US Education at Risk

                Our education system seems to be crumbing right before eyes and Dr. William J. Bennett, a current Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute, has a pretty good idea of what thinks works and what hasn’t worked in his article, ‘Record-low SAT scores a wake-up call’, on CNN.com. Dr. Bennett has firsthand government experience with having served as President Reagan’s chairman of the National Endowment of Humanities (1981-1985) and as Secretary of Education (1985-1988). His background has contributed to his well thought out article regarding education these days.

Dr. Bennett’s argument is based on the assumptions of the book, “Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America’s Schools” by Steven Brill, which is founder of Court TV and the American Lawyer magazine. Brill’s assumptions form around, that in order to change and better our education system, starting with the teachers should be greatly considered. He describes the teachers’ union as being “untouchable” and difficult to reform, which is what Brill believes the government should try next. In relation to the involvement of several types of contracts the union holds, Brills also discloses an investigation that had been conducted in New York City.  Several teachers that had been suspended due to misconduct or incompetence were being investigated and it had been found that throughout the entire investigation, which lasted several months and even years, these teacher where still getting fulltime pay as they waited for their results. This immediately stopped after this was revealed.

Dr. Bennett does a fine job of conveying the message that with the dropping of SAT scores, there should be a huge concern for where our education system is headed to. He also does well with referencing Steven Brill’s studies into his argument in order to keep his audience tuned in and to keep the creditability of his topic. Although, I agree with the initial focus that poor teaching habits and the lack of government control in teacher unions could possibility be the reason of poor SAT scores, I can’t help to think that students and parents should also be held accountable for how they use the free education they receive. While the government is spending billions on education, the value of an education seems to be diminishing right before our eyes.