Heeeere's . . . Blog Quote

Since John Stossel's "Stupid in America" report has become the buzz of the moment, I quote here at length a blog post from someone who can speak to one of the issues from personal experience, which I cannot. I can speak to other issues, which I won't belabor here. I have to say, however, that Stossel's report didn't contain anything that the elitist, anti-public education minions haven't been repeating ad infinitum for far too long. Why do we continue to put up with their "how bad we are" mantra? Perhaps Stossel would benefit from taking a long, serious look at the beam in the eye of journalism. Stay tuned. At least he should be open and honest that he is a conservative voucher advocate who has an axe to grind. Of course, with all the errors and mis(dis)information in the report, it's a pretty dull axe.

Sunday, January 15, 2006
Re: Stossel and Belgian Education
I watched John Stossel's 20/20 piece called "Stupid in America" this afternoon, and what strikes me (other than his strident call for competition) is his at-best-disengenuous, at-worst-ignorant lack of a look at differences between the Belgian system of education and our own here in the States. He insists that Belgian schools compete in the open market, and that such a system would solve all that ails ours as well.

I'm fortunate to have been able to attend school in Belgium for a year: long enough to not only develop significant fluency in another language, but to also develop an appreciation for the culture, the education system it drives, and some of the differences between "over there" and "over here." I don't honestly believe we, as a nation, are prepared to embrace all of those differences, even in the spirit of fostering competition. Here's why:

First, envision a national teacher union, a national teacher contract, and a national right to strike. Think you can talk states like Texas and Nevada out of banning the right to strike to a NATIONAL teacher's union? Collaterally, of course, teacher salaries are established according to that national contract. Stossel berated "a union-government" monopoly on public education, but glossed over this "little" detail in the Belgian not-so-fine print: all those "competetive" schools pay their teachers according to the national contract, not according to local desires or needs.

Now, imagine trying to pass a national law that will impact all teachers without actually getting teacher input. Can you see all the schools in the entire nation shut down because the teachers wouldn't tolerate that? We're not talking a local teachers' strike. We're talking every single school in the "teachers-be-damned" nation shut down. The Belgian teachers did it most recently in 1996, from the end of February through the end of the school year.

Second, understand that Belgian schools do not provide transportation. You can choose a school 20 miles from home, but even if you live within three miles, there will be no yellow bus ferrying your kids at the public's expense. A very dependable system of public transportation will, however, provide regular-traveler discounts. If turning your child over to public transportation isn't something you feel comfortable with, you're on your own. Consequently, at least until "secondary" school, parents tend to keep their kids at the school closest to home.

I beg your indulgence as I get to number three: the Belgian school week was something of a shock to this American. I was used to seven classes (including study-hall), five days a week. Start at about 8 A.M., finish around 3:30 P.M. I had the same seven-class schedule every day, week in and week out.

Imagine my first Monday: Start at 8 A.M., go to four classes, leave at noon to go home for the noon meal. Get back at 2:00 P.M. for three more classes, and finish up at 5 P.M. to return home for the day. The school did NOT provide any meals whatsoever - we had two hours to get home, enjoy the biggest meal of the day with our family, and get back for the rest of the school day.

Tuesday was an equal shock: Start at 8 A.M. again, but five classes straight through to 1 P.M. and we were done for the day.

Wednesday echoed Tuesday: 8-1 and out.

Thursday and Friday had the same hours as Monday. Saturday was the same as Tuesday and Wednesday. Pick your jaw back up off the floor and adjust: we had five hours of school on Saturday.

So on to number three: in those 36 hours of class time, I had no course that met more than four times, but took 16 different courses. Two were four meetings a week, one was only one time, the other 13 were either two or three hours a week. Only twice did I have the same course back-to-back (two hours straight, on paper, but with a "passing-period" between). Three were foreign-language courses (and yes, I cheated. I took English as my second foreign language). No study-hall. That's what those afternoons off were for.

Somewhere here (and this seems the appropriate spot) I should mention that they aren't called "foreign languages" in Belgium: they're "modern languages." If you consider that Belgium was politically created as a buffer zone between Holland and France, by taking part of each country centuries ago, and then adding on a small chunk of Germany after WWII, you might well understand that Belgium has three official languages, none of them "foreign": French, Dutch, and German.

Fourth, the Belgian system made no pretense that all kids were the same, that they all needed the same education just because they had access to it. Mr. Stossel in his 20/20 piece suggests by omission that all Belgian schools attempt to provide the same opportunities to their students. Nothing, quite frankly, could be less true. Belgium does a much better job than we do of acknowledging that one doesn't necessarily need a college degree to inherit and run the family business. The courses you need for that can just as easily be taught in "high school." But if you want to be an architect, you don't need all those marketing and accounting classes either. In either case, you need some understanding of the concepts involved in the other's instance to have a truly well-rounded education, but you CAN actually specialize your secondary education so that if you have no need for university-level studies to accomplish your dream, you don't HAVE to prepare yourself for them.

And Belgian schools take that into account. Some are very, very good at preparing students to manage small businesses. Others are truly excellent at preparing students for a variety of pursuits requiring advanced degrees. Yet others do a marvelous job of preparing auto mechanics (for Peugots and Saabs and BMWs and Ferraris and for many makes we never, ever see on this side of the Atlantic). But none of them tries so hard to be everything to all people as we do with our public schools in this country.

Then we deal with the fact that a student in Belgium who begins on one track may not finish there: a test in eighth grade that determines whether the student is allowed to stay on a purely academic track or whether a "vocational track" might be more appropriate. Same kind of test at the end of tenth grade. If you reach your junior year in an "academic" school, you've demonstrated your right to be there. I wonder which sort of student group Stossel used for his comparison. I don't believe it was anywhere near as homogenous a group as the New Jersey students.

Stossel suggests that the schools in a Belgian city are in competition for students; at the secondary level that's only partially true. They each seek to develop, and perhaps expand, their niches, but none of them is after EVERY student. Before we swallow his bait clear back to the hook, we need to ask ourselves some very serious questions.

posted by Al at 5:26 PM