The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Expert says education ‘crisis may not be so dire’
SALISBURY — The lecture he gave to the Scoville Memorial Library was entitled “Why is Education in the United States in Perpetual Crisis? A Look at Past, Present, and Future,” but the lively talk and a subsequent interview given by educator Dr. Stephen Keith Sagarin informed listeners that the crisis may not be so dire — and not so new after all.
Giving a lecture on the historical perspective on and possible solutions to the embattled U.S. educational system, Sagarin told 15 visitors at the Library at 38 Main Street on Saturday, April 7, “We as a nation have thought of education as being in crisis since the very beginning, in 1642, in Massachusetts. That was when we decided children needed to be educated.”
Sagarin, who is the Executive Director and Faculty Chair at Stockbridge’s Berkshire Waldorf High School, said at that time in history the belief spread that the only way the souls of children and grandchildren “could be saved was by being educated in the Calvinist tradition.” Calvinism is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice of 16thcentury reformer theologian John Calvin. “These were the laws that brought people to heel by learning the Bible’s laws,” he added.
Sagarin, who is the author of “The Story of Waldorf Education in the United States: Past, Present, and Future” and who has also written forewords for two books by renowned educator Rudolf Steiner, took listeners through a brief history of U.S. education. By 1852, education was made compulsory for children ages eight through 14, at first also in Massachusetts, Sagarin pointed out.
“As we industrialized the U.S., we sought to extricate children from child labor,” he said. Around that time, Ireland’s historic Great Potato Famine brought a surge of Irish immigrants to the U.S., prompting much anti-Catholic discrimination and shop signs that read “Irish Need Not Apply.” Sagarin said, “There was such vehement anti-Irish/ Catholic sentiment and presumption of alcoholism and fealty for the Pope, that it was imperative to get kids into school for a Protestant work ethic as well as public and private laws.”
But by the 1870s, Catholics were forming their own parochial schools, prompting what was known as the “Blaine Amendment.” The law, proposed by Republican Congressman James G. Blaine in 1875 was a failed U.S. Constitutional amendment that forbade direct government aid to educational institutions that have a religious affiliation.
Sagarin told an historical anecdote about Harvard College, which from its inception, “was not of the hedge-fund variety it is today, but a muddy courtyard featuring a graduating class of 59 drunk 15-year-old minister students throwing things through windows.” So disreputable was the Cambridge, Mass. school’s reputation in the mid-1800s that the heads of school refused to allow French historian and political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville to tour the campus. de Tocqueville subsequently did much significant research on the American prison system,
Sagarin said the next major historic addition to the education system was the introduction of the Stanford-Binet IQ Test in schools. The test, originally used on soldiers in order to gauge intelligence and cognitive function, eventually developed into the SAT test. “It was originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, but now we know it doesn’t measure any aptitude, so SAT is now an empty brand name today,” said Sagarin.
Sagarin pointed out that subsequent perceived upheavals in the educational system included the “Scopes Monkey Trial” in 1925, which allowed public schools to teach at-the-time new concepts about evolution and the publication in 1955 of the influential “Why Johnny Can’t Read — And What You Can Do About It” by Austrian-born naturalized American author Rudolf Franz Flesch, a vigorous critique of the teaching reading by sight.
Further incitements to reform and improve U.S. math education included school integration as well as amplified fears of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War, as the at-the-time U.S.S.R. had just launched the first low-orbiting satellite Sputnik 1 in 1957. Education reforms started with the 1980s’ “A Nation at Risk” by President Ronald Reagan, which became President Bill Clinton’s “The Goals 2000: Educate America Act,” which became President George Bush’s “No Child Left Behind,” and then became President Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top.”
He explained that the U.S.’s view of education seems be perennially a projection of our current fears onto the rising generation that needs to be educated.
And fears can stoke the rise of opportunists. “Each major crisis in politics demands accountability and seeks control over schools,” Sagarin warned. Luckily, the U.S. educational system is locally controlled by school board of educations and in New York State, the Board of Regents, which he said was “repressive.” Alternately, he said, “Massachusetts has the least repressive control. There is no State control, only local school boards.” He cited a local law in Stockbridge that dictates that “with sharp character, you can earn all credits by the end of the year to graduate.”
“I am not advocating a return to the one-room schoolhouse, but the centralization and bureaucracy of the educational system can be an issue,” he said.
Sagarin also presented possible solutions to the embattled U.S. educational system, in which about 55 million students attend 100,000 schools. Sagarin said the breakdown of these schools goes roughly as follows: 80 to 85 percent public schools; four percent charter schools (80 percent of these charter schools are not-for-profit); 10 percent private schools; four percent are home-schooled; and one percent are Internet-based-schooled. “The number of students being homeschooled was zero percent 30 years ago,” he pointed out.
He added out that most U.S. private schools are religious-based, unlike most based in New England and the Northeast. Sagarin said regional private schools such as the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville are exceptions to the rule, since these schools are mostly privately endowed and do not depend largely on public funding.
During an interview following his Saturday lecture, Sagarin discussed such topics as: the future of public schools; the embattled U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos; and aspects of a Waldorf education.
Sagarin said a Waldorf School education was a good option for learning in that it brings together various intellectual and physical concepts for children. But in the end the education’s success depends on the philosophy “not being too dogmatic.” He added, “The teacher has to be the key.”
A Waldorf school education, also known as Steiner education, is based on the philosophies of renowned historical educator Rudolf Steiner, which strive to integrate the intellectual, practical, and artistic development of students via hands-on activities, creative play and movement, and teaching empathy. According to the Harvard Education Letter, there are 42 U.S. Waldorf-inspired public schools, mostly charter or magnet schools. Internationally, there are more than 1,000 independent Waldorf schools, according to the 2017 Hague Circle’s International Forum for Steiner/ Waldorf Education Directory.
The perception of public schools is bleak. Sagarin said, “There was a survey of parents, who, if they had their choice, 40 percent would send their kids to private schools; 20 percent to charter schools; 24 percent would home-school them; and 16 percent would send them to public schools. That is about only one-sixth who would send their children to public schools.”
“For an education crisis, there is no ‘silver bullet’ or Band-Aid to repair it,” Sagarin added.
Having a background in, and currently teaching U.S. history and life science, Sagarin was Associate Professor and former Director of the Masters of Education Program in Waldorf Teacher Education at Sunbridge Institute, an adult learning center in Chestnut Ridge, N.Y.
Sagarin said that an overreliance on standardized testing is often counterproductive: “Learning has an alchemy that makes it hard to predict.” He added, “Some skills are so complex, you can’t create a test along these lines. You can’t predict who will do well. In no other walk of life do we use bubble tests turning, though, on the tech and testing companies.”
He said a solution to educational crises is a commitment to teachers. “Put them in classrooms, support them, and watch them,” he said, adding, “And successful schools have granted teachers autonomy.” He went on: “Get involved in your school boards as well.” Later he said, “Keep politics out of education. Keep politicians, textbook publishers, and testing companies hands off.”
He said that teachers’ choices are often restricted in some parts of the country, especially in Texas and Georgia, when textbook publishers are granted too many powerful contracts with school systems whose school boards are packed with “extremists with their own agendas.” “The extremists on school boards determine the textbooks we use nationwide,” he added.
Another factor includes the political meddling in the educational system. “Profit and power enter the equation,” he said, later adding, “People make millions selling technology that is not based in teaching and does not keep kids engaged.”
He said he is optimistic that there is a limit to the damage to the public school system that President Donald Trump’s hotly-debated Secretary of Education appointee DeVos can do.
“It is unusual to have someone with no experience in public education and no successes in public schools,” he stated. “But the system is hard to change. Making new laws is really tough. Even if you don’t support her and her agenda, she will have a hard time making a dent. Even those seeking to make OK changes find they hard to make, and wild swings in education aren’t done.”
“The bottom line is that education is a relatively conservative and stable endeavor that uses human interactions,” he had said during his Saturday afternoon lecture. “It is not susceptible to economies of scale.” But he was quick to warn that “human relationships become more expensive,” adding “the cost of education is commensurately rising to the point that communities will not be able to support schools anymore.” He said, for example, in tax dollars it takes $1,000 per student per year to pick up and drop off on a school bus. He said that the evergrowing U.S. income inequality is part of the problem. Declining rural population is also a factor.
The father of two children, Andrew and Kathleen, Sagarin is married to Janis Martinson, Chief Advancement Officer at Miss Hall’s School, an independent school in Pittsfield, Mass., for girls aged 14 to 18. He pointed out that when he and his wife first moved in town, he and his neighbors had a combined six children attending the local school. “Now there are zero children,” he said.
“To pay for it all is becoming increasingly challenging,” he said, “and even for private schools without endowments. There has been a large amount of Catholic Schools that have gone out of business in the past 20 years. The exception includes the enduring private schools such as Hotchkiss and Exeter.” He referred to the aforementioned Hotchkiss School and the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire: “They have tuition revenue while other schools are crunch cutting their programs.”
Sagarin was the former Editor of the Research Bulletin of the Research Institute for Waldorf Education. In addition to having taught education history at Teachers College in New York City and human development at the City University of New York, he is the author of “The Story of Waldorf Education in the United States: Past, Present, and Future” and has written numerous articles and forewords on two historical books by Steiner. Sagarin’s eclectic blog “What is Education?” is found at ssagarin.blogspot.com
He noted that despite the perceived historical crises in education, he is ultimately hopeful. He said that upon reflecting on his Saturday lecture (which he noted were “three lectures spliced into one,” which he said has been requested to be reprised later in the year at the Mason Public Library in Great Barrington, Mass.): “I came back from the perception of crisis in the past, present, and future, to actually think that most kids get a pretty good education in the U.S.”