Alone in a Crowd

 

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Alone in a Crowd

The Shame of Our Public School System

For years, international standardized tests – primarily the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) – placed the United States at the highest level in elementary and high school academic performance levels. But that was a long time ago. That spurt in federal education spending – driven by the Soviet Union’s unanticipated “first in space” by placing their Sputnik satellite in orbit in 1957 – began to subside as pressures from the Vietnam War moved budgetary priorities to military expenses.

By the 1980s, austerity measures and the advent of a failed economic theory – supply-economics that falsely proselytized that cutting taxes for the rich would trickle money down and result in more high paying jobs and hence tax revenues – began to take their toll at both the federal and state levels. School budgets were slashed. Classroom size grew to unwieldy. Teacher pay stagnated. School buildings in many communities deteriorated and suffered from deferred maintenance syndrome. Textbooks were not replaced as often, computers entered the classroom at a snail’s pace. And our test scores plunged from 1st to 19th and even 38th in major subjects (like reading comprehension, math and science). Early education programs were increasingly expendable.

Those who could afford it, absent the rare over-performing public school, moved their children to private schools. Fewer students in public schools further justified budget cut to local schools. A move toward charter schools advanced with mixed results. Forced bussing fell from grace as inner-city schools suffered the most from a downward spiral in public education. In a world where STEM was the determinative of social success, our science and math scores were plummeting. While the United States still maintained the highest levels at a university level – like Cal Tech, MIT, Stanford, the Ivy League, etc. – only a few states (notably California, Texas, New York, Michigan and North Carolina) sustained top level academic performance.

As test score plummeted, a notion of general dissatisfaction rose among those who believed that rapid changes were displacing them, leaving them behind. They blamed immigrants and “out-of-touch” educated elites. Post-secondary education became hideously expensive, driven by the proliferation of student debt, unaffordable to many. Income inequality surged as the concept of upward mobility seemed to have relegated to the scrapheap of history. And yet, the fundamental K-12 primary and secondary school structure remained intact. Despite massive technological progress, the ability to program and customize education at those levels remained lovely and isolated experiments by companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple.

Except for those benefitting from those experiments and from special educational programs affiliated with major universities, those benefits hardly penetrated the full educational spectrum. Politics seemed to prioritize the move to press religious values into schools, the well-settled battle between Darwinism and Creationism returned, and book and classroom instruction faced searing and legally mandated censorship, particularly on gender and racially related topics. Improving the quality of education seem to dwindle further. Education was rapidly falling from our value priorities. “Active shooter” drills substituted for gun control measures that were crushed by judicial opinions fostering gun ownership.

With massive federal deficits and lower educational standards, I wonder how rising generations will be able to generate solid incomes in a highly competitive global marketplace. Why do we even divide students into discernable grades levels? Why isn’t education focused on individual progress, like the apprenticeship programs of centuries past? Because functioning in modern society requires ubiquitous skills, and teaching masses required that a single instructor could reach groups of students more efficiently? But that can be changed!

If we substitute grade levels with competency in various subjects without specified times for completion, focusing on results, wouldn’t that be better than as Tigran Sloyan, writing for the October 2nd FastCompany.com, notes: “Perhaps the biggest nuance to note is that the private tutors used ‘mastery learning’—a method that requires students to achieve a certain level of competence in order to progress further throughout the curriculum. For example, if you get a C– in Algebra 1, why on earth would we send you on struggling even more in Algebra 2? Mastery-based learning says, you’ve got to really understand the topic before we move you on to more challenging things.

“Mastery learning is demonstrably effective—although its efficacy depends on a number of variables. Ability is one, with a 1990 paper showing that the benefits of mastery learning are more pronounced with less-able students… While it’s possible to implement mastery learning in a classroom environment, it’s an incredible logistical challenge. More specifically, it’s incredibly time-consuming and requires the commitment of resources—particularly staffing—that often don’t exist in the stretched public school system.

“Fortunately, there’s a growing body of research that suggests that mastery learning can be performed just as well with software-based approaches—and, in some circumstances, better. One 2014 study from DARPA looked at a course delivered to US Navy students, with one cohort receiving human education and the other learning through a custom-built application. Remarkably, the latter group outperformed the instructors by a significant margin.” Custom-built applications? That is precisely what artificial intelligence can deliver, assuming we fund, support and develop the hardware and software required to implement a multilevel instructional development program, one that could provide the same level of excellence to an isolated Native American school with few resources and fewer students as would be accorded to a public high school in the Silicon Valley.

Sloyan continues: “The problem is that making good software is hard. The challenge of encapsulating an expert’s knowledge into a single application, while making it both accessible and comprehensible, is a formidable one. It also presents scalability issues. Building applications for each subject on the curriculum, for each grade year, will inevitably be an expensive and time-consuming process.

“You’re likely already aware of cutting-edge AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s PaLM, Meta’s LLaMa, and Anthropic’s Claude. These systems go far beyond simple text prediction or language understanding; they are multitalented platforms that can accomplish an astonishing array of tasks. From generating entire essays and writing software code, to creating poems, jokes, and even assisting in scientific research, their capabilities are both broad and deeply impactful.

“Beyond their awe-inspiring talents, these AI tools are equipped with the ability to analyze complex data patterns, optimize workflows, and offer personalized educational content. They can break down intricate topics into digestible information, making learning and decision-making easier for humans… It’s for this reason that you can ask ChatGPT to explain an ostensibly abstract concept, like, for example, the theory of relativity, in simple terms, and it’ll deliver something that makes sense.” Low test scores and global competition should be our new Sputnik! Personalized and customized education should be our new goal.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the net hard dollar rate of return to the federal government and states willing to invest in retooling and upgrading our system of public primary and secondary education would be a staggering success, even though the process will take time.