EDUCATION AND PUBLIC POLICY
John T. A. Ely, Ph.D.
Radiation Studies
Box 351310
University of Washington
Seattle WA 98195
A New School System and Public Service Corps
A profound change in the school system will yield great benefit for the nation. Modernization of the educational and social system is needed so we all can achieve our potentials and gain philosophical motivation to support the nation's laws in harmony and without prejudice.
The school system must be modified in such a way as to provide the instillation of discipline necessary to be a productive citizen which is not done today even in the homes of affluence. We must remove the poverty and despair of our own ghettos to provide a national coherence of realization and commitment to the task ahead (which is in our own interest).
New School System. Unfortunately, America has lost its own strength and unity that are so necessary for us to meet this challenge. In order to correct this loss of will and moral strength, we have to understand its cause. The cause might be called "lost automation"; a century ago fathers were compelled by economic necessity to require their sons to chop wood and carry water and in other ways daily fulfill responsibilities which were done out of fear or respect for authority. The school system that still exists today was designed to operate on a substrate of young people as students who had been disciplined at home by the family. Today, it isn't necessary to chop wood and carry water. The heat and water flow effortlessly into the home in wires and pipes. The father's authority exists only as an atrophied figment of his imagination. The children are not disciplined and the present school system cannot control them. Even in a free enterprise economy, it is the function of government to provide what the market will not, does not, or cannot do. It is a fundamental law of nature that quality sinks to the level to which it is constrained. The family is not today and has not for some decades provided the constraint on juvenile behavior that comes from discipline; and the quality necessary for the present school system to produce law abiding citizens is not present. Hence, it is mandatory for our survival and the rest of the world that the school system be modified to provide the constraints.
The simplest most cost effective way to do this is by means of the following system. It will be made public knowledge that in this new school system, the cumulative grade average from K through 12 will give a ranking of each student such that upon graduation students in the highest (4th) quartile (from 75th to 100th percentile) will be rewarded by having 4 years of college paid for by the government. Knowledge that their children could receive free college or other training, would stimulate parents to cooperate with the system and pressure the children to excel, especially disadvantaged families of lower income. Students in the third quartile will have a 4 year requirement as a uniformed corps of interns for the civil service (federal, state and municipal systems) with a modest salary and food and quarters supplied. During this 4 year period they would perform useful work as assistant to the permanent professional staff and at the same time would learn career skills of the profession in which they were serving. The nature of given assignments would depend on aptitude testing and desire to stimulate motivation as much as possible.
Until world population is below the 2 billion mark, there will regrettably be a need for US armed forces. The second quartile student will have a 4 year military service requirement. The first or lowest quartile of academic performance will have a 4 year requirement of low skill level work (without stigma) in the sanitation departments, road and other municipal construction, transportation and care of the elderly, etc. With this influx of young people into the national labor force, as we state elsewhere, the work week must be shortened, when needed, to maintain full employment. This shortening of the work week is humanity's truest economic victory, "the victory over time". It will be no longer necessary to spend essentially all of one's life at work for the necessities. The 20-hour week allows a freedom of choice that will be used wisely in an educated society. Eliminating unemployment also removes poverty as the principal incentive for criminal behavior. Clearly, depending on national needs, the system may not be strictly divided into quartiles; for example, as world poverty disappears and population declines toward the 1.5 billion level (that permits sustainable equilibrium with nature), the fraction needed for military service will be reduced.
Revision of the Classical Curriculum. As we have pointed out above, the constraints of the school system have not evolved with society to meet its changing needs. In addition, the required curriculum has not changed in over half a century and is still the classical curriculum. The failure of modern society can be shown to be the failure of the classical curriculum which is enormously wasteful of student hours, one of the most precious resources of the nation. If a student can show reasonable competence in English grammar at the 7th grade, there should be no need to spend 5 more years in English since the other courses are taught in English and linguistic skills in English will increase with mastery of those other subjects. Thus we have freed 5 years for study of required subjects that are necessary preparation for voting (i.e., mathematics, economics, physics, chemistry, biology and computer science). Without the mastery of such subjects our classical curriculum has turned democracy into ignorance in action. History is another sacred cow of the classical curriculum. The lessons of history are extremely important and can be taught with ease in a one year survey course. Thus, a student who can demonstrate a grasp of the lessons of history in a competence test at grade 7 should not be required to take history in grades 8-12. Thus we have freed a total of 10 years of student time from the illogical demand of the classical curriculum in English and History. This time should be divided among the required subjects of the modernized curriculum, mathematics, economics, physics, chemistry, biology and computer science. Computer science should be learned from its use as an instructional tool in teaching the science courses.