Education: Inside U.S. Schools

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Despite all the exciting reforms in U.S. schools, a prime problem remains. That problem is teachers—teachers who do not understand math and foreign languages, teachers unequipped to carry out new methods such as programed learning, teachers who cannot recognize the hunger of children to learn, teachers who may simply be none too bright. So says a reporter who lately spent 30 months in the rarely performed effort of finding out exactly what goes on in U.S. classrooms.

Bankrolled by his bestseller on advertising, Madison Avenue, U.S.A., Martin Prager Mayer, 33, spent 30 months visiting 1,000 classrooms in 150 schools across the U.S. and Europe. This week he published his findings in The Schools (Harper; $4.95). His summary: "The higher one's view of the human potential, the more one will dislike the schools as they actually exist."

"Good People." Mayer is quick to qualify his charge with praise for the expertness of thousands of teachers and for the overall decency of the profession. He points out that U.S. teachers have less independence than teachers in any other Western country (New York City alone has more school administrators than all of France) and less national status (in Russia since Peter the Great, high school principals have had civil service rank matching army generals). The wonder is not that "every school system has its hard-faced bitches, its callous routiners, its cynical slobs, its politicians, its lazy and indifferent time servers.'' The striking thing is that "teachers by and large are good people."

But kind hearts are not enough to waken young minds. That job takes deep knowledge of a subject and the ability to translate it. On both accounts, says Mayer, U.S. teachers score low. In part, this is the legacy of progressivism's pseudo science of "educational research," which insists that children not learn ahead of schedule. Emphasis on curiosity, says Mayer, "has simply disappeared from educational literature."

Oh-Oh-Relax. Any good kindergarten teacher knows that her kids in fact yearn to read. But Johnny can't read at 4½ because "research shows" that "reading readiness" comes at 6½. Even when he gets the chance, it may not be worth it. The fatuous "basal reader" with its Oh-Oh-Sue-said trivia destroys all joy in words. Mayer calls this "the most serious single criticism that can be made of the schools."

Since about one-third of all U.S. children fail to achieve "minimum standards" in first grade, one result is the "relaxed" second grade that goes little beyond repeating first grade. Mayer describes a second-grade class at the Mill School, Whittier, Calif. The kids are writing, "and everybody wants to write," but the bell sounds. " 'It's recess time,' calls the teacher. 'Oh, NO!' cry the youngsters. 'You just put your work down, and don't forget your idea,' Mrs. Mullen says with her endless cheerfulness. 'We'll come right back to it after you've played.' "