In The K-12 Implosion, Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and best known as the blogosphere's Instapundit, begins by explaining the problem behind the public school system: We're spending more and more money for an out-of-date system that is producing worse and worse results.
"So at the K-12 level, we've got an educational system that in many fundamental ways hasn't changed in 100 years - except, of course, by becoming much less rigorous - but that nonetheless has become vastly more expensive without producing significantly better results."
Reynolds then explains that public schools were originally created for what are now woefully dated purposes:
"When our public education system was created in the 19th century, its goal, quite explicitly, was to produce obedient and orderly factory workers to fill the new jobs being created by the Industrial Revolution. Those jobs are mostly gone now, and the needs of the 21st century are not the needs of the 19th."
Later, Reynolds writes that churning out workers for 1925-style labor "won't work when the kids entering school today will be on the job market in 2025."
Of course, Reynolds offers a few statistics on how school spending has increased in various districts around the country while reading and math levels continue to drop.
Why is this so? Reynolds offers a few reasons. First, while students and spending have increased, most of the new money is being funneled to "paper pushing", not teaching. Quoting from The School Staffing Surge study, Reynolds states that the K-12 student population increased 96% between 1950 and 2009. During that same time, the ranks of administrators and other non-teaching school personnel grew by 702%, "more than 7 times the increase in students"!
This increase of price coupled with declining performance could spell disaster for the public educational system if it does not change, Reynolds believes. An implosion, if one were to take place, would start when a sizeable number of parents chose to withdraw their children from public schools. This has already taken place; between 2005 to 2010 the number of students fell approximately 5%. This alone can set in motion the implosion Reynolds foresees. He explains the vicous cyle public schools must break in order to stop the trend:
"First, the students who are leaving are probably better than average because their parents care so much about their educations. That means that when they leave, the overall quality of the remaining students, and thus the schools, will drop.
"Second, funding is often based on the number of pupils in the schools, so when these students leave, the schools have less money. Since it's hard to get rid of teachers, they'll probably cut "plus" programs like music, art, etc. - but losing those will make the schools less appealing to students who are thinking of leaving, probably accelerating the trend."
As this happens and public schools begin to be seen less as a "universal institution", Reynolds believes general support for the funding of public schools will also begin to wane. This will make tax rate reductions likely and tax increases almost impossible.
If the public education system is not reformed, Reynolds states (and I agree), that it might be gradually replaced by a number of diverse alternatives:
"...instead of replacing our monolithic public education system with something equally monolithic, we may wind up replacing our current system with a whole lot of different things, a variety of approaches tailored to children's (and parents') needs, wants and pocketbooks."
Federalism at work! Smaller is better! Reynolds outlines a number of these alternatives including online school, the Khan Academy approach (online lectures from world-class teachers are watched at home while students report to class for one-on-one help), and homeschool. This is on top of the more obvious choices like private and charter schools. These different methods introduce flexibility for parents and children, reduce costs and generally raise the child's quality of education.
Reynolds believes there are two ways in which things can move forward:
"On the one hand, these new and innovative approaches can take place within the context of publicly funded education. On the other, they can be embraced by parents who are fleeing what they regard as a failing public system."
If public schools embrace these changes, Reynolds writes, parents will be happy and see the system as providing real bang for their buck. This will keep enrollment up and ensure public funding continues uninterrupted. If public schools do not adopt these changes, parents will continue to withdraw their children and resent the taxes they pay for an obsolete system they do not use thus setting in motion a K-12 implosion.
The only minor complaint I have with the Kindle edition is that the graphs cannot be enlarged or viewed right side up.
The content, however, is superb. Given the space constraints, Reynolds produces an excellent outline of the problems facing public schools and what the best solution or, rather, solutions are going forward. The price is easily affordable and the whole thing only takes about an hour or so to read. You cannot go wrong by purchasing this book if you wish to better understand the challenges we face of educating our children today.
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