A problem in perception?

The world is watching the situation in Iran. Demonstrators continue to fill the streets to protest President Ahmadinejad’s suspicious re-election. A flood of cell phone multimedia nearly caused the crash of Twitter and Facebook. Iranian’s Guardian Council has been unable to censor reality. The government’s harsh crackdown on demonstrators has been fruitless. CNN reported web traffic to increase fivefold. Neda, the young women murdered by Iranian authorities, is a symbol of the unrest. Historians already believe oppressed Iranian women and the disenfranchised will rally around her tragic, public death. The American perception of Iran is outdated. I am a social studies teacher. I will accept a share of the blame. We see Iran as a terrorist country. President Bush categorized it as an “Axis of Evil” nation. The firebrand Ayatollah Khomeini and his anti-American rhetoric come to mind. Blindfolded U.S. diplomats held at gunpoint for 444 days by radical Iranian students. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed the Holocaust was a myth and Israel should be wiped off the map. U.S. society and culture depicts a stereotypical image of Iran. Just watch the movie 300. The Greek Spartans are noble, brave, and selfless. The Persians are a barbaric horde of monsters bent on world domination. The Persian civilization actually was a tolerant Middle Eastern empire that codified the human rights ideology. Modern Iran is full of young people, over half the population thirty-five and younger. They enjoy dancing, wine, cell phones, and the Internet. Many of them want to wear western style clothing. Their Islamic government kept them alienated from the West for quite some time. Not that case anymore. Unfortunately, America limits Iran to its Islamic-cleric led rogue state government. We witness Iranian’s agitating for freedom. They want to be part of the international community of nations.

This is a long-winded history teacher introduction. In my defense we are witnessing history in the making. Our perceptions of one another are changing.

I will never compare America and Iran. I believe everyday Iranian and American people have lots in common. Middle Eastern geopolitics has cast us on different courses. Western colonialism, petroleum, and Cold War containment has drastically altered the course of the Middle East and every nation in the region. We are different in too many ways to list. America is the original cradle of democracy. The U.S. has been freedom’s watchdog for as long as people can remember. The Bill of Rights protects personal freedoms and civil liberties that cannot be denied by the state. The first amendment safeguards freedom of speech. However, it does not always guarantee the truth. Lies, allegations, and falsehoods come with the territory. People are always interested in twisting information for person and collective gain.

There are inaccurate perceptions here at home. Are American public schools failing? Overwhelmingly yes, say politicians and bureaucrats. Is this actually the case? The issue has created fierce division.

President Clinton’s Secretary of Education Richard Riley once said, "we need to stop dumbing down our children, and reach up and set high expectations.” A Horace Mann League listed “negative perceptions about public educators” as the number one factor detrimental to the success of public schools. Teachers are getting a bad rap. Apparently, we are the ones to blame for a problem that may or may not exist. A 1995 Berliner and Biddle study learned that a majority of Americans would send their children to private school if they could afford it.


Here is some insight from the social studies word. Public schools have been criticized throughout U.S. history. The Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite created a “Space Race,” Suddenly, we were lagging behind the superior Russian science and math programs. Today, the information age has created a hyperawareness. Computers and technology have us continuously connected to our society. The passing of pop icon Michael Jackson is a great example. Instantly, our ears are to the ground, waiting for the bad news. American parents fear their children are falling behind a cheaper and more educated Chinese and Indian workforce. Bill Gates Sr. said on a NPR radio interview that the conditions of American public education are very, very poor. ABC News reporter John Stossel angered teachers by airing a 20/20 program titled Stupid in America, How Lack of Choice Cheats our Kids out of a Good Education.


The onslaught of standardized tests results from this criticism. People want evidence that American youth are learning. I believe the testing movement is further degrading teacher’s instructional quality. The stage is set for a self-fulfilling prophecy. My previous blog mentions the law of unintended consequences. This distortion of truth has created perfect conditions for this phenomenon.
What are some of the other consequences, intended or unintended, of all this negative publicity?

Americans must be exposed to the good news. There is plenty of it.

CNN learned Americans favor are willing to give up some control of their school district in exchange for federal funding. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune poll determined that three-fourths of Minnesotans opposed cuts to K-12 spending.

Berliner and Biddle noted that Americans have more than double our population enrolled in college. One-fourth will graduate with a bachelor’s degree, the highest in the world. Over eighty percent of Americans have attained a secondary education. That is higher than Japan, Britain, and France. A Gallup poll survey found that seventy-six percent of parents are completely or somewhat satisfied with their kid’s public school.

Chapter nine of our textbook tells us about testing. The National Science Foundation learned U.S. States represented twelve of the top twenty international thirteen-year old math students. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, American thirteen-year olds hold fourteen of the two fifteen sciences rankings worldwide. The Programme for International Student Assessment pegged American readers among the world’s highest scores. The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) found the U.S. reading literacy second best among thirty-five nations. The Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and other G-8 Countries: 2002 compared Canada, France, England, Germany, Japan, Italy, Russia, and the U.S. American fourth grade math and science students were second only to Japan. Fourteen-year old Americans led the G-8 in total civic knowledge and civic skills.

I also think a lack of cultural understanding plays a part. U.S. students are frequently compared to Asian students. They are told how much more polite, hardworking, and successful these students are. Japanese and Korean students outperform American students science and math tests. Asian math and science students have led the world for decades. However, students from these countries compete fiercely for entrance into every level of schooling. They spend more days in school. We spend more hours. Families spend their own money on cram schools and tutors. Japan, Germany, and Switzerland all spend more money on education. The stakes are unbelievably high. Of course they would score higher on these tests.

I have to address the opposition. Somebody should always play devil’s advocate. You can do anything you want with statistics. And there are plenty of those to go around as well. According to national tests, one-third of American students could do reading and math at their current grade level. One-fourth of American students drop out.
I have provided a lot of tests and statistics to peruse through. Long story short, researcher David C. Berliner said, “The fundamental premise behind the No Child Left Behind Act is that the public schools of the United States are falling. But that is a half-truth at best.”

Here the brass tacks and the bottom-line. The truth needs to come out. American teachers are doing a great job. American students stack up with the rest of the world. We are losing educators at a crisis rate. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. The truth will set you free. Nonetheless, we should always strive to improve.