Educational Lessons

How to save education:

The result of turning the goals of education away from intellectual excellence to being anti-racists was dramatic—and noxious. Award-winning writing programs were dropped because the authors were white. An effective math program was replaced with one themed in social justice. Decisions were made to be more anti-racist, not to encourage student achievement. Discipline was judged racist and—surprise—collapsed. The result, according to Wilson, was "the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards on the math section of the SAT plummeted from 41 percent in 2017 to 4 percent in 2024." Committed to "social justice," progressive "educators turned away from the commitments that drove their success — high expectations, relentless attention to great teaching, and safe and orderly classrooms," he argues. "New conceptions rooted in critical theory — trauma-informed pedagogy, a culture of student fragility, and racial essentialism — overtook the K-12 sector." Students were told they were oppressed and incapable. "Outcomes nosedived." I think there are two lessons here for a new, refactored approach to education. The first is to once again encourage a growth mindset from the first day of kindergarten on. But second, and probably more important, is that reformed, refactored schools have to focus on what their real objectives should be: students who graduate able to read at a high level, understand mathematics, and who are confident that they can learn anything else they need in the future.

Go back to basics...