Why education doesn’t work — an introduction

I was a huge fan of the book The Way Things Work by David Macaulay (Houghton-Mifflin, 1988). Macaulay’s concept was simple but incredibly insightful: Most people have absolutely no idea how or why the machines, devices, and gadgets they use and depend on every day work. Nor do they care — until something goes wrong, and then they want answers. Macaulay’s book was an attempt to provide those answers, and he did so masterfully by breaking down parts and processes to explain the mechanics behind all things ordinary and otherwise.

Macaulay’s book was the inspiration for this month’s column, which I had envisioned as a “Public Education: The Way Things Work” kind of thing. Unfortunately, as I outlined my thinking it became very clear to me that explaining how jet propulsion and seat belts work is much easier than explaining how the nation’s public education system works. Like Macaulay, I tried to break down the key parts of the system and then map out how all those parts worked together to get the “job” done — the job being to provide all students with an excellent and equitable education. That’s where I got hung up. To start, the multiple parts and players and how they interact with one another quickly became convoluted. More important, simply mapping the parts and players in the system did nothing to really explain how things work in education. Sadly, that was when I decided to change my idea to “Public Education: Why Things Don’t Work.”

Explaining how jet propulsion and seat belts work is much easier than explaining how the nation’s public education system works.