Over and over again for more than fifty years of my life I have found myself having to defend teachers and the educational system in the United States of America. I have always been honest in pointing the imperfections but I have never definitively said the hard part out loud. In truth education is a easy target because of the old saw that everyone thinks they know exactly how to repair any of its deficiencies simply because they were once students and therefore should know exactly what is wrong. The naked truth is that in spite of their monumental efforts to educate the youth of our nation, teachers in the United States have not received the kind of recognition and honor that they enjoy in the nations that we keep applauding for their educational success. 

It’s time to break down the differences between the American public school experience  and that of other countries that seem to some to have a better idea of how to do things. We first must accept the truth that Kindergarten through grade 12 education in the United States is not codified by a unified conglomerate. Instead it is a hodgepodge of fifty individual systems designed and overseen by fifty different state governments. The curriculum for a particular place is designed by the state, not a national mandate. Teacher pay is determined by local school boards. The federal government has very little to say in the everyday operations of a public schools other than to support programs in poor areas, help with the cost of serving students with special needs, insure that the civil rights of all students and teachers are honored  and provide grants for students who wish to continue their educations beyond high school. In fact, few teachers are actually aware of any kind of influence from the Department of Education from day to day. It is the state government that looms large in the directives of what they must teach.

In Texas there are lists of skills and knowledge specified for every subject in every grade that teachers must use as the guide to their daily lessons. It is a monumental task to follow the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills to the letter within the confines of the school year. There is little or no room for frivolities or efforts to propagandize students. While those things sometimes happen and should be corrected, they are not the norm. Texas teachers must work hard every single day. They often stay on their feet for hours and never have even a few seconds to just tune out for a moment. The task at hand requires their total attention from the time the students arrive until all of them have left the school for the day. It is an exhausting process and only the most dedicated among them survive long term.

Designing a plan for presenting the lessons takes time and thought. Much of the most crucial work of a teacher happens beyond the hours of the school day which are used to determine their pay. Teachers take home work virtually every single day. There are papers to grade, essays to read, research to be done to create engaging lessons. Teachers must keep students, parents and the administrators informed of the progress of each individual in their care. Their work days are long and exhausting and often do not end until late into the night. They wear sturdy shoes because they are so often on their feet. Their backs hurt and they ride a daily emotional roller coaster along with their students who bring their difficulties and problems to the classroom. They have so many duties that are never listed in descriptions of their work.  

Sadly, teachers are rarely consulted about how to improve areas of education that are imperfect even though they have many wonderful ideas. Most of the time they simply have to follow the dictums of state boards of education whether or not they can see the flaws in the programs designed by nameless individuals who do not really know their students. They have to be adept at creating individual plans within the master plans to take each individual into their classrooms into account. 

I have often advocated for smaller schools located in neighborhood settings in which few students have to add hours to their school days riding in busses that bring them home so late in the afternoon that they barely have any time to interact with their families. I think that we would do well to offer both classical topics and training for future occupations so that students will not have a one size fits all kind of education. Such ideas would have to be enacted by the state legislature and designed hopefully by actual teachers who are still working inside classrooms. A bit of restructuring would eliminate the need for using public tax dollars to fund private schools with more money than public schools receive per student. The goal would be to improve public schools before surrendering to wealthy people who want to reduce their children’s private school costs.

I often hear complaints that American students are not performing as well as their peers in other countries. Much of the reason for that is that many countries track students into different groups based on their abilities and interests, something that we do not do. Everyone takes tests to determine their levels of achievement in the United States. In other countries it tends to by only the most highly academic students who do so. Comparing their educational success with ours is a zero sum game that we will always lose because our schools provide every student with the opportunity to reach higher.

Teachers in other countries are much more highly respected that those in the United States. They are paid more for their efforts. Teachers elsewhere rarely experience the high levels of diversity that American teachers take for granted and incorporate into their planning. Culturally Americans citizens all too often criticize the educational system without actually understanding what is happening in classrooms. They accept propaganda that makes them believe that students are being subjected to critical race theory and DEI overload, little of which is true. 

Our classrooms are diverse because so are our neighborhoods. Teachers equitably meet each student where they are and who they are. In one school after another students are included in the efforts to prepare them for the future without bias or prejudices. DEI is not a class. It is a way of treating all children with honor. 

Over fifty years of teaching experience has convinced me that the problems schools face do not lie in the teachers or even what was once the Department of Education. The real problem comes from politicians using schools as a cudgel to gain votes even as they have no idea what actually happens inside the thousands upon thousands of public schools throughout our nation. If anyone wants to honestly improve the system they would do well to take the time to talk with the teachers and actually listen. Our public schools can always be improved but not with mandates or total destruction. It’s time to use the resource that has mostly been ignored, the voice of our dedicated teachers.