Time for a major rethink of education and arts policies

by Richard Schulman

It’s time for a major rethink of education and arts policies. We’re hardly the first to recognize the new possibilities catalyzed by the coronavirus pandemic. But this may be the first time that four topics usually thought of separately have been tied together:

• Education
• US STEM backwardness
• The arts
• The US Education Department.

Education

In March the pandemic forced brick-and-mortar educational institutions in the US and elsewhere to go entirely online. Understandably, given the transformation on such short notice, results have been mixed. Few will disagree, however, that when the pandemic is over, complete reversion to the former brick-and-mortar educational model is unlikely.

The more likely follow-on will be a hybrid model, combining traditional teacher / small-group interaction in a traditional setting, with extensive online classes and personal instructional sequences. Students will be able to advance at their own pace and in pursuit of their own interests to a greater extent than was possible in the old model. The new model will be a boon to gifted and slower students, both of whom have been poorly served by the traditional one-size-fits-all model.

New online courses will continually appear. The good ones will survive and be widely adopted throughout the country and beyond. Charles Murray’s prophetic call to supersede diplomas with certificates will be seized upon by smart companies. Some tech companies have already done so.

US STEM backwardness

The mathematical deficits of US high school and college graduates, and the US work force, are well documented. But knowledge of calculus and statistics are prerequisites for a citizenry fit to compete in the global economy of the 2020s and beyond, whether in agriculture, manufacturing, or the service sector. They are also prerequisites for intelligently assessing the policy issues being debated by the two major parties.

Online courses now exist through which men and women no longer in school can remedy their STEM deficits. In calculus, for example, there are the excellent courses being offered by the Khan Academy. The same courses are available for use by schools and colleges.

Companies can and should encourage their employees to use these courses, contribute to their costs, and perhaps even provide tutoring during lunch hours or after work – whether by independent contractors or employees with the requisite skills.

The Khan Academy also has less advanced science and math offerings. These provide a rich offering for K-12 public and charter schools and home schoolers. Khan Academy is not alone in providing such offerings, nor are the available courses confined to the STEM fields.

The arts

The coronavirus epidemic has financially devastated major and mid-level performing arts companies and museums. In the interim, many of these have made available many of their finest gems for free viewing over the internet. This doesn’t make up for the revenues they have lost by being shuttered during the pandemic. But they hope to garner at least some richly deserved voluntary contributions as well as cultivating an expanded audience for the future.

The response to these cultural offerings has been unprecedented. For example, the May 20^th, 2020, Wall Street Journal reports that

When the Metropolitan Opera offered Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ to the public as the first of its free, ongoing ‘Nightly Opera Streams’ of past performances, its website crashed due to the unprecedented demand; rebroadcasts have subsequently attracted about 7.9 million people world-wide….Do these…numbers mean there’s a larger, untapped audience for classical music than we usually think? [Or just] the chance to hear free concerts in the privacy of our homes, without the usual scheduling issues, transportation hassles, and total expenses involved? We can’t know for sure.

Future benefits

Even before the pandemic, the Met made a considerable portion of its repertory available for online viewing for $15 per month. All the major cultural institutions could adopt a similar model. Or a new Acorn-like cable / internet channel could handle subscriptions and royalties for all of them.

If handled judiciously, this could create a wider audience and motivate increased in-person visits later rather than reducing them. Expanded, more accessible cultural offerings could help reverse the decline from earlier golden ages in the arts.

The US Education Department

Cato, the libertarian think tank, recently held an important webinar in support of its long-standing critique of the US Education Department. One panelist, Christopher Cross, explains how the creation of the cabinet-level Education Department had nothing to do with the improvement of education but was a political pay-off to the progressive National Education Association. Carter wanted the NEA’s members to campaign for him so that he could win the 1976 presidential election. The NEA dutifully did so, and the Education Department (ED) was Carter’s payback to the union.

The ED just barely squeezed through Congress. It was strongly opposed by Al Shanker, head of the rival UFT teachers’ union; Catholic organizations; and Leo Ryan, Democratic Congressman from California, who had continually battled the NEA’s California franchise, the California Teachers Association. Ryan’s opposition would have probably succeeded in thwarting Congress from passing the ED enabling bill had he not been assassinated on a Guyana tarmac when attempting to return to the US after investigating the murderous Jonestown cult on request of his constituents.

Other Cato panelists documented how

• The ED is unconstitutional except for its desegregation responsibilities under the 14^th Amendment
• It has been a failure in every activity it has undertaken except for ending discrimination against women in school sports.

A record of failure and burdens

Since the ED’s founding, US educational achievement has stagnated or declined, while expenditures and administrative burdens have multiplied. While the ED returns some money to the states — money that the states themselves provide the ED as federal taxes — the ED only returns ten cents on every dollar sent it. Worse, in return for that dime, it imposes on the states 40% worth of administrative costs.

Common Core was the Obama-Biden administration’s key education legacy. The two subject-matter advisers to Common Core – the two who really counted – refused to sign off on the finished product. It was rolled out despite this. It came to be hated by parents and teachers, Republicans and Democrats alike. Massachusetts and New Hampshire’s previously high educational standards were lowered by Common Core.

Most of the Cato panelists favor the ED being phased out over ten years and its functions – all unconstitutional except those covered by the 14th Amendment – returned to the states where they belong and originally resided. The 14th Amendment functions should be transferred to the Justice Department. Regarding desegregation, however, Justice Clarence Thomas’s comment on busing – that it transferred black students from bad black schools to bad white ones — needs to be kept in mind..

The interrelationship of all four

Expanded online learning and cultural performances have the potential to raise the educational level of the US population, especially in STEM fields, as well as providing a collateral spinoff to other countries, enhancing US “soft power.” An expanded, more knowledgeable audience for the “high arts” will fulfill one prerequisite for a new golden age of the arts. The phasing out of the ED will return needed funds to the states and liberate them from burdensome regulatory requirements, such as Arizona encountered. (Secretary DeVos later reversed that ruling.)

Taken together, expanded online education and high culture and a phased-out ED could go a long way toward creating a wiser, more culturally and STEM-literate work force and citizenry for the challenges of the 21^st century.