Our Survival Depends Upon Public Education

From time to time, I will post up articles I wrote in past years that still seem relevant. Here's one from 2011 about public education, one of my passions.

Our Survival Depends Upon Education

 We survive as a species because we educate our children.

It starts with, "don't bite," moves on to, "don't touch, it's hot," and never stops.

When we lived off the land, education was a family responsibility. "If you plant this, water it and pull the weeds, we all get to eat." Parents could handle it.

As tools and structures became more important and complex, people banded together and passed on the needed skills through apprenticeships with more skilled artisans. Formal education was a luxury reserved for the privileged wealthy.

Somewhere along the line, we decided that everyone needed to know how to read, write, add and subtract, probably because the body of accumulated knowledge was becoming too large to pass down around the home fire. Teaching became a desirable skill.

Then we figured out that teachers could teach more than one student at a time and public education was born. Families banded together, built a school and hired a teacher. Parents brought their kids in from the fields and they started learning about more than farming. They were taught to read fiction and think critically.

Society has been transformed by education. We are now very sophisticated and well educated. The days of the generalist are gone. Apprenticeships are gone. Following your parents’ footsteps to the assembly line are gone as well. Success today depends upon specialized knowledge and skills far beyond what your parents or the one room school marm can teach.

In order for the species to survive, today's children need significantly more education than their parents and grandparents received. Our world has become extremely complex and demanding. Instead of competing with the guy down the street, we're competing with folks we will never see from the other side of the planet. The technology explosion requires skills unheard of thirty years ago.

Today’s teachers hold the keys to our survival. They are the most important group of people on the planet. K-12 public education is the single most important institution in our society. Those that work there provide the foundations upon which future lives, families, businesses, governments, sports, arts, sciences, philosophies will be built. Without solid K-12 foundations, further education and training is not as successful and mediocrity becomes the standard.

Do we want to dumb down our kids by turning back the clock? We will soon be eclipsed by those countries that better educate their children. Teachers today must have the resources and support needed to prepare the next and future generations for their increasingly complex world.

It is inconceivable that school boards and legislators are currently charged with and believe in taking resources out of public education. We need to be doubling the resources devoted to public education, not decimating them.

We are told we cannot afford more money for education and that schools have to do more with less, just like the private sector. We are told that teacher compensation far exceeds private sector compensation and should be reduced accordingly.

Since when is the "private sector" business model the gold standard for education? We’re not turning out widgets. We are molding the future success of our society in 12 year cycles that start over again every year.

Just because some have hoodwinked workers into to giving up benefits and accepting lower wages, does not make it right or even a "best practice." Instead, we should be saying, “Look what we pay the people who guarantee our survival. I'm bright and educated and if you don't pay me a comparable package, I'll become a teacher.”

We must significantly increase the resources devoted to educating our children so they can compete for and in their future. There are positive things best business practices can bring to the business side of education, but paying teachers less because you are paid less makes no sense, much less common sense.

Recognize the value teachers provide and compensate them accordingly. Make teacher compensation the gold standard and we will all benefit. Then we might all aspire to teach the next generation. Think of the possibilities when the best and the brightest clamor to teach our kids because their work is valued, honored and compensated fairly.