.  The striving for excellence and the recognition that a quality education is a path to that excellence is a much more important factor in educational achievement than money spent, public support, or one's parent's socio-economic background.

When education was removed from its religious context in the family and church and the purpose of education shifted from personal academic and moral excellence to the kind of socialization that makes one fit to be a cog in someone's view of a socioeconomic utopia, the result was that the quality of education suffered.  No amount of money or integration schemes is going to change that."
 

Robert Maynard is the Editor of TrueNorthRadio.com