By Jim Hauser
For The Beachcomber
Public education in the United States seldom gets high praise. I would like to offer some in hopes it will inspire and encourage our Vashon public school teachers.
As a public high school teacher, I worked 30 years in Bellevue and Seattle schools. The year I began my teaching — 1970 — was the first time in U.S. history that the national census reported that 50 percent of adults had achieved a high school diploma.
That’s right — those idealized 1950s Leave-it-to-Beaver schools seemed that way because half the students never finished! Guess which half. (Hint: it wasn’t the less intelligent half).
When I retired in 2000, the census that year indicated 80 percent of adults had high school diplomas. That constitutes a revolution of inclusion, a stunning and historic accomplishment.
However, most of what we educators heard during those years was that we were dumbing down the curriculum. Far from it.
Standardized test results from major national tests show a pattern of achievement between 1960 to 2000. (The exception was a slight dip in the late 1960s when the Civil Rights movement and other factors induced a much larger percentage of students to take the tests.) If we look at achievement data by race and class, we find that over this period white, middle and upper class students continued to do well on the tests while non-white and lower class students showed better and better scores.
This means teachers of my generation increased inclusion by 60 percent (50 percent with diplomas in 1970; 80 percent with diplomas in 2000) while maintaining excellence for the students who had always done well and simultaneously increasing achievement for poor and non-white students.
However, most of what we educators heard about this was that we were falling behind Japan and Europe. Also not true.
When standardized tests are given to Japanese or European high school students, those students are already the most adept 20 percent of their populations because those schools create “university” tracks (top 29 percent) beginning in the eighth grade. So these tests often compare the top 20 percent of Japan and Europe’s students to a representative sample from the top 80 percent of U.S. students. When you do that, U.S. scores are a bit lower — but we’re close! If we actually compared our top 20 percent to theirs, we’d win. (There are several other common errors in comparing our students to theirs, but I won’t go into them here.)
However, most of what we educators have heard is that we cost too much. Compared to Europe and Japan, far from it.
On average, we spend about 40 percent less per student than Japan does and we spend much less than the countries of Northern Europe.
We also hear regularly of failed schools in the U.S. These reports are accurate. These schools need help. However, even including these failed schools, our national picture is — on average — one of greater inclusion and continued world-class achievement.
Vashon schools are excellent schools. I hope our public school teachers today on the island can feel proud of these accomplishments and carry the torch on.
— Islander Jim Hauser taught social studies for 25 years.
