Learning the Hard Way

Four weeks into Mr. Trump’s war-of-choice with Iran, it’s time to ask what we have learned or should have learned. Here are a few of the most important lessons. 

First, the 2015 nuclear non-proliferation agreement negotiated over two years by the Obama Administration among the U.S., Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, and the EU was working as intended until Mr. Trump withdrew the U.S. in 2018. Titled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA), it prevented Iran from making highly enriched uranium necessary for a weapon, verified by on-the-ground inspectors. In exchange, some Western sanctions were lifted, and banks unfroze about $50 billion of Iranian assets and returned the money to its owner. 

The JCPA was to be in effect until 2030. Since Trump withdrew in 2018, saying the JCPA wasn’t favorable enough to the U.S., Iran resumed enriching uranium toward weapons-grade quality. Both the U.S. and Israel have said eliminating Iran’s uranium program is a goal of the current war. If the JCPA were still in effect, this would not be a problem for five more years. The lesson is to not let the fantasy of a perfect agreement cancel a good one. 

Another lesson is the failure to foresee—and be prepared for—Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz, the 21-mile-wide route connecting the Persian Gulf to the world’s oceans (see map). The strategically important Strait is used by ships carrying about 20 percent of the world’s liquified natural gas and 25 percent of seaborne oil annually as well as fertilizers to feed the world. Shortages of these commodities have skyrocketed prices worldwide. About 3,200 ships are stranded above the Strait.

Mr. Trump has been forced into the embarrassing position of begging allies to help by sending minesweepers and other assets to the Strait. Most were unwilling to get involved in someone else’s war when they had not been advised in advance and had often been criticized and even insulted by Trump. Last week, though, some European countries, Canada, and Japan appeared ready to help enforce the principle of freedom of navigation under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Economic pressure is growing on Washington faster than on Tehran. 

Shamefully, when Japan’s foreign minister, in a press conference with Trump, asked him why allies were not told of the U.S attacks in advance, he told her that “secrecy” was important as it was to Japan when it attacked Pearl Harbor. He could hardly have said anything less diplomatic. 

There are at least two lessons here: Mr. Trump should leave diplomacy to experienced diplomats, and his notion of “America First” has become America Alone. Alienating long-term allies like Canada, the U.K., Germany, and Denmark is unwise and dangerous. Nations, like people, should cherish friends and not make enemies unnecessarily.

A different lesson is that airpower, no matter how overwhelming, will not result in regime change, which was another of several muddled goals of joining Israel’s long-planned attack on Iran. Allied airpower during World War II reduced much of Germany and Japan to rubble and killed millions of citizens in both countries. It took an invasion and nearly a year to end the Nazi regime, and the invasion of Japan was only three months away when two atomic bombs convinced Emperor Hirohito to order a surrender (which some Japanese Army officials tried to prevent). Invading Iran is not a practical or acceptable option. Know the history.

We are in a mess, but there is good news for one American: James Buchanan, 15th president (1857-1861) and judged by most historians our worst. He is likely to move up to second-worst.

                                       Sounds of March Madness

We have two versions of March Madness this year. The sounds associated with the the NCAA basketball tournaments is the “swish” of a good shot followed by cheering fans. The other Madness this March has brought the “boom” of exploding bombs and missiles followed by the screams of the dying and injured. 

As this was written, we were a week into a war that Mr. Trump started. Benefits as of March 7 included the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who during his 36 years in office was ultimately responsible for thousands of deaths and much destruction throughout the Middle East as well as the murder of thousands of Iranian protesters. Dozens of other officials of the terrorist regime also died in the American and Israeli attacks. 

Other benefits were the destruction of most of Iran’s navy; of many missiles, drones, and their launchers; of radar and other defense facilities; and of nuclear infrastructure that was supposedly, in Trump’s words after a U.S. attack last June, “totally obliterated.” Apparently not.

Liabilities so far included a lack of clear strategic goals by which to measure success. Was it regime change (Trump said “yes,” but Defense Secretary Hegseth said “no”), fatal damage to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, the end of a constant threat to Isreal, or some combination? Was it to stop an “imminent threat” to the U.S., as the administration claimed even with no evidence of such a threat? There is also no clear exit strategy. 

Poor planning was evident with no plan to evacuate tens of thousands of American civilians, no plan to protect commercial shipping including vital oil tankers, and no warning to allies and others who had civilians and other interests to protect.

Perhaps the greatest strategic liability is that the war promptly spread to 12 other countries from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States to Lebanon, Iraq, Azerbaijan, the U.K., and Turkey. By now, it may have spread to others. 

The cost in lives by March 7 was six U.S. soldiers, several Israeli civilians, and an unknown number of Iranian civilians including more than 150 children when their school was hit by an allied weapon. The administration claims it doesn’t target civilians, which may be true, but in a crowded city, legitimate targets are often close to civilian structures. 

War is expensive with this one costing the U.S. an estimated $1 billion a day. Three U.S. fighter jets accidentally shot down by our Kuwaiti allies cost about $96 million each. Fortunately, all six crewmen bailed out safely. 

Why begin a major war now? Trump said that “Isreal forced our hand.” There were domestic reasons, too. About 60 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s policies, and Republicans have lost nearly every recent federal and state election and are likely to lose at least the House in November, seriously weakening Trump. Attorney General Bondi has mishandled the Epstein files scandal so badly that it screams “coverup.” Days before the war began, FBI Director Kash Patel fired an elite group of 12 agents with specialized knowledge of Iran. Homeland Security chief Kristi Noam oversaw the ICE Gestapo disaster so badly that Trump has fired her, and Health Secretary Kennedy’s policies endanger public health.

 Jobs and stocks are down, and gas prices up. Trump campaigned on no foreign wars and lower consumer prices; now we have more foreign wars and higher prices. This is not a recipe for success, so a war can distract from all the bad news. If a president spends months getting Americans behind a war, as George H. W. Bush did when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991, people will rally ‘round the flag. Trump didn’t even try to sell his Iran adventure, and the Constitution assigns Congress the power to make war. People aren’t rallying ‘round the flag this time. 

                             History, Yes; Tariffs, No

 

History is the record of what happened. It’s the story of mankind’s successes and failures—often inspiring, often depressing—but of little value unless it’s as true as we can make it with the known facts. Trying to erase parts of our past that some may not like is a loser’s game that distorts reality and spreads ignorance to serve someone’s selfish purposes.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe, a George W. Bush appointee, was not having it, ruling that the Trump Administration had no right to remove a National Park Service display of information about nine slaves owned by George Washington from the Philadelphia house he, Martha, and the slaves occupied while he was president. Judge Rufe ordered that the exhibit be restored in its original condition and not in a way that explains the history differently. NPR reported that Rufe had warned Justice Department lawyers during an earlier hearing that arguing that Trump officials can choose which parts of our history to display at historic sites was both “dangerous” and “horrifying.”

Rufe’s written ruling opened with a bang: “As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims—to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. It does not.” 

Orwell’s Ministry of Truth routinely altered historical records to suit its own purposes, making what was history a self-serving pack of lies. Judge Rufe knows what the Administration is up to and won’t allow it.

The City of Philadelphia sued the Trump Administration after Park Service workers pried the display off a brick wall, apparently following an order from the president to restore “truth and sanity to American history” at federal museums, landmarks, and other sites by ensuring that exhibits do not “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” Officials have removed other factual displays concerning enslaved people, LGBTQ+ people, and Native Americans. A sign removed at Grand Canyon National Park said that settlers pushed native tribes “off their land” for the park and to exploit the area for mining and grazing. Well, that happened.

Also last week, the Supreme Court (pictured), by a 6-3 vote, struck down Trump’s sweeping tariffs, ruling that the Emergency Powers Act doesn’t give a president taxation power. The Constitution gives that power to Congress. Trump’s arbitrary and sometimes capricious tariffs (He slapped a tariff on Switzerland, saying he didn’t like the “tone” of the Swiss president during a conversation with her.) have upended global trade, weakened America’s respect and trust from allies, and raised prices for American consumers who have paid about 90 percent of the tariffs. 

Tariffs have been, in effect, a national sales tax estimated to be between $1,300 and $1,700 on the average family during the past year. A question is how, or if, to refund the tariffs paid by businesses and consumers. The Court decision was announced February 20; by the end of that day, some businesses had already sued for refunds, and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzger had sent Trump an invoice for $8,679,261,600—$1,700 payable to every state family. 

Informed of the decision, Trump called it “disgraceful.” What is disgraceful is a president failing to do the hard work of promoting legislation to achieve his goals through Congress—the Constitutional way. At a press conference, the angry president vowed to levy a 10 percent (later 15) tariff on the world using a different legal provision that will expire in five months unless Congress extends it. He called the Court “an insult to our nation” and called the six majority Justices, including two of his appointees, “fools and lap dogs,” a tantrum unlikely to help him in future Court cases. 

 

                     

      Two American Revolutions

The new year brings the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the beginning of a successful political revolt against British rule. There was also a socio-economic revolution aiming to change the status of persons, change the economy including the ownership of land, and alter the role of organized religions. This revolution was only partially successful and will be the subject of a future column.

The political revolt and the war that made it succeed is well known to those who remember their U.S. history classes. In early 1776, the Continental Congress created a Continental Army and appointed George Washington commander in chief. In March, the army drove the British out of Boston, and in June, the Congress authorized Thomas Jefferson, advised by Ben Franklin and others, to write what became the Declaration of Independence. Congress deleted Jefferson’s condemnation of slavery and made a few minor changes then adopted the Declaration on July 4. It was printed and distributed in the 13 former colonies—now states—with a copy to King George III. 

The war dragged on until 1781 with each side having victories and defeats. The British chased Washington out of New York City and New Jersey in late 1776, but on Christmas night, Washington led his forces across the Delaware River and, in a surprise attack, took Trenton, N.J., killing or capturing its entire garrison. The victory encouraged patriots to join Washington’s army. (Pictured is the river crossing as depicted in Emanuel Leutze’s 1851 oil-on-canvas painting now in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Born in Germany, Leutze grew up in the U.S. then returned to Germany. He made two huge copies of the painting—12.4 feet by 21.2 feet—to inspire liberal reformers in Germany. The first was destroyed in a Bremen museum by Allied bombing during World War II.) 

In 1777, the patriots defeated and captured an entire British army at Saratoga, New York, which encouraged France to support the U.S. cause against France’s traditional enemy. A French fleet sailed to North America, and the Spanish, Dutch, and Swedes backed the U.S. The British, having no allies, found it necessary to defend their more profitable colonies in the Caribbean, India, and the Pacific. The American Revolution became a sideshow in the first global war.

In 1781, Washington trapped a British army in Yorktown, Virginia, and a British fleet sent to rescue them was defeated by the French navy in Chesapeake Bay. General Cornwallis surrendered to Washington, and Britain turned its attention elsewhere. Two years later, the Treaty of Paris ceded to the United States the land north of Florida, south of Canada, and west to the Mississippi.

And what of Native Americans whose land it had long been? Most tribes foresaw that a newly independent nation would inevitably grow westward taking their land, so they sided with the British or tried to remain neutral. Joseph Brant, of the powerful Mohawk tribe, led 400 warriors and white Loyalists on a rampage through Pennsylvania and central New York killing settlers and burning homes and crops. Washington sent to the area an army that destroyed at least 40 evacuated Iroquois villages. White settlers promptly took the land.

After the war, Washington left public service and returned to his land at Mt. Vernon, Virginia, on the Potomac River. Not a great tactical general but a superb leader of men, Washington’s honesty, hard work, and courage made him a national hero. When the Constitution created a presidency in 1789, he was the obvious choice.

For us, an obvious choice is to watch the lively new Ken Burns, Sarah Botsein, and David Schmidt six-part PBS documentary “The American Revolution” which aired on KCPT-19 in December and will repeat on January 9, 10, and 11. PBS members can stream it on PBS Passport. It’s also available as a book. 

 

         Never Forget

Hundreds of convicted criminals who attacked the U.S. Capitol and Congress on January 6, 2021, have been pardoned or their sentences commuted. These 1,300 or so rioters are now free to go where they want and do what they want. 

What the rioters wanted on January 6 was to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as president-elect even though he won election by a margin of seven million votes. They failed in that but succeeded in permanently staining the history of the United States and threatening our democracy itself. Like December 7, 1941, it was “a day that will live in infamy.” 

Told by the losing candidate that “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” some of the rioters were ordinary citizens who chose to join the mob and march on the Capitol but didn’t participate in attacks on the police or other violence. Found guilty by judges or juries of trespassing or other minor crimes, they received light sentences. 

Others, however, were thugs, many with weapons and criminal records: far-right extremists and neo-Nazi white supremacists. They fought the police then broke into the building and desecrated the People’s House—our House—threatening to harm members of Congress and Vice-President Pence. These thugs were convicted of major crimes ranging from assaulting officers to conspiracy to seditious conspiracy. During the attack, 174 police officers were injured, and one killed; four other officers committed suicide in the following seven months.

The week after being freed, one of the former convicts was pulled over by an Indiana Highway Patrol officer for a traffic violation, had a gun, and was shot and killed by the officer. The same week, another was arrested on a federal gun charge related to domestic violence and resisting arrest. A third rioter is on the run from Texas police because of an arrest warrant for online solicitation of a minor. Yet another freed rioter said that he plans to buy “some m*********** guns.” Great. Just what we need.

There is a scheme afoot to rewrite our history making the attackers appear to be mostly a group of patriots taking a Capitol tour. The pardons and commutations were a first step followed last week by the firing of senior FBI and Justice Department officials involved in the investigations and prosecutions—officials who were just doing the jobs assigned to them: go after the lawbreakers we all saw on TV. Members of the Congressional January 6 Committee who investigated the attack may be the next targets. 

Congressional Republicans have already “forgotten” what the mob was up to and who put them up to it. Brendon Baliou, an experienced Justice Department lawyer who recently resigned, wrote that in 2021, GOP Representative Elise Stefanik said the rioters “should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Later, she labelled them “hostages” and has now been chosen our new ambassador to the U.N.; former GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler said, “the violence, the lawlessness and siege of the halls of Congress are abhorrent.” Soon, though, she shifted to calling the House investigation a “sham” and that any indictment “should be dismissed out of hand.” She has been nominated to head the Small Business Administration.

Mr. Baliou emphasized that the rest of us “must keep the horrors of Jan. 6 from being forgotten. Memorialize the day…. Keep it alive in your conversations. Doing so matters. For in a time when many politicians’ careers depend on forgetting, memory itself is an act of resistance.”

If we fail to remember, we won’t have President Lincoln’s government “of the People, by the People, and for the People” anymore. Never forget.

Capitalism for All

Imagine you have a pile of money, and you’d like to have a bigger pile. You learn that the Widget Company has invented a better widget, so you buy shares of Widget stock. The company uses the capital you’ve invested to produce the new widgets. They sell like hot cakes, so more workers are hired, profits roll in, and the value of the stock you own rises. You and the company are richer, more people have jobs, and consumers have better widgets. This is capitalism in action, and so far, so good.

Now imagine that because you’re a big investor who knows how to make a buck, you’re elected to the Widget Company board. You now have a voice in decisions including what to do with the company’s growing profits. Raise your workers’ pay? Upgrade your factory with better machinery? Buy out a competitor so your company will have more of the market? Give larger dividends to investors, including yourself? These are tough decisions, but that’s why you and the company executives make the big bucks.

What to do? You’re a capitalist, after all, so you naturally believe that investors who’ve risked their capital on the company are entitled to first dibs on the profits. They, and you, are in it for the money, so stock dividends and high share prices are top priorities. 

To keep investors happy, you think about how to increase company profits by reducing costs and/or increasing productivity. How about automation? Robots are expensive, but they’ll never want raises, never organize a union to get them (except in science fiction when robots finally become smart enough), and can work 24/7 without tiring. Automation is often a no-brainer.

Other ways to reduce costs include avoiding those tiresome government regulations that require your factory to not foul the air and water and to be a safe workplace for employees, and to avoid taxes in every legal way possible. To dodge these obligations, the company pays lobbyists and contributes to politicians who favor deregulation, restrictions on unions, and lower corporate taxes (and, not coincidentally, lower taxes on wealthy people like yourself). 

Now, forget your imaginary pile of money and consider where capitalism has taken us in this tale. It’s no longer “so far, so good.” It’s too far and too bad for workers who get last dibs on company profits and for all taxpayers who have to make up for what corporations and the rich don’t pay (and some pay no income taxes at all).

Perhaps worse in the long run, the conservative Supreme Court ruled, in 2010, that, as Mitt Romney put it, “corporations are people” entitled to make unlimited political contributions. This gives the small corporate class enormous political clout. It’s extreme capitalism—a beautiful system if you’re one of those few but a deck stacked against you if you aren’t. 

Capitalism is a great engine of prosperity, but without strict regulation and a progressive tax structure, it’s an engine with no train. People who help make the everyday economy work—nurses, truckers, teachers, builders—are left at the station. A healthy economy is a balancing act between private profits and the public good. Today, our economy is unbalanced and unhealthy.

Here’s the cure: We want wealth to flow to the many, not just to the few, so channel excessive wealth to essential public services like education, healthcare, and infrastructure. That’s how we created Social Security, public schools, Medicare, and the original G.I. Bill. It’s how we can provide affordable college/tech schools and universal healthcare. Also, ensure workers have a level playing field by protecting their right to organize and to have significant representation on corporate boards as many other rich capitalist countries do. 

The greedy will no doubt call this cure—or any cure—“socialism.” I call it having a social conscience. It’s capitalism that works for We the People.

When Schools Went Wrong

Sherlock Holmes called public schools “Lighthouses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules, with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the future.” Americans have cherished similar hopes but have too often been disappointed, leading over the past century to a series of school reforms that shaped today’s schools—for better and for worse.

Historians trace much of the “worse” to a small red pamphlet published in 1918, Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, that called for replacing, for most students, the traditional European liberal arts and sciences curriculum with seven student goals: health, command of fundamental processes, worthy home membership, vocation, citizenship, worthy use of leisure, and ethical character.

The reform’s purpose was to keep more youngsters in school by making it easier and more immediately practical. Academic subjects like history, biology, and algebra would remain as a parallel track for the fewer than one in ten who were college-bound. For the majority, social studies replaced history, geography, economics, and government; general science replaced biology, chemistry, and physics; and practical math and language arts covered “fundamental processes.”

The Cardinal Principles was composed by a committee of the National Education Association chaired by a manual training teacher and including administrators and a professor of education. The authors were driven by the need to assimilate millions of immigrant children, many knowing no English and with little experience of democracy, by the demand for industrial workers, by severe health and social problems including the deadliest influenza epidemic of modern times, and by fear of political unrest in the wake of the Great War. The business community applauded the emphasis on vocational training and lobbied states to adopt the new goals. Over the next decade, they became the norm in much of the country.

The shift from mastery of academic subjects to what reformers saw as meeting children’s “needs” was politically popular. Teaching kids hygiene, marketable skills, and citizenship was hard to criticize, especially when it made success in school easier. Parents liked their children succeeding, and politicians and business leaders liked that such studies made it easier—and cheaper—to train and hire teachers.

The academic community opposed the Cardinal Principles, so much so that schools of education became intellectually divorced from the universities of which they were a part. Teachers became increasingly isolated from scholarship in arts and sciences disciplines. Thousands of experienced teachers resisted the reform, and many were fired.

Making matters worse, the trauma of the Great War led America to adopt an isolationist attitude through the 1920s and 30s. Why bother with the rest of the world and its troubles when the U.S. could withdraw behind its moat of oceans and rely on its own plentiful resources? This further distanced schools from fertile centers of serious thought in Europe and elsewhere. One result that troubles us still was that many fewer students learned foreign languages.

While other countries were improving schools with added rigor and sharper focus on academic disciplines, America chose to ask less of its students and teachers. This continued through the 1950s when complaints about semi-literate graduates and the shock of Sputnik prompted a new round of reforms with increased academic content.

Cardinal Principles had some positive results, recognizing the importance of motivation and of children’s developmental stages among them. But its low expectations and short-term goals in place of deep knowledge and disciplined thinking poisoned American schools for decades. To some degree, it still does. The Sputnik reforms of the 1960s, the Nation at Risk reforms of the 80s and 90s, No Child Left Behind, and now the Common Core have all been attempts to right the wrong course our schools took after 1918. History matters.

Schools Travel a Bumpy Road

As described in the previous column, American schools were harmed for decades by low student expectations and shallow curriculum prompted by the 1918 booklet Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education. Recovery began in the 1950s, thanks partly to World War II veterans who had noticed a higher level of education common in Europe and whose own expectations had been raised by G.I. Bill college study. Too, a best-selling book, Why Johnny Can’t Read, helped focus the nation’s attention on the troubled schools.

But just when a drive to enhance academic offerings was gathering steam, schools were overwhelmed by the postwar baby boom. Thousands of new schools were hurriedly built and new teachers hurriedly trained. States and school districts had all they could handle coping with expansion; academic quality took a back seat and fewer than two-thirds of students finished high school.

The 1957 launch of the Soviet Sputnik I satellite shocked America. The Eisenhower administration and Congress pumped millions into upgrading curricula, classroom equipment, and teacher training, especially in math and the sciences. New textbooks were written, including a biology text so good that updated versions are still used today. History and other subjects were emphasized as part of what came to be called “Sputnik reforms.”

With The Sixties came two of the schools’ greatest successes: supporting national efforts to ensure minority rights and women’s rights. Schools came to be judged by their “holding power” and graduation rates improved significantly. As desirable careers beyond teaching, nursing, and secretarial work opened to educated women, schools did their part. When I graduated in 1961, able girls interested in healthcare were counseled into nursing; when I returned as a teacher eight years later, many were aiming to become physicians.

Ironically, these successes hurt schools. A well-intentioned desire to keep kids in school led to fragmented curriculum in the name of “relevance” and to “social promotion” regardless of learning, both of which discredited schools in the eyes of the public and especially of employers. Financially attractive career opportunities meant the loss to teaching of many of America’s brightest women who had long formed the backbone of school faculties.

Soon, falling test scores (partly due to students from deeper in the talent pool taking ACT and SAT tests) and the post-Watergate suspicion of all things government led to another wave of school criticism. A 1983 blue-ribbon commission report, A Nation at Risk, asserted "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."

The authors called for a longer school year on a par with other developed nations, more academic course requirements, higher student expectations, making teaching a more attractive career, and much else. A Nation at Risk became the most influential call for reform since 1918 and led to needed improvements, though mostly the least expensive.

The No Child Left Behind law of 2001 wasn’t a “reform” as much as an effort to make schools accountable by publicizing test scores in basic skills. Funding was inadequate and one lasting effect was to focus attention on math and language skills at the expense of other learning. Relentless testing soon made it unpopular.

Now comes Common Core, a promising effort begun by nearly all state governors to raise achievement nationwide to global standards. It’s a complex project criticized by many educators for having too much input from for-profit corporations, but promising nonetheless.

Sadly, the Kansas Senate recently voted to not fund Common Core implementation. Any hint of nationwide standards offends conservative ideology, for many senators a higher priority than student learning. I suspect that if Eisenhower’s Interstates were proposed today, Kansas conservatives would object: roads, like schools, convey outside ideas and tie the state to the larger world. Risky business, no? No.

Spying on Schools

Searching for the secrets of high-achieving schools, and aware that inside information is hard to come by, journalist Amanda Ripley (Time, The Atlantic) recruited spies—American exchange students from schools in Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania—who attended ordinary high schools in Finland, South Korea, and Poland, countries where students do exceptionally well on international measures of learning. The result is Ripley’s recent book The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way (Simon and Schuster, 2013).

Much writing about schooling has adult political agendas that detract from achievement issues. Ripley’s book is an exception: a secret agent story where the spies—Kim, Eric, and Tom—are normal teenagers alert to the attitudes and behaviors of their overseas classmates and refreshingly open to comparing their exchange experiences with those of their hometown schools.

Kim’s story is especially compelling. A bright girl from Oklahoma, she yearned for a bigger, more promising world. Her local school had limited curricula, low expectations, a vague focus on academics, and little encouragement from the state legislature. Three times, legislators mandated student achievement standards and tests—routine in high-achieving countries—and three times, legislators backed off at the last minute fearing criticism of poor test scores.

Kim’s school district was one of 530 in Oklahoma and, with only four schools, had ten district administrators and directors as well as principals. Ripley calls this “hyperlocal control, hardwired for inefficiency.” Costly, too.

Kim’s modern high school was not hardwired for scholarship. Its “jewel” was the basketball court, not the library or science labs. Parents were involved in booster clubs and the PTA, but in little related to academic achievement. The principal told Ripley his biggest problem was “expectations.” He said they were “too high.” Really? Half the graduates went on to Oklahoma’s public colleges, but more than half of those were placed in remedial classes.

Kim, Eric, and Tom studied overseas in 2011-2012. Through thousands of emails and phone calls as well as on-site visits, Ripley picked the brains of her spies and their friends and met with school officials and testing experts here and abroad. She found some things much the same here and there, including electronic youth culture. Schools, though, were dramatically different.

The most obvious difference, in every country, was a total focus on academic learning. Schools had no other purpose. Sports and other activities were mostly outside school, sponsored by community organizations.

The spies found less testing overseas, particularly in Finland, but the major nationwide tests were serious business. Students studied for months, and scores could determine their future learning and career opportunities. In South Korea, airports rescheduled flights to avoid jet noise near schools on test days.

Teachers in host countries were drawn from the top of the talent pool, rigorously trained (often at public expense) and influential. Teaching was a prestigious profession.

In no subject were differences as clear as in math. Math is critical as a system of logic that trains young minds to think straight, not to mention as the key to the sciences and to desirable careers. As early as third grade, American kids have easier math assignments then lose time every fall reviewing what they’ve lost over their long summer breaks. More than other subjects, math builds on what is learned before, so early weakness compounds with time.

The overseas students overwhelmingly attributed success to hard work, not to inbred talent as  Americans tend to believe.

Host schools used little technology compared to schools here. No interactive white boards, no “clickers,” often no calculators.  

The New York Times calls Ripley’s a “masterly book,” but wonders if it “can also generate the will to make changes.” It can only if concerned citizens read it and act on it.

Teachers: Glamour Everlasting

Describing Our Miss Brooks, the popular 1950s TV program starring Eve Arden as a witty, sarcastic English teacher beloved by her students, The Kansas City Star recently noted that Arden portrayed “an intelligent woman in an unglamorous profession.” I suppose glamour, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. What could be more glamorous than passing on the wonders of nature and civilization to the next generation while helping them learn to think rigorously and live well, thereby strengthening our country and helping ensure a better future?

I mention this because of the importance of improving our schools. Recent studies of successful school systems around the world confirm what we’ve known all along but haven’t acted on: that teaching in those places is viewed as a glamorous profession or, if not glamorous, certainly prestigious. In the high-achieving countries of East Asia and Europe, teachers enjoy a status similar to that of physicians and judges here. The contrast with the American tradition is sharp, and the negative impact on our children clear.

In How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top, a two-year study of twenty-five systems including ten of the best, McKinsey & Company, the gold standard of global management consultants, concluded that most attempts to improve low-performing systems—restructuring, reducing class sizes, charter schools, and the like—make little or no difference. What makes a difference is teachers: “The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.”

All the best-performing systems select teachers from the top third or higher of college students: the top 5 percent in South Korea, 10 percent in Finland, 30 percent in Singapore and others. Most do this by limiting the number of teacher-training slots and admitting only those who score well on tests of literacy, numeracy, and problem solving, and who demonstrate outstanding communications and interpersonal skills. (In Finland, only one in ten applicants is admitted.) Once selected, students receive intensive training under master teachers, often at public expense including paid internships.

Such careful selection and early rewards elevates respect for teaching and helps attract the best applicants. Top countries also sweeten the pot by paying beginning teachers roughly equal to the average of other demanding fields. In addition, top-performing systems typically have strong teacher unions with a major voice in school standards and operations.

In America, prospective teachers tend to come from the lowest third of college students. Admission standards to teacher-training programs are generally low, tuition is high, internships are short and unpaid, and beginning salaries below average. The inevitable result is the Star’s “unglamorous profession” where thousands who train to teach never do and nearly half of those who do teach leave within five years. Aside from the waste of public resources and of these graduates’ investments, the public perception—and children’s perception—is that teaching—and, therefore, learning—isn’t important; it’s seen as a job for those with few other options.

Compounding the error, politicians in some states have been cutting school resources, attacking teacher unions, and insisting that teachers be accountable for better results while paying no attention to the compelling evidence for how to get those results. We need good teachers, and we need good politicians to create a system to attract more of them.

February 3, 2012