Failed Education Experiments

When A Hundred Blows on the Back of a Fool Make No Impression

How long does failure have to persist before the plug is pulled? In Athens, it is well over a century—and counting. In 1877, the government enacted the Education Act, which made education in New Zealand free, secular and compulsory. Now, over 130 years later systemic failure is evident on every fundamental metric by which the country's education model ought to be tested.

Education is not free. It is increasingly expensive, with money not going to front line education, but to a burgeoning bureaucracy, both in schools and out of schools. Schools, unable to survive financially, are having to load more and more costs on to parents, and are having to market their services to foreign students in order to generate sufficient income to survive.

Education is not secular. Secularity back in the “good old days” meant not biased towards any particular belief system. For the past thirty years the education system has overtly and deliberately adopted the religious and ideological world view of fundamentalist secular humanism, and has marshaled schools as their key propaganda organs for the promulgation of the religion.

Finally education is no longer compulsory. Truancy is endemic; enforcement is now impossible. Without parental and familial discipline, education is an optional extra, to be taken or not at one's convenience. The most recent survey on truancy was conducted in 2006. The survey employs a category called “Overall Absence”, which includes absences of the following types:

1. Justified absences, recorded in the register and satisfactorily explained.
2. Unjustified absences which are recorded in the register, but not explained satisfactorily.
3. Intermittent absences during the day which are unexplained or justified.

On an average daily basis in 2006, the Overall Absence rate was 11.5%. On any given average day, over ten percent of the nation's school pupils are not in school. Compulsory education is a joke.

When faced with this morass, the devotees of, and apologists for, the current system have two stock responses.

Firstly, they ask for more time. One hundred and thirty years has not been enough time. We need more, please. How much time, you ask. Just more.

Secondly, they ask for more money. How much more, you ask. More, and more, and more. To get things right we need more committees, surveys, research, reviews, promotional campaigns, qualifications authorities. More of all that which will make the system work costs money. We must make our offerings to the gods.

Athens will not not turn away from this idol easily. It is far too near to the heart of its religious belief. In a modern western democracy there are few means available to build the perfect society, to make the perfect man, to achieve secular redemption. Passing laws banning things is one favourite. The other is education. By educating children we will stop them sinning and doing evil. Society will condition its citizens to become perfect beings. Is crime a problem? Education will deliver us. Is illiteracy a problem? Education is the answer. Teenage pregnancy? Drink driving? Unemployment? Obesity? Racism? War? These and every other social malady, we are told, will be cured by education.

Athens will not turn away from its idolatry of education because without it there would be no hope. Nada. So, it is inevitable that our “free”, “secular” and “compulsory” state education system will indeed be given more time and more of your money—indefinitely. It is blasphemy in Athens even to suggest something else.

But we who came out from Athens a long time ago care not for their charges of blasphemy. It is stock in trade. We will indeed suggest something else—even for Athens's own sake, although we know that they will not listen because they cannot.

Firstly, remove compulsion from the education system. Make all education voluntary. As we have seen, compulsion is a joke anyway. Unless parents are valuing education and insisting upon it for their children, schools are absolutely wasting their time. It is far more likely that parents will value education more than they do now if they are given responsibility to ensure that their children receive it.

Secondly, introduce a parental contract, which each parent must sign, and resign annually when their children return to school. The contract would spell out the obligations, expectations, and requirements of parents towards their children and their education if they are to gain and retain a place for their children in a school. Persistent breaching of the contract would result in the place for their children being lost.

Now, we understand that from the education utopians this will elicit howls of outrage. Think of all those poor children denied a decent education because of the irresponsibility of their parents! Yes, indeed. Please think about it. Those poor children will be denied an education no matter how long they spend in school. Because of their parents' irresponsibility they will not benefit from education. If their parents will not deny themselves and discipline themselves for the sake of their children's future, their children sure won't. And the essence of education is a willingness to discipline oneself now for the sake of future advantage. Any child unwilling to do that is simply impossible to educate.

Thirdly, apply a tax rebate for every child kept in school for 95% of the available school days per year, to the effect that every taxable dollar attracts no more than the lowest marginal rate of income tax. If this is achieved for two or more children, rebate all income tax. This would only apply if the child or children achieved pass rates for that year in core subjects (see below).

Fourthly, divide the curriculum up into core subjects (of which there must be no more than four) and the rest (which are optional) through junior and middle schools (that is, up to the end of year eight). The core subjects must focus upon language and number, as these are the building blocks of all other learning. National standards for each year need to be set, and each children assessed for achievement of the standard every year.

Fifthly, follow Sweden's example, and introduce a voucher system that will entitle parents to place children at the school of their choice (assuming place availability). Several policies need to be introduced to support the voucher system. For example, abolish all zoning. Allow schools to combine and co-operate across geographical regions. Publish the results of each school's achievements in the national standards annually. Abolish centralised funding and do not introduce bulk funding of schools. School funding must come entirely from voucher income. Soft support, padding, and compensatory payments to schools must be entirely excluded. The voucher would pay for education in the core subjects only. Any additional subjects and activities must be funded by direct charges upon the parents (who of course will now be able to afford them, due to their tax rebates, non?) Abolish all salary scales for teachers and school staff.

Sixthly, allow schools to fail and go out of existence. If schools are failing to educate, or are failing to attract sufficient students, they must be allowed to fail, rather than propping them up. The sole focus of a school must be upon educating children, not lobbying for money from the State.

We suggest that were this programme adopted, the New Zealand education system would be world leading within ten years. But will Athens adopt this programme? Never. It would never countenance such blasphemy, such disrespect to the idols of fundamentalist secular humanism