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By Nicole Rivera
Over the past few days, several news outlets have reported the results of the latest Gallup poll with an emphasis on heightened dissatisfaction among those reviewing our country’s education.
For example, when people were asked, “Overall, how satisfied are you with the quality of education for students in kindergarten through grade 12 (in the U.S.) today?” only 29% of respondents answered a “great deal” or “quite a lot.” By contrast, a staggering 28% of respondents expressed “very little” satisfaction with the effectiveness of our schools. Perhaps the most remarkable part of these findings is that they fall in line with a steady decrease in satisfaction since the first survey was given in 1973.
Some of the online sources that carried this story allowed for public responses and comments—which were ripe with blaming. Here, some readers claimed that teachers were overpaid, under-trained, and that they lacked commitment. Still others culminated around a theme of “kids these days,” insinuating that poor performance reflected an inherent problem in our youth. In either case, the arguments devised effectively take a position that shifts responsibility for public dissatisfaction to either the poorly performing students or to the teachers who instruct them.
Any examination of our schools should, however, take on a more holistic tone—one that openly examines the larger social and societal structures at play in shaping individual experiences. Cultural anthropologists McDermott and Varenne propose a reconstruction of the concept of culture in educational research, framing it as a means to move beyond thin descriptions and individualistic accounts of “success” and “failure” (and into discussions of both individual and societal factors that lead to problems in the first place). In doing so, they advocate for an examination of the greater process, rather than blaming individuals or smaller systems within the whole. In short, McDermott and Varenne argue we need to move from a pattern or blaming individuals to the position of “Let’s change the world enough that these problems do not come up anymore” (p. 14).
An opinion poll shows us that people are increasingly unsatisfied with a public institution. But let’s be very cautious about blaming individual students or teachers.
Rather, let’s stand back and examine a system that continues to support specific outcomes. The educational system is complex; schools are facing growing pressures to serve a wide range of needs with ever-limited resources, and are under intense scrutiny. Policies meant to increase accountability are unwieldy. And, our educational system is frequently compared to those of other countries, when—in reality—each country represents a unique social and cultural perspective.
The results of the Gallup poll should be a call to action for policy makers, educators, and community members. Let us work together to change that system so that the problems identified by the poll become things of the past.
Sources:
Education. (n.d.) Gallup. http://www.gallup.com/poll/1612/education.aspx
McDermott, R. & Varenne, H. (2006). Reconstructing Culture in Educational Research. In Spindler, G. & Hammond, L. (Eds.). Innovations in Educational Ethnography: Theory, Methods, and Results. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
