By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
The term “quo vadis” is often associated with a 1951 movie of that name, with Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr playing Roman Christians persecuted during the time of the Emperor Nero. The origin of the term is the scene in the apocryphal Acts of Peter wherein Peter meets the risen Jesus on a road outside Rome and asks our Lord, “Quo vadis?” (In English, “Where Are You Going?”)
I don’t come across it much any longer, but there was a time when the term was used as a colloquial expression among Catholics, referring to where an individual stood in his life’s journey in the faith.
J.M. did not use the term specifically in his recent correspondence, but it came to mind as he explored the course of issues that have arisen in recent months in First Teachers, as if he were asking, “Quo vadis, education in the U.S.?”
J.M. starts by referring to recent First Teachers’ columns discussing the proposals for free college by liberal Democrats such as Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. He asks us to consider these proposals in light of “an article by Walter Williams in which Williams points out that in 2015 only 37 percent of high school graduates were proficient in reading and 25 percent were proficient in math. The H.D. Woodson High School in D.C. had a 76 percent graduation rate on time, but only a one percent proficiency rate in math and 4 percent in reading.
“Williams also throws in the depressing statistic from the National Institute for Literacy, which reports that 47 percent of the population of Detroit is functionally illiterate! It would appear that we are seriously lacking in raw material to put into the college system! Free high school is a national disgrace, and I suspect that free college wouldn’t produce any better results.”
J.M. then turns to what he calls the liberal Democrats’ “socialist mentality, which always assumes that a wealthy class can be found to fund their projects. When the socialist programs have to stand on their own merit you end up with Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, etc. There are no exceptions. Why don’t we learn?”
J.M. is aware of the proposition that the money spent on education will pay us back in the form of educated young people becoming taxpaying workers. Unfortunately, he writes, “As for having a payback from the newly minted graduates, that myth is easily punctured by present examples. Bloomberg News points out that student loan default has taken on critical importance as debt surges to record levels, risking the spread of contagion to the broader economy, as struggling debtors cut spending and other forms of borrowing.
“Some 41.5 million Americans collectively owe nearly $1.3 trillion on their federal student loans, according to data from the Department of Education as of June 30. About one in every four borrowers is either delinquent or in default. Total indebtedness has doubled since 2009. College isn’t for everybody: It would appear that high school isn’t for everybody either!”
J.M. turns his attention to First Teachers’ call for readers to provide a list of readings for young people to help them grow in their faith and commitment to traditional values. “I’ve been reviewing a number of suggested reading lists for children, teenagers, young adults, etc.,” he writes. “I am beginning to suspect that these reading lists have value only if the person reading the material has the moral, intellectual, and social prerequisites for properly understanding the material.
“As an example, recommending books on thermodynamics, relativity, constitutional law, etc., makes absolutely no sense, even if the books were read, unless the reader has the background to understand the material. Something as innocuous as Huckleberry Finn requires some understanding of persons and personality and the historical setting of the book, which, I fear, young people don’t have today. Nor do they have teachers and parents able to help them acquire that understanding. I believe we are losing a cultural base that is essential to serious learning!”
On another topic: the track record on school choice. Jonathan Butcher, the director of education policy at the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute, and Lindsey M. Burke, the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, examined what is happening around the country in an article in the online edition of National Review in mid-March.
They concluded, “The federal government should let the states lead on school choice. While activists and lobbyists in Washington, D.C., wrangle over the federal education bureaucracy, much of the important action on school choice has been taking place in state capitals.
“Governors and legislatures in more than a dozen states are considering ways to give students and their families better access to quality learning opportunities that meet their individual needs. Education savings accounts (ESAs) for elementary, high school, and college expenses are on the leading edge of these options.”
Butcher and Burke continue, “Arizona took the lead on ESAs in 2011, and since that time, legislators in Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Nevada have adopted similar laws. This year, lawmakers in Arkansas, New Hampshire, Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, North Dakota, Texas, and West Virginia, to name a few, are considering similar laws. Education savings accounts are like flexible spending accounts for health care, except that instead of depositing money into the account from your paycheck, the state government deposits your child’s share of school funding into the account (if you opt out of sending your child to public school in your district).”
ESAs allow parents “to spend the funds on tutoring, online learning, textbooks, private-school tuition, educational therapies, and other education-related services and products. Parents can use a combination of educational services based on what they think would best meet their child’s learning needs, with states determining the universe of eligible expenditures. Unused funds can often be rolled over from year to year and saved for college.”
Burke and Butcher conclude that these state innovations provide models that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Congress can follow at the federal level: “Education savings accounts and other state-based solutions (such as moving toward policies that give teachers a choice as to whether they join a union, and limiting union power generally) would do more to give parents and students high-quality educational options than any new federal program.”
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford, CT 06492.
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