It’s Time to Make Changes in Public Education

By Dena Mitchell, Law, Dalhousie University

Many Canadians are wondering what is going on with the way we are educating our children. We’ve all heard the horror stories of kids graduating from high school with scarcely the ability to read, let alone having a well-grounded knowledge of how our nation came to be.

The blame for this gets tossed around from teachers to the public school system to parents to the kids themselves. The truth is, however, that we all need to share the blame for the sorry state of affairs in public education. Right now, our system is mediocre, full of politically correct curriculums that show more concern with producing “tolerant” students than well-educated ones. The question is, how do we improve public education?

First, we need to have a serious public debate about what education is. What do we want our kids to be educated about? Something is surely amiss when kids graduating from high school cannot identify a supply and demand curve. Supply and demand, interest rates, taxes—essentially basic economics, affect everybody. Why aren’t we emphasizing economics in public schools?

Perhaps we can look to our southern neighbours for some pointers. The state of Montana has seen the need for teaching business principles in school. As part of Montana’s economic strategic planning, an initiative is being developed that aims to create more high school and college classes that teach entrepreneurship and business skills.1

In Canadian public school systems curriculums are designed for the mythical “average” student. Instead of aiming for mediocrity, we should be focusing on students’ abilities and educating them accordingly. It makes no sense to have kids who can (and want to) read Hemingway or Hardy, in the same class with those who are struggling to sound out the words. The idea of “streamlining” appears controversial at first, and public educators will argue that they “don’t want kids with less academic ability to feel inferior.” But some kids are inferior to others when it comes to certain subjects. Not everyone is a scholar. Let’s learn from what Montana is doing now. Let’s implement a public education campaign to help inform parents and students about the value of a technical education, and encourage technology colleges to pursue an agenda of technical training for the workplace in partnership with the private sector.

We also need to recognize that fundamentally changing our public school system is a good thing. This often means mechanisms like charter schools, where parents and teachers work together to provide quality education. Charter schools, while still publicly funded, are able to steer the education of their students in a certain direction. Charter schools weed out deadbeat courses and create programs that cater to a certain group of students’ particular abilities and skills.

In this vein, the state of Michigan has established 40 independent charter schools, authorized 20 more, and created 6 industry-driven technical trade academies. These technical academies specialize in preparing high school students for careers in high-skill, high-wage jobs. Training in these schools may be in either white or blue collar professions. What’s more, the training is designed in partnership with business and industry, which provides occupational and work-based learning, along with an endorsed high school diploma. Finally, “upon graduation, apprenticeships, internships and employment ... are offered by participating businesses.”2 Canadian students should be exposed to these options.

Finally, we should recognize that the public education system affects us Generation Xers long after we are pumped through the system. If we want to compete internationally and thrive economically, it is essential that all of our workforce be well-educated. Our current one-size-fits-all public education philosophy is simply inadequate. By making fundamental changes in our public education system, we will not only benefit those in school, but society as a whole.

[Editor’s note: Dena spent the summer as an intern with the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS) in Halifax, Nova Scotia.]

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Last Modified: Wednesday, October 20, 1999.