Education: The Crisis That Caused Our Financial Crisis

I come to you, not as an advocate of education for education’ sake, but as one, who, like you I suppose, is troubled by the spirit of faction, by the catch-words with the explosive energy of faith behind them, by the unwillingness to live and let live with which we are plagued.
—Judge Learned Hand
"Sources of Intolerance"

Education in America has not been mentioned by either Presidential candidate in recent weeks. And that’s a shame.

On the other hand, anti-intellectualism has reached pandemic proportions in our body politic. We have lowered the status of "Citizen" to "Joe Six-Pack," the unshaven guy in a turned-around baseball cap and a T-shirt barely covering his belly bloated from too many cheeseburgers and beers. Joe Six-Pack doesn’t like strangers, particularly those who tell him facts that he doesn’t want to hear. Even when the facts included the transfer of his job to a factory in another country, he believed that unfettered capitalism was better than governmental regulation. When his pension benefits disappeared into a maze of unethical financial transactions, he blamed greedy Wall Streeters, but didn’t hold his Congressman, much less his employers, responsible. He believed his banker or finance company agent who told him not to worry about the adjustable interest rates in his mortgage contract; he could re-finance his home when the rates increased.

Why didn’t Joe Six-Pack know better? Among other reasons, his high school’s economics program didn’t teach double-entry bookkeeping; the English Department stopped teaching elitist grammar; biology teachers could not mention evolution, the History Department didn’t require him to read the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States; and the local property tax cut eliminated any expenditures for desk-top computers in the classroom. He didn’t know better because he was given a poor education.

Poor education is, in fact, the crisis that caused our financial crisis.

And what do politicians, educators, and voters say about this educational crisis? They tell us that our schools would improve if we had standardized testing, charter schools, school-tax vouchers for private schools, and even organized prayers. But when put into action, these ideas did not improve our schools. Because they had the explosive energy of faith behind them, they led us away from what American schools are supposed to produce. Namely, educated citizens.

To establish schools that produce educated citizens, we must first determine the behavior we want from graduates of our schools. Then we can develop curricula, choose textbooks, design facilities, and hire faculties—all drawing out of our students the productive actions our republic needs.

I believe the following activities identify educated citizens. If you disagree, correct my errors and omissions, discuss your ideas with your friends and elected officials, and begin the badly needed renovation of our dilapidated educational system.

What do educated citizens do?

Educated citizens decide and accept the consequences of their decisions. They earn their virtues as well as their living.

Educated citizens practice their private spiritual beliefs along with the scientific method. They read and write, analyze and synthesize data, and adjust to changes that are beyond their control. They modify accident with precedent, enrich practicality with aesthetics, and temper information with intuition.

Educated citizens protect their physical and mental health. They attend to other people’s needs, but they distinguish need from selfish desire—in others and themselves.

Educated citizens listen to others, share their thoughts and discoveries with them, and respect their aspirations and individual accomplishments. They comprehend and use complex ideas from a variety of cultures.

Educated citizens advocate equal justice for all, practice due process of law, and participate in the governmental processes of their city, state, and nation. They remember history and laugh at the weaknesses of humanity in general and at their own foibles in particular. They respect themselves, but they understand that their own ideas might be wrong.

Educated citizens know how to learn. After they finish their formal schooling, they continue to cultivate themselves in a variety of fields with a joyful, spontaneous self-education.

Such educated citizens will form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity.

However, before our schools can produce such citizens, we must exorcise the spirit of faction haunting state houses, school boards, and teachers’ organizations. We must cease our unwillingness to live and let live. If we don’t, our body politic will die and breed worms.