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In France, no public school or government institution asks a student or an employee his or her race, gender, religion, or ethnicity. It’s illegal. “Laïté”: complete separation of church and state.
The French Minister of Education warned the French not to look at American “woke” multiculturalism, that France teaches the history and culture of France to bind the French in common culture and love of country.
America should do the same. American schools should not teach students the cultures and languages of the countries from which their parents, at risk of life, fled. That’s for parents to do at home. American schools should teach mastery of the English language together with the history and culture of British and American democracy.
Immigrants to the United States cannot believe the extent to which U.S. schools and media mock the country’s foundation by labeling the Founding Fathers racist, misogynist, and class-and-white privileged. Textbooks tell students that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Constitution and owned slaves—one sentence—rather than explain that Jefferson was one of the world’s great geniuses; that America is a Jeffersonian democracy, which means every citizen has the vote; and that Jefferson created the world’s first system of publicly funded education. Or that the history of every nation includes abuses, except that America is the only nation (until very recently) that has apologized for its past and evolved to make amends, which explains why American schools emphasize inclusivity and equal outcome.
But that is a huge mistake. Schools are and have always been a reactionary institution, rarely at the forefront of solving societal problems. They weren’t set up to do that. Without lowering educational standards, equal outcomes in education are an impossibility. Students from low social (not economic) backgrounds entering kindergarten with a 2,500 to 4,500-word deficit that increases through the 12th grade cannot compete. The fact that California schools try so hard to change this is precisely why California is losing its teachers.
California is wasting its teachers’ time and expertise and is destroying their desire to teach. For the fall of 2023, San Francisco public schools have a shortage of 900 teachers.
Is it because salaries are low? No, they’re among the highest in the nation. However, teachers choosing to live in San Francisco, Palo Alto, or Mountain View must accept that they will not earn enough to purchase a large home. The Bay Area, a world center for the future—IT, artificial intelligence, bioengineering, quantum computing, aerospace—attracts the brightest and highest-paid workforce in the world: college graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Seventy-one percent of Silicon Valley employees are foreign-born. Strivers, specialists, high achievers. It is because America’s public schools do not provide enough college students with STEM learning.
For the last 50 years, the U.S. Department of Education has been stating that only 36 percent of the nation is proficient in reading and math—which is why the U.S. Navy dropped its entrance exam reading to 4th grade, the level at which most American high school students graduate. It’s no coincidence that so many American university spots are taken by foreign students. They score higher on the SAT exams (in English, a language those students don’t even speak!).
Again, salary is not the reason San Francisco can’t find teachers. Teaching is a profession like acting and sports. No one turns down an opportunity to perform. A job in which as one matures, one grows in competence, is a profession—the most rewarding career.
Something else is wrong. The dumbing down of education standards! Under political pressure that blames teachers and their Eurocentric curriculum for poor student outcomes (although California teachers are ranked among the best in the nation), school principals and district administrators buckle. When a parent complains that coursework is too difficult or that their child is being singled out for misbehavior, administrators never do the right thing: support their teachers, suspend the students.
- A student threatened to shoot up the school and was allowed to return the following Monday.
- A student threatened a pregnant teacher and her unborn child; he’s still in her class.
- A student brought a knife to school; it was confiscated, but the student returned to class that day.
- A student tried to choke a teacher and threatened to break her hand and yet returned the following day. (Daniel Buck, “The Discipline Disaster,” National Review, August 28, 2023.)
In “Why California’s Schools Are Losing Their Teachers,” Parts I, II, and III, I cited Tony Thurmond, California Superintendent of Public Instruction: “Replace suspensions with support. Sending a student home from school does not address the root cause of a student’s behavior; it removes students from the learning environment; and it has a disproportionate impact on African-American students and students with disabilities, among other marginalized groups who are underperforming academically and overrepresented in our criminal justice system.”
- A student threatened that her father would come to the school and beat the [expletive] out of the teacher, but the school administration didn’t bother to address it.
- A student brought a hammer to school with the intention of clubbing a hated classmate. She faced a suspension but no expulsion. Eventually the girl was expelled for beating up a special-needs student on the bus.
- One student ran into a classroom and tried to pick a fight with a student; she began screaming, “[Expletive] your dead dad,” while the teacher held her back from committing assault. She was in school the next day. (Daniel Buck, “The Discipline Disaster,” National Review, August 28, 2023.)
The student returned, but did the teacher? It is such scenarios that cause both teachers and students to leave. They can’t think with so much noise and interruption. In other words, the students were back but 900 teachers weren’t.
In 1970, enrollment in San Francisco public schools was 80,000. Today, it is 51,790. The high cost of housing explains some of that loss, but not all, considering that between 1970 and 2022, the population rose by 100,000.
The only way to eliminate student failure is to raise standards. The only way to deter bad behavior is through punishment. California schools replace punishment with positive behavior intervention—emphasizing incentives (over consequences), restorative justice, conflict resolution, and counselors. Plus, delve into the child’s dysfunctional home life. Offer a hug, or a bag of potato chips?
When schools do not punish students for even low-level disruptions, they immediately experience higher exodus levels of both students and teachers. In San Francisco, since 1970, one student per classroom per year has left. After 30 years, a class size of 30 students is reduced to zero, except for children whose parents don’t know to pull them out. And as one teacher per year per school leaves, a school of 30 teachers is reduced to zero, except those negligibly qualified—and that is why San Francisco is 900 teachers short.
