Problem-solving approaches and applications

¶ … American nation today is that of its failing school systems. It is a favorite rhetorical trope of politicians that education is an investment in our nation's future. However, few politicians are truly interested in remedying the situation in real, constructive ways. Two ways politicians have recently attempted to improve the nation's education system were through introducing an expanded school voucher system and raising state standards for children's education via increased standardized testing. These solutions are attractive to voters because they do not cause much of a drain upon taxpayer's funds. But ultimately the only real solution to that will result in a real and long-lasting improvement in the education that all American children receive is increased funding for schools. The is particularly true of increased funding for failing schools so they may fund special programs for students experiencing difficulty in mastering basic skills, such as math and language education.

Vouchers may seem, on the surface, an attractive short-term solution for school improvement. Recently, the Supreme Court passed a decision allowing parents to use publicly funded vouchers to supplement the tuition towards religious, private schools. This decision met with approval from President Bush, who called the decision "historic." (Bumiller, 2001, "Bush Calls Ruling About Vouchers an Historic Move") However, even if the Supreme Court decision was fair in allowing vouchers on a legal basis, it is another question entirely if state-supported vouchers for religious or secular private schools are really a solution to improve education in the nation. Firstly, such vouchers divert funds from the public schools to the private sector. Rather than improving the public school system, the private school system benefits. It has been argued that this diversion of funds will force the public schools to improve, introducing competition to the 'market' of children's education. But this cold, capitalist philosophy forces children who do not attend private schools to suffer, through a loss of funds, until the schools they attend are either closed or forced to improve through a loss of funds. Furthermore, the private schools parents chose will not necessarily provide a better education than the public school system. Although one may like to think that parents always know what is best for their children educationally, this is not always the case. Parents may like the value system imparted by private religious schools, for instance, but this does not mean that the basic skills are taught better at private schools than they are at public schools. Students who do not speak English as their first language at home or at school may not receive an adequate ESL education in schools chosen by their parents. The state has little control over the education children receive at private schools, and simply to increase enrollment at such schools, at the expense of the public education system, does not mean that children's education will improve as a whole. "Private school vouchers may pass constitutional muster, but they fail the test when it comes to improving our nation's public schools,'" said Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. "It's flat wrong to take scarce taxpayer dollars away from public schools and divert them to private schools.'" In the Supreme Court decision, the system under question was the state of Cleveland's six-year-old program, in which "about 3,700 of the district's 75,000 children use vouchers worth up to $2,250 to help pay for private school tuition." This tuition, provided by taxpayer's money, diverts funds from public schools into the private sector, away from schools the Cleveland taxation system is designed to support. (Bumiller, 2001, "Bush Calls Ruling About Vouchers an Historic Move")

Another possible solution to improve children's education is to increase state standards for children's education. This is one possible counter to the argument that vouchers are not enough. Instead of providing different venues and opportunities for children's education, why not insure those standards are more uniform throughout the state? This seems like an excellent solution at first. However, unfortunately, it is also one that is being increasingly undercut. "In New York, an appellate court ruled last month that the state Constitution only required Albany to finance an education that gets children to eighth-grade achievement levels." Again, putting aside the issue of constitutionality, the state legislatures must ask themselves in regards to education if it is really reasonable to state that an eighth-grade education is enough for the average individual to cope with today's increasingly complex and ever-changing world. Simply setting standards, even higher standards, is not enough, because the courts cannot always be counted on to enforce those standards, and standards will not necessarily keep pace with today's world. The question is not simply how to set higher standards monitored by standardized testing, but how can students meet such standards? (Rothstein, 2002, "Raising School Standards and Cutting Budgets: huh?")