For a long time, many people have blamed public school teachers for the decline in student learning. They’re on the front lines, so it makes sense. Surely not all educators are at fault, and even the ones who are part of the problem can’t be fully to blame when they have so little authority. Nearly every move they make must follow government protocols. Some who try to make improvements are shackled by bureaucracy, regulations, and ideological mandates. Yet others seem to care only about their union contracts while pushing social agendas that are antithetical to parents’ values. Regardless of motives, most teachers nowadays are overworked because schools are drastically understaffed. So perhaps it’s not the employees but the system that needs to be fixed. Or both?
The Limits of Teachers
Neeraja Deshpande, a policy analyst and engagement coordinator at Independent Women’s Forum, authored a new report titled “Give Teachers a Break: Cutting Red Tape to Unleash the Potential of America’s Great Teachers.” She outlines some obstacles educators face and offers suggestions to help them succeed, a tough task when just 26% of them report being very satisfied with their job. Unhelpful, too, is that only 16% would recommend the profession to others. No wonder there’s a nationwide shortage. That 85% of public schools during the 2023-2024 school year reported having difficulties hiring suggests the problem is much bigger than the quality of the staff.
How can teachers be a driving force behind improving kids’ ability to meet grade-level standards when they have little choice about what they can and cannot do inside classrooms? They have to answer to school boards and superintendents and follow state, local, and federal guidelines. They often can’t even discipline students for misbehavior. Instead of issuing suspensions or expulsions, they typically have to lean on methods like “restorative justice,” which involves a “sit down” with the “victim and aggressor” in an attempt to repair the relationship. Unruly kids have become a major issue, too. They disrupt classrooms and have led many educators to quit the profession, exacerbating the dire shortage. Why are they prevented from disciplining students?
“Over the past decade,” said Deshpande, “federal guidance and Dear Colleague letters from the Department of Education have swung wildly back and forth between presidential administrations, leaving schools in the dark about what they are and aren’t allowed to do to discipline students.”
It’s not just discipline, though. Teachers also lack the authority to hold kids accountable for low grades. The No Child Left Behind Act has increased graduation rates but weakened standards, passing students whose scores don’t meet requirements. “In far too many districts,” said Deshpande, “teachers have little leeway in giving out grades, thanks to so-called ‘equitable’ policies that essentially mandate grade inflation.”
Whatever ulterior motives bureaucrats and unions might have had, a time existed when academics were still a focal point in public schools. Now, it seems, learning has taken a back seat to socialization.
Mood Bracelets
“The school is and has been an instrument of social, economic, and political control,” said Joel H. Spring in his book Education and the Rise of the Corporate State. That sounds like it was written yesterday, but it was published in 1971. “To understand the power of the school, one must not confuse the learning of traditional academic subjects with the process of schooling.” What he meant was that the primary purpose of school was not education but socialization. The concept is far from new, yet the methods have changed.
Spring believes the socialization aspect was all about “refining the nature and power of the school as a controlling institution.” One way that is done today is through social-emotional learning (SEL), “a therapeutic approach to education that emphasizes feelings and progressive ideology over learning,” explained Deshpande. “SEL is also a highly ideological form of therapy, one that leverages the activist language of ‘equity’ to justify its existence.” Teachers are not therapists, and to have them waste valuable time training for and teaching SEL diverts students and educators from academic learning. SEL is not federally mandated, but it is widely used and sometimes paid for by taxpayer-funded grants.
One might think schools would seek to lighten the workload for teachers and make it easier for them to focus on math and reading, subjects with which students are struggling. As Liberty Nation has reported, “new data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show scores nationwide in all tested grades and subjects remain below pre-pandemic levels.” Fourth- and eighth-graders declined in reading again. A third of eighth-grade students can’t even read at a basic level. Perhaps discussing children’s feelings during class isn’t the best way to improve literacy. Students aren’t learning math and history by assessing their mood bracelets, a practice one Delaware teacher boasted about to Time magazine.
Teachers aren’t responsible for the ubiquitous use of SEL. They are merely doing as they’re told. Many may think it is great and look forward to discussing emotions with the kids and learning about their thoughts, but that’s why counselors are there. Critics of SEL believe it is being used to spread diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, “such as reflecting on personal and social identities, examining prejudices and biases, interrogating social norms, disrupting and resisting inequities.” That’s actually the framework for Transformative SEL, according to Time.
This is what Deshpande means when she says we need to cut the red tape and unleash educators’ potential. They are too restricted. “[I]f we want students to succeed, we should want teachers to succeed,” she said in her report. “To assign teachers the entire blame for student failure is to ignore the actual goliath in education: a bloated educational system enabled and funded by a bloated government that teachers have little control over or ability to influence.”
The government has been involved in public education for well over a century, and it seems that as the two have intertwined, the more complicated the teaching process has become. President Donald Trump has often talked about abolishing the Department of Education, but he needs Congress’ approval to do it. Perhaps a stronger focus on prioritizing academic excellence, minimizing mandates, and rewarding teacher success and creativity is just what the principal ordered.
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