America’s economy and standard of living lead the world. Both, however, are stagnating and threatened by increasing global competition.
Our public schools are the only large economic sector that has not significantly improved productivity and/or quality in the last nearly 50 years – despite new research findings and new technology. Instead, they’ve been immersed in constant turmoil – arguments over funding levels, racism, teaching methods and emphases such as socio-emotional vs. academics, Phonics vs. whole-word, power struggles with self-serving teacher obstructionist unions over tenure, testing/accountability and most everything else, administrators and local politicians, and innumerable other fads. During that period overall U.S 17-year-old pupil achievement has stagnated – despite increasing inflation-adjusted per-pupil funding 125+%. Similarly, despite spending more/pupil than all other nations except Luxembourg and Norway, our U.S. pupil achievement remains at middling levels vs. other developed nations.
U.S. students have performed poorly vs. other nations since first assessed (FIMS) in 1967. Far East nations spend far less/pupil than the U.S., and their students now now lead the U.S. by 2 – 3 academic years and also exceed our graduation rates. Together, those nations recently turned our U.S. manufacturing centers into a ‘Rust Belt,’ and now they’re targeting our high-tech sector.
Our public schools ignore key education research and basic management precepts. Instead of confronting reality and taking corrective actions regarding our poor comparative performance, we respond by either ignoring the data, constructing numerous mostly false excuses’ – eg. they have ‘higher suicide rates,’ lower graduation rates,’ ‘less poverty’ and/or ‘cannot match our pupils in criticial thinking,’ or create our own meaningless and largely useless state/national standards.
China now plans to use its rapidly growing/improving STEM skills to dominate Artificial Intelligence and other high-tech areas by 2030. Brookings Institute predicts “Whoever leads the world in A.I. in 2030 will lead the world until 2100,’ amd Vladimir Putin has made a similar prediction. A.I. is also predicted to eliminate or down-skill nearly half of existing jobs.
America’s more favorable entrepreneurial environment and universities, combined with other nations lacking infrastructure and basic manufacturing skills have protected us to-date from our comparatively poor pupil performance. They no longer can.
Fifty-years of ‘More of the same’ has not improved the performance of our public schools; we’re now #25 overall and #37 in Math. Of particular importance is the proportion of top scorers – 8% for the U.S., 44% in China. Similarly, in collaborative problem-solving, U.S. pupils were ranked #22, Singapore #1, Japan #2.
China’s leading educators, already far ahead of the U.S., are now also pursuing further improvements via Artificial Intelligence. Maintaining our standard of living requires that we innovate to match their expected new performance levels.
1)Fast-paced immediate-feedback A.I.-assisted instruction objectively linking rewards and recognition to results would create a much more attractive environment for high-talented intrinsically-motivated individuals to become teachers. It would also help objectively and immediately identify low performers – for additional training or replacement.
2)Neophyte, misled, and uninformed school boards and legislative meddling would be eliminated and replaced by national expert direction focused on national priorities –> no more teacher-dominated elections, misled meddlng mothers, time wasted selecting curricula, tests and textbooks 14,000+ times nationwide, constantly comparing and chasing ‘competitive’ pay scales and inability to credibly assess/compare performance from one teacher, school to another.
3)Teachers, principals, pupils, parents and Central Office administrators could receive immediate, regular information on pupil performance (actual vs. expected gains) for every class, grade, school and teacher – without taking away from normal teaching time.
4)Certification requirements would be eliminated and Colleges of Education closed – new teachers would simply require about two weeks of training.
5)Ineffectual traditional pay based on additional years of experience beyond the first 2 – 3 years, added teacher coursework, degrees and certification would be replaced by much more objective, effective merit pay that takes into account key pupil/home conserations.
6)Class sizes could be increased, as well as # of course offerings; construction and oprational costs reduced.
7)Pupils culd be automatically identified as Gifted or Special Ed. Coordination issues between Gifted, Special Ed. and Mainstream work would disappear.
8)Counselors and therapists could be largely replaced with software that also facilitated parental input.
9)Extending the school-day and school-year would become more feasible.
10)All teaching could be conducted using up-to-date information and best presentations.
11)Classes taught by substitute teachers made much more productive.
12)Textbooks would no longer be needed; updates would occur immediately and without cost.
13)A.I. systems could provide ‘flash-card’ quick review study aids.
14)Pupils would automatically receive homework assignments, immediate grading, and assistance from the computer (eg. Grammerly).
15)A.I. could constantly conduct valid scientific experiments and improve learning performance.
16)Teacher roles would change from the traditional ‘Sage on the Stage’ to that of ‘Computer Assistants in the Aisles.’
17)Costs/pupil could drop as much as 50%.
18)Unrecognized potential Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musks would be more likely recognized and nurtured.
19)Overhead positions could drastically decline – improving accountability, motivation, job satisfaction, and construction costs.
20)Teacher ‘busywork’ (taking attendance, grading) would decrease.
21)Impact of interruptions caused by adverse weather and pandemics could be reduced.
22)Multilingual teaching needs could be relatively easily addressed.
23)Classroom synchronization would make Professional Development more useful.
China is already doing this – Squirrel AI, Homework Together, and Hangwang Education monitor classes, assign/review homwork and teach math in a large number of schools. In the U.S. we have Rocketship Charter Schools, Kahn Academy and others.
Our schools also should revise curricula to better match today’s existing A.I. advances. For example, programs/applications now exist to provide immediate translations –> decreased value to teaching languages. That time should be redeployed to eg. helping pupils understand and better use A.I. China added AI to the high school curriculum in 2018.
The bad news, however, is that China’s head start and far larger/more comprehensive pupil databases gives it an important advantage. Far East nations are also advantaged by having national curriculums, highly-competitive college admissions, stronger parental support, higher average IQ scores, a Confucian ethic that values education, longer school days and a school year, more homework, far fewer reservations about data privacy, and competent central managements pursuing national priorities.
Lunching this revolution will require strong leadership from our President, Governors, and high-tech leaders, constant monitoring and follow-up, and repeatedly remininding Americans of the need for drastic improvements in our education system.
Loyd Eskildson, former Chief Deputy Supt. @ Maricopa County School Supt. Office, Phoenix Arizona
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