A Modest Proposal for American Education

With graduation rates and standardized text scores declining in communities across the country, both educators and legislators are proposing any number of new programs and policies to cure what ails our most critical institution, American education.

In his column today, George Will describes a public charter school in Oakland, California, where the remedy can be summed up simply: toughness and discipline. Will convincingly blames our educational decline on a pervasive intellectual laziness and softness among students, which is exacerbated by a corresponding refusal to impose discipline and responsibility from above. Administrators, according to Will, accept mediocrity from teachers; teachers in turn accept mediocrity from students; and students skate by with minimal effort.

At the American Indian Public Charter School (AIPCS) in Oakland, the culture is very different. Faculty and staff are held to high standards, and the consequence of failure is simple: termination. Students are held to equally high standards. School for these children is no longer a human warehouse.

One policy imposed at AIPCS is strikingly simple–rather than changing classrooms seven times a day, students remain in one classroom for the entire school day, meaning they have an extra 70 minutes of academic instruction.

Across America, from primary schools to graduate programs, an “instructional hour” in our public schools consists of not 60, but 50 minutes.

So here’s a simple proposal: why not make an instructional hour 60 minutes long? (And why in the world did we ever decide to cut an instructional hour short in the first place?)

Teaching our children and young adults that 50 minutes of education equals one “instructional hour” sends the wrong message entirely. If anything, an instructional hour should be longer than 60 minutes.

I’m sure teachers unions and education bureaucrats across the nation would agree.

Newsprism

The Redemption of Paris Hilton

When she first took the world of Internet video by storm, Paris Hilton’s dialogue was limited to one vowel (“Ooooooooooohhh) and one consonant (mmmmmmmmmmmm).

Paris the Heiress is back in the headlines, this time for starring in a new video spoofing the John McCain ad that compare’s Barack Obama to Hilton and Britney Spears.

Ms. Hilton refused to accept payment for the video, a selfless act that puts every American in her debt.

We may be witnessing the intellectual redemption of a budding pundit. Her energy plan is being hailed as “sound,” and more impressively, she memorized nearly 80 seconds of drivel.

Newsprism