Paul Richardson 2010

Why?
Why does our education system continue to turn in

such dismal and futures devastating results for our
kids? This is in spite of our spending per pupil being
third highest in the world behind two relatively small
European countries.
Answer
Because we are doing the wrong things with all of
that money. Out educators are brainwashed in
methods that are technically incorrect and much
different than the approaches of the countries that are
beating us by a wide margin in educating their kids
well.
Paul Richardson 2010

Why do we as a nation care so strongly about being competitive even
dominant in the Olympics, but seem totally unconcerned about out education
performance against the global competition? The National Academies Press
just released an update to their report The Gathering Storm which 5 years
ago pointed to the need for much better math and science education because
innovation and technical prowess have been the key to our economic success
and job creation. One of the many factoids to make their point was “The
World Economic Forum ranks the United States 48th in quality of math and
science education.” Thus, being competitive in the education of our children
has real value, much higher than that of being best in overall Olympic
success.
Is it sane to ignore the reality that continually comes out showing how
poorly we do in preparing our kids for the competition they will face from
their global peers? Many of whom are much better prepared for the most
important “game” they will play. Why are our priorities so “out of whack?”
Is our national pride in Olympic competitiveness more important than the

preservation of our lifestyle and standard of living which is being threatened
by our attitude of leaving the education of our kids to the education
“experts” who aren’t. We seem to feel that always supporting more money
for schools is fulfilling our duty. It is very clear that if educators were really
expert the results would be far better than they are. Over the last 5 plus
decades the education spending per student has risen at about twice the rate
of inflation. Yet, our performance educationally has floundered getting
worse in comparison to the competition because they are improving briskly
while we improve not at all or at a snail’s pace. Where has all the money
gone you might ask? To enrich the educators, it has not helped the kids get a
better education at all.
I believe many educators are well meaning, but I also know that they are
unable to face the truth of their performance in their politically correct,
Group Think world. If you are unable to face the truth, you certainly will
not be able to improve your performance no matter how much money a
foolish public directs your way. The new movie, Waiting for Superman is
bringing attention to the problem of poor performance. It is particularly
telling about the impact that our “don’t work” education process has on the
gap children. However, the conclusions that it draws are very superficial
and do not address the most important problems that require addressing if
things are to get better for our kids educationally. To lay the foundation for
pointing out what makes up those “make or break” impediments to
improvement, a definition of the key constituencies in the education fiefdom
must be understood.
 The Education Schools; Faculties, deans, researchers

 The Federal and State Departments of Education
 The District Administrators; Superintendents, Assistant
Superintendents, Central Office Specialists, Principals and Assistant
Principals
 Teachers; Teacher Unions, Teacher Assistants, Library Specialists,
Para- Professionals
 School Boards at State and Local District Levels
 Book Publishers
This is not intended to be an exhaustive list but it does cover the biggest
leverage areas in education. E.D. Hirsch comments in The Knowledge
Deficit that an army of American educators have been taught “technically
incorrect” education principles in their ed school training. He points out that
what American educators “know” about education is different than what
educators in other nations who are teaching their kids more effectively know.
Yet the insular, defensive, delusional, and inbred education fiefdom is adept
at suppressing this truth. Thus, for decades (beginning in the 1930s)
American educators have been trained consistently in the same wrong
principles. This continuous “poisoning” of the well of American education
knowledge is a huge problem and is far more important to address than other
areas given current focus. The key shortfall here is that the education
schools teach the “how-to” process to the virtual exclusion of subject
knowledge. Research shows that the “how-to” process doesn’t work and
cannot work. While some kids will learn no matter how poor the education
system because they have the safety net of parents who understand the
subjects and can teach them outside of school or they have access to
tutoring, private schools or other support mechanisms, many depend on the
schools doing what they are supposed to do. They are the ones who are
most harmed by the current system.
An extension of the education school impact is that their leadership

programs do not produce effective leaders if anything more than preserving
the status quo is required. You may be shocked by this assertion but if you
deny it is a problem, then why is the performance of our education system so
poor? This problem is very well documented. One of the most thorough
and complete reports on the education school leadership programs is
available in Arthur Levine’s (2005) Educating School Leaders. He
concluded after studying every degree granting education school in the land
that “they confer masters on those who display anything but mastery and
doctorates in name only.” He also stated that they were in a race to the
bottom and that the ed doctorate has no value in any public school
administration job. So, why are most districts led by doctorate holders.
Because the boards of education like the sound of the title and are able to kid
themselves that a doctor title guarantees the ability to perform. In fact, it
does carry a guarantee; that the person won’t be able to lead the needed
productive change required.
Based on the above you might ask why do we still have the education
schools providing a huge negative drag on our education performance that
harms millions of kids? GOOD QUESTION. But to be honest, the people
who have the degrees don’t want to admit they were defrauded and their
education is not up to the task. This is especially true since the worthless
degrees are used to justify higher pay scales and status for those who have
them. The education system is very insular and defensive. They are careful
to prevent as many outsiders, without the education school brainwashing in
erroneous theories, from gaining entry into the fiefdom. They don’t want
capable and truly educated outsiders coming in and performing in a way that
casts doubt on their own credentials. And since the education system is run
to benefit the adults who work there, the students continue to get dumped on
decade after decade.
Thus, the two most important problems to solve are to correct the educators’
knowledge of what really works (expecting them to use the new knowledge
immediately) and to upgrade the quality of education leadership. Fixing
these problems is doable without throwing a bunch more money at the
system. The currently available money will have to be spent differently to
be sure but it will be far more productive than the current practices. Cutting
back on the funding of the current harmful activities would only help the
kids.
Thus, while the conventional wisdom lays the blame for poor performance
predominately at the feet of the teachers unions that does not address the real
and much bigger foundational problems of educators trained in faulty
theories and the curricula that go with them. Plus, the lack of management
competence among administrators adds the “stuck in the rut” permanence to
the problems. The dual highest priorities are to upgrade the teachers and
administrators in what they need to know and didn’t learn in education
school. Don’t get me wrong, it is worth working on the union problems but
that alone will not fix the problem and thus must take a lower priority than
installing the right curricula, teachers who know the subjects adequately
enough to teach them well and leaders who know how to lead productive
change.
This will take a motivated public to insist that the kids take top priority in
our education system, really. I say really because there is unending lip
service to serving the kids well now especially when the adults in education
want more money for their pay and benefits. Also, the education power
groups have enormous political power through funding “in their pocket”
politicians. This power can only be overcome by an active and united
electorate who realize that the very future of our nation requires that we
must solve this problem and that politicians who don’t agree need to be
given their walking papers.

Paul Richardson 2010

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Why?

Why does our education system continue to turn in

Paul Richardson 2010

Is our national pride in Olympic competitiveness more important than the

 The Education Schools; Faculties, deans, researchers

An extension of the education school impact is that their leadership

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