Tuesday mornings a group of us in the neighborhood, all
retired professionals (epidemiologist, physician, physicist, systems engineer, etc.)
get together over coffee for a couple of hours to discuss whatever interests us.
Today the discussion got around to the state of American education, and in particular
to how best to distribute scholarships (one of our members belongs to an
organization that gives college scholarships to area high school students).
Should we give priority to the very best students, irrespective of where they
come from, or should they be distributed across the area to sort of even out
the opportunities among local schools?
That led me to the following (politically incorrect) train
of thought:
1. Proposition: in
the end the single most important attribute of a culture or society or nation
is this: does it have what is required to survive? If it doesn’t survive, then in the long run it
doesn’t matter if it is moral or artistic or smart or has any other desirable
attributes. This is certainly true of the evolution of species in nature –
those that are best fitted to their environment tend to survive; those that are
less fitted to their current environment tend to be edged out by the better fitted.
And it seems to me exactly the same is true of cultures and societies and
nations.
2. Proposition: although
almost everyone in the culture contributes something to the culture, the
smartest and best educated among us contribute disproportionately more to the culture
and its long-term survival than the rest. America owes its current dominance in the
world largely to brilliant scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs, and explorers.
A Nebraska farmer or a New Jersey auto mechanic or a California nurse certainly
contribute to the American society, but not nearly as much as the inventor of
the transistor or the creators of the internet or the inventor of the cotton gin.
3. Proposition:
given the two propositions above, it is more important for the long-term
survival of American society to identify and give a good education to our best
and brightest youngsters than to be sure no student is left behind. That isn’t to
say it isn’t important to give every youngster the best education possible,
just that it is more important – for the long term survival of the America
nation – to be sure first and foremost that our best and brightest get a good
education.
Now all three of these propositions are politically
incorrect in our current PC culture, yet I would argue that they may well be
valid anyway, and ought to be debated rationally outside of current ideological
restraints. They would certainly change the direction of our current social and
educational policies.
For example, we have a school system in our town that has a disproportionate
number of very bright students. We are surrounded by poorer communities that
have much poorer school systems whose students on average are usually several
grade levels behind. If we take students
from these surrounding school systems into our schools, that certainly improves
the education of those students, but at the expense of a poorer education for
our brightest students (because teachers have to spend so much time and effort
bringing the poorer students up to grade, while the brighter students are bored
in class). This is certainly socially laudable,
but is it really in the best interests of our nation in the long run?
If we use a tracked system, where for example the best
students take algebra and calculus while the less able students are shunted
into lower level general math classes, this may produce a social stigma for some
students. On the other hand, if we mix them all together the brightest students
are bored at the pace and get a poorer education while the less able students
are over their heads all the time. Is this really any better tfor the nation in
the long term? Is it really any better for the students?
These are difficult questions, but they need to be debated,
and debated rationally, with facts and evidence instead of unsupported and emotional
ideological and social beliefs.
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