A Modest Proposal For Education Reform

A modest proposal f or preventing the children of America from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public.

It is a source of great pain and embarrassment to many of us when we confront the current state of public education. When every 26 seconds a child drops out of high school, leaving us with many a wayward Mary or Jonathan, swift action must be taken for it may be said that a great iniquity befalls us all and that even the most savage and inhuman breast is moved to doleful contemplation.

As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the schemes of past and present policymakers, I have often found their ideas mistaken in their assumptions, flawed in their executions, or deeply troubling in their intent. It is the most caustic of realities to say that all past attempts to solve this problem have failed and that there is, at present, no large scale effort in existence that would rightly cause even the most optimistic among us to hold out hope for improvement.

I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection, by way of a modest proposal, and discuss herein a solution to the matter at hand such that all children may gain the birthright to which they are entitled, and those adults who provide for their intellectual nourishment shall have adequate means to acquit themselves appropriately in the execution of their offices.

Let it be stated with confidence that each of us agrees with the notion that upon reaching the age of majority, a percentage of American youth nearing the theoretical maximum should find themselves well-prepared for matters of employment, citizenship, or such additional education and training as they might endeavor to explore beyond the grade of twelve; and, therefore, rather than being a charge upon their parents, their community, or their government, would become contributors to future generations and the greater good instead.

I will grant you there are those who will contend most vociferously that our schools cannot mend what our society has rent asunder, and that these issues are best resolved through such means as market forces, Social Darwinism, Creative Destruction, Strange Attractors, or the cruel whim of happenstance. But let them not gainsay the argument upon which my thesis rests without granting me at least that modicum of respect which I, as a successful practitioner of the instructional arts, have accrued through diligent exercise of my talents and the accumulation of hours spent in studious observation.

Short of plucking babes from their mothers’ breasts, an act of expedience surpassed only by its abject insensitivity, logistical concerns, and the constitutional rights of the States, we must currently postpone formal tutelage until the age of four or five, a significant delay during which more advantaged youth are likely to experience accelerated intellectual growth relative to their less advantaged peers. But current scientific achievement, bolstered by recent revolutions in brain research, child psychology, String Theory, and human factors makes realizing success for all less a matter of addressing societal inequities and more a matter of modifying our present methods of instruction.

To put it plainly, today’s teaching is manifestly inefficient. Too many teachers spend too many hours working for too little learning, and the general public invests too many resources relative to the results it receives. Fortunately, thanks to incredible advances in education technology such as QR codes, micro-printing, electronic ink, a significantly improved approach is available to us, one that is easily implemented, readily scalable, and fully consistent with current trends in standards-based education.

Today’s curriculum, still primarily dispensed via textbooks, workbooks, worksheets, and other printed media, would be most efficiently taught to hungry young minds through the well-known instructional method of Direct Ingestion, or DI as it is commonly called. In morning classes, DI lessons might be mixed with cereals, hot or cold, pop tarts, toaster strudel, or wholesome breakfast bars to improve their consumption. (Younger children may prefer paste.) At lunch, and later in the afternoon, peanut butter and jelly or bologna may suffice as an instructional amuse bouche.

As one could scarcely imagine a more efficient way to deliver standards-based curriculum—simply tear and serve—DI would save billions of dollars per year. Fully automated adaptive computer systems are already in development to expedite this process with no supervisory human intervention required. Someday, DI may even allow us to deliver instruction directly to a student’s home through the US Postal Service or IP-enabled printers using nutritious soy-based inks, obviating even the need for school buildings.

DI would help us make great strides toward closing the Achievement Gap. For those less fortunate students, slightly greater degrees of consumption each day could be easily calculated and administered. True data-driven ingestion could be fully differentiated to serve those in need of remediation and to accelerate the progress of gifted students as well; it’s simply a matter of dietary control. With this newfound ease of differentiation, class sizes could be greatly expanded by moving students to school lunchrooms and teaching or, rather, serving hundreds at a time. Even entire schools might be replaced by far less costly Learning Replenishment Centers. Advanced software-driven LRCs could not only provide ideal instructional diets but also handle myriad other tasks such as the creation of vegan or gluten free alternative courses of consumption. In a generation, these modern learning dispensaries could become as ubiquitous as the Automatic Teller Machine is today.

Finally, DI affords the ultimate in data-driven practice. Formative assessments are easily conducted with simple weigh-ins while yearly summative assessments could be more precisely administered through urinalysis or blood tests. Bringing true science to the measurement of academic performance in this fashion will do away with such currently controversial topics as Adequate Yearly Progress, Growth Models, Cut Scores, Confidence Intervals, Minimum Subgroup Size Value-Added Models, ad nauseum. Best of all, what now takes a large company months to report could be gathered and disseminated in mere days or weeks (minor encroachments on the 4th Amendment notwithstanding).

In sum, I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this uniquely promising approach, having no other motive than the public good of my country, the advancement of the instructional trades, and the provision of a more promising future for young adults. I am not a teacher, nor am I a commercial publisher of educational materials; I stand to benefit in this no more than any other concerned citizen who would take pride and pleasure in his nation’s educational success. Therefore, I hereby urge all Americans to consider the model I have herein described and to advocate on its behalf to their sworn representatives at local, state, and federal levels. Together, we can, with great dispatch, and all deliberate speed, replace our attempts to paper over the weaknesses of our education system and prepare our high school students for life, work, and the college-ruled world of learning that is their rightful destiny.