Eduation Lessons Left Behind

Doing my daily perusing of National Review Online I came across George Will's latest column about the state of public education. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) openly talked about the disintegration of the public schoool sytem, the family and the power of teacher's unions. And this was back in 1983 based on years of research that government and the NEA attempted to supress. Moynihan was an advocate of the importance of an intact family to education results. Will writes:

Moynihan also knew that schools cannot compensate for the disintegration of families and hence communities -- the primary transmitters of social capital. No reform can enable schools to cope with the 36.9 percent of all children and 69.9 percent of black children today born out of wedlock, which means, among many other things, a continually renewed cohort of unruly adolescent males.

In 1966 the year the Coleman Report was released the government refused to print it. The report concluded:

Released quietly on the Fourth of July weekend, the report concluded that the qualities of the families from which children come to school matter much more than money as predictors of schools' effectiveness. The crucial common denominator of problems of race and class -- fractured families -- would have to be faced. But it wasn't. Instead, shopworn panaceas -- larger teacher salaries, smaller class sizes -- were pursued as colleges were reduced to offering remediation to freshmen.

Will concludes that "our nation is at risk now more than ever."

Please take the time to read the article and send the link to all your friends.