Blog: Death of a Teacher

Statement

Somewhere in the first act of Death of a Salesman, as Willy Loman is realizing what really makes his world turn, he asks a group of established salesmen about one of his colleagues, Bernard. They reply to him, "He's liked, but not well liked."

One could say something very similar about our educational system here in the U.S.: It's liked, but not well liked. People's positive nostalgic memories of growing up and going to school mixes in with headlines about some third-world Western-bloc country getting better math and science scores than the United States. Is our educational system as good now as it was fifty or even twenty years ago? No. Is our educational system really getting beat out by tribal nations teaching under thatched roofs? No.

We are fortunate enough to be at a point in time regarding education in the U.S. where we can still fix it without a lot of pain or extreme sacrifice. That fix begins with the simple step of understanding the role of the federal government when it comes to education. Three simple words: What, not How. The federal government, that is to say the Department of Education, needs to redefine its role into a provider of the What, not the How. The state government and the local school boards need to determine the How.

I think it's easy when in a position of power to use that power to your own benefit. It's easy, but it isn't right. The Department of Education is an example of a once-necessary, well conceived federal office that has over the years been overcome by bloat and bureaucracy. To become efficient again, we must cut the fat, transfer the power of deciding the How, and refocus its mission back to that of an enabler of success instead of its current role of burdening our schools with one-size-fits-all measuring sticks that remove all creativity and individuality from the teaching profession.

We need to step back and look at the educational system from a federal and a state/local perspective and understand the benefits that each has to offer towards the overall solution. The federal government is best positioned to define at a national level where our educational focus should lie. Just as they set foreign policy or energy policy based on the national and global input they receive, the federal government should also be the ones to shape education policy -- establishing the goals and objectives to which the state and local levels must strive to achieve. Just as the state and local levels determine how their police, fire fighters, and social service resources best meet their local neighborhood needs, they should also determine what the best practices are for meeting the educational objectives set forth by the federal government.

The two should remain separate, though. Just as the federal government can't know and shouldn't dictate how best to motivate a certain population of children in a rural southeastern Colorado setting, the state/local government can't know what areas of academia their children should be focused on for the best economic positioning of the nation twenty years down the road.

Willy Loman was driven by his optimistic concept of the American Dream. Similarly, teachers enter their profession with similar lofty and grand scenarios of success and positive impact on the world around them. While the real world beats down Loman with rejection, abandonment, and betrayal, our Department of Education beats down teachers with standardized tests, dictated curriculum, and threats of decreased funding.

It's time for all sides to realize the limits of their contributions, and by sticking to those limits, by getting out of the way of the other side's superior skills, we can navigate our nation's children back to the elite levels of education that our country is used to. Those children, too, can then look back on their days in elementary, junior, and senior high school with pride and satisfaction.

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