MEDIOCRITY

In 2019, the National Education Association’s “Representative Assembly” considered the resolution that “NEA will make student learning the priority of the Association”—and then voted it down (!).

New Book Mediocrity Distills the Concerns About Public Schooling

By Frederick M. Hess
AEIdeas
20 April 2023

For a very long time, the impulse to denounce “failing government schools” has done for conservative school reformers what “defund the police” did for left-wing criminal justice reformers. It’s a slogan that energizes adherents but alienates the lion’s share of Americans. That’s because most Americans like their local public schools. Even when they’re down on the nation’s schools as a whole, Americans have consistently said (for a half-century) that they like their kids’ schools. It’s a lot like how the public feels about Congress: Voters inevitably hate Congress but love their own representative.

School choice advocates have long had trouble accepting this, or the courses of action it recommends: One, offer the public options without attacking their schools; two, convince them that there are problems in their local schools which they haven’t fully appreciated. Well, the recent explosion of school choice legislation has shown how the pandemic and the proliferation of extreme racial and gender ideologies have fueled a hunger for more options, without necessarily requiring school choice advocates to spend as much time making the case against public schools.

Indeed, on the second count, the last several years have made it all too easy to critique public education on the merits, without having to rely on over-the-top sloganeering. After all, we’ve seen massive infusions of cash coupled with prolonged school closures, devastating declines in test scores, school reopenings delayed by unions working back channels at the CDC, a push by the National School Boards Association to have frustrated parents investigated by the federal government as “domestic terrorists”—well, you get the idea.

For readers seeking a useful survey of these issues, Libertas Institute president Connor Boyack and American Federation for Children senior fellow Corey DeAngelis have published a useful new resource. In Mediocrity, they use the 40th anniversary of the seminal A Nation at Risk report to make a wide-ranging case that public schools are too often falling short. Its 40 short, easy-to-read chapters offer a mix of anecdotes, compelling media snippets, and data points on school closures, spending, school safety, curricula, unionization, and much more.

Some of what Boyack and DeAngelis share is particularly telling. In their chapter on “Schools: A Jobs Program for Adults,” they note that public school spending increased by 21 percent from 2002 to 2019, after adjusting for inflation, but that more than 64 percent of those funds were consumed by employee benefits. In the chapter “Politics > Education,” they recount that, in 2019, the National Education Association’s “Representative Assembly” considered the resolution that “NEA will make student learning the priority of the Association”—and then voted it down (!).

Mediocrity will be a timely resource for those seeking an accessible distillation as to where the nation’s public schools are coming up short.

MARK STEYN

Mark Steyn

From The New Criterion January 2004

[19 years ago]

It would be more accurate to say that American high school graduates are the most expensive illiterates in the world. In real terms, education spending has quadrupled in the last four decades to the point where America now lavishes more on its school students than any other country except Switzerland—in 1999, the Swiss spent $9,756 per pupil, the U.S. $8,157, Japan $6,039, Canada $5,981, the United Kingdom $5,608, Spain $4,864, etc. But the Swiss at least have something to show for that ten thousand bucks. By fourth grade, much of the damage done by U.S. teachers becomes irretrievable: that's the age at which a competent student stops learning to read and starts reading to learn. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, in 1998 only 29 percent of American fourth graders achieved such proficiency. 

 The cost to the taxpayer of educating each student to that point was $30,945. Yet, given the 71 percent failure rate, the real cost to taxpayers of producing a proficient fourth grade reader is $30,945 divided by 29 percent or $107,000. In the District of Columbia, it takes almost half a million dollars to produce one proficient fourth grade reader: when you look at it like that, it would be cheaper and more efficient to pluck children at random and send them to boarding school in Switzerland.

POGROMS

Retreat from the major cities in the south brought out the worst in the Whites, as the terrible massacre of 2,000 Jews in Ekaterinburg had shown earlier in the year. But the Whites were not the only perpetrators. It is estimated that there were some 1,300 anti-Semitic pogroms in Ukraine during the civil war, with some 50,000 to 60,000 Jews killed by both sides. There were pogroms in Belarus as well, but they were not nearly as murderous as those in Ukraine. In total, a Soviet report of 1920 mentions 150,000 dead and as many again badly injured.

Petliura’s Ukrainian nationalists had led the way. ‘It had been quiet for a little while after the terrible Gajdamak pogroms,’ Konstantin Paustovsky wrote of Kiev in 1919. ‘And it stayed quiet for a while after Denikin took over. For the present they were not touching the Jews. Occasionally, but only at some distance from the busier streets, a few Junkers with drug-crazed eyes, prancing on their horses, would sing their favourite song: Black Hussars! Save our Russia, beat the Jews. For they are the commissars! But after the Soviet forces had retaken Orel and begun to drive southwards, the mood of the Whites changed. Pogroms started in the little towns and villages of the Ukraine.’ Outside their own territory, Cossacks acted all too often as if they were in an enemy country where anything was permitted.

Churchill was well aware of the effect of anti-Semitic pogroms on public opinion in the West and had already written to General Holman. ‘It is of the very highest consequence that General Denikin should not only do everything in his power to prevent massacres of the Jews in the liberated districts but should issue a proclamation against anti-Semitism. Considering that anti-Semitism is so much more pronounced among Petliura’s men than in the Volunteer Army, it ought to be possible to make a strong distinction between the methods of the two forces. The Jews are very powerful in England and if it could be shown that Denikin was protecting them as his armies advanced it would make my task easier.’

Churchill then wrote to Denikin himself. ‘I know the efforts you have already made and the difficulty of restraining anti-Semitic feeling. But I beg you as a sincere well-wisher, to redouble those efforts and place me in a strong position to vindicate the honour of the Volunteer Army.’ Denikin had issued a number of edicts against pogroms, but since some of his most successful generals refused to comply or even encouraged them, he did nothing more. Churchill may have finally realised that General Dragomirov, the governor of Kiev, was ‘the kind of military martinet who is particularly unfitted for civil administration’, yet he still seemed unaware that Dragomirov had allowed one of the worst anti-Semitic pogroms of the war to continue in Kiev for six days. The Times correspondent in South Russia, a New Zealander and extraordinary linguist called Dr Harold Williams, wrote to the Foreign Office and Churchill: ‘You can have no idea of the bitterness against the Jews right through Russia. Bolshevism is identified in everybody’s eyes with Jewish rule.’

Williams found that although Volunteer Army officers hated Jews, they were not the ones who started pogroms. ‘The Cossacks are bad and it is hard to restrain them. They are great robbers and they have a most violent antipathy to Jews.’ This was especially true of Ukrainian atamans, such as Grigoriev, but there are conflicting versions about Makhno’s followers, who included quite a number of Jews. Budyonny’s cavalrymen were also guilty. ‘The curious thing,’ Williams concluded, ‘although it is not curious if you understand the popular feeling—is that the Red soldiers pogrom when they get a chance. In Gomel they massacred about half the Jews in town (a tenth probably because the Jews and everyone else exaggerate the figures frightfully). And they often chalk up on their troop trains “Beat the Jews and Save Russia”.’

Antony Beevor, Russia (391-394). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

READING

Reading—or reading with a fervent purpose in philosophy, history, and literature—is vanishing from the lives of Americans, especially the young. The number of people who read for pleasure—and the serious reading of an autodidact is very much a worthy pleasure, as my friend has shown—has declined 30 percent since 2004. Twenty-eight percent of Americans used to read for pleasure; this number has now fallen to just 19 percent. For people who do read, the amount of time they devote to it has also significantly declined—more so for men. And for those who revere reading and consider themselves to be bibliophiles and bookhounds, the fact that only 43 percent of adults have read one novel, one short story, one poem, or one play in the past year is enough to throw a person into the clutches of literary despair.

Reading is often a predictor for success in life. In 2018, the Pew Research Center reported that adults with incomes of less than $30,000 per year are three times as likely as affluent households to be “non-book readers.” For children the results are even starker. Two-thirds of the country’s poorest children do not own a single book. And yet, the benefits of reading for pleasure are enormous. As Miranda McKearney, co-founder of the Reading Agency, a British charity that encourages reading and literacy, has powerfully stated, reading is this “nearly magical thing that can bust you out of poverty.” The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has suggested that encouraging reading might be “one of the most effective ways to leverage social change.” Oxford University researchers studying all of the extracurricular activities sixteen-year-olds participate in found that only one has significant benefits in the workplace later in life: reading for pleasure.

Living in a home that possesses a private library, or even the mere presence of books, has profound advantages for children. Researchers looking at statistics from twenty-seven different nations concluded that families that have books at home “give children an enormous advantage in school.” Books can teach us directly—as in books on mathematics or philosophy or science or engineering. They can help us place ourselves in time—as in history books. They can show us the variety of human experience—as in historical biographies. They can expand our imagination—as in a novel. They can inspire—as in a memorable line of poetry. Most of all, they can put us in touch with some of the greatest minds in history.

JeremyAdams, Hollowed Out: A Warning about America's Next Generation (87-88). Regnery Publishing. Kindle Edition.

UKRAINE WINTER

Beyond the obvious dichotomy between the weakness of German forces and the profligacy of German plans, a new factor was slowly coming into the mix, which would impact with ever worsening consequences for the Ostheer. On 25 August, the first day of Guderian's offensive into the Ukraine, Ernst Guicking, a soldier from the 52nd Infantry Division, wrote home to his wife: ‘Here the Russian autumn is gradually becoming noticeable. The wind already blusters through the branches.’13 Days later, on 1 September, Hans Pichler complained in his diary, ‘In recent days it has become noticeably cold and, as a result, there is no chance to properly dry the damp blankets, boots and clothes.’ The following day (2 September) Guicking wrote home in another letter, ‘At the moment we have terrible weather. It rained the whole night long and it does not look as though it is going to stop. It really seems as though it is gradually becoming winter.’ The implications of such seasonal changes were not lost on the men.

Solomon Perel noted that as the colder weather was setting in, the soldiers of the 12th Panzer Division began drawing ominous parallels with Napoleon's fate. By contrast, at the highest echelons of the Nazi state concerns about the changing weather were not permitted to alter belief in the final victory. On 27 August, after having been informed about the poor weather conditions on the eastern front, Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary, ‘It will not make it easy for us to win this war. Yet once we have won it, then the difficulties we are now experiencing, which are causing the greatest concerns, will appear as only pleasant memories.’ In a similar fashion, the chief of the operations department of the Luftwaffe, Major-General Hoffman von Waldau, commented in his diary on 9 September, ‘We are heading for a winter campaign. The real trial of this war has begun, the belief in final victory remains.’

David Stahel, Kiev 1941 (175). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

GREAT SPARROW CAMPAIGN

The complete immersion into Communism opened the door for one of the government’s main ideas: to exploit nature for human benefit. For this reason, Mao made his slogan, Ren ding shen tian, which means “Man must conquer nature.” His belief that natural assets like rivers and mountains could be controlled by man, as their purpose entirely was to serve man, was seen in the Great Leap Forward as well as in the Patriotic Health Campaign (which includes the Four Pests Campaign). The phrase “transform the nation,” found in the duties and goals of the CCP in the Patriotic Health Campaign, correlates with Mao’s dream for China’s progress. In particular, he believed that the Four Pests would advance his country’s agricultural production by removing impediments like sparrows, one of the four pests, which ate the grains and diminished the health of the producers. In his calculations, one sparrow consumed 4.5 kg of grains a year, leading Chairman Mao to state that for every 1 million sparrows killed, there would be food available for 60,000 people. According to this logic, by controlling nature and eliminating sparrows, Mao saw agricultural production as the stage on which his triumph would be played.

Historically, China had been able to accomplish massive projects because of its greatest advantage: a colossal labor force. By mobilizing the efforts of hundreds of millions of people together, mostly anything set out by the leader to be done, could be done. As a result, Mao sought to mobilize the peasant masses to concentrate on agriculture and industry using a tool that he often turned to his advantage: propaganda. For example, one of the propaganda posters used for the extermination of sparrows (The Great Sparrow Campaign) in the Four Pests Campaign had the caption, written in, “Everybody comes to beat the sparrows.” In this poster, two children are depicted; a young boy is holding a slingshot, presumably aimed at a sparrow not shown in the image, while a younger girl is holding several dead sparrows. The overall message is that the sparrow is the enemy, and suggests there is a war between man and nature. The rural village in the background emphasizes the effort put into this campaign by the people who live in the countryside. It also reveals that Mao saw the farmers as the key to his program; they are the brawn behind everything. Furthermore, the use of children in the poster draws in a community effort, as it presents a fact that even the youth are helping this effort. Having a mass work-force of hundreds of millions of people not only accelerated the country as a whole, but also accelerated Mao Zedong’s visions of improving both the industrial and agricultural sectors of China.

Unlike the Soviet Union, which focused more heavily on industry, China spread its efforts across two production areas, both of which demanded harsh quotas and grueling expectations. Now that the peasants had to fixate on industry and agriculture, their whole lives revolved around production. Yet the peasants found trouble with agriculture. In collectivizing the labour force of peasants, Mao had completely changed the lives of those who lived in the rural areas, they “were robbed of their work, their homes, their land, their belongings and their livelihood.” In the spring of 1958, Mao accelerated collectivization and increased agricultural targets. His slogan was, “going all out, aiming high, and achieving more, faster and more economical results.” This slogan suggests that nothing would hinder Mao, not even the lives of rural peasants. Mao focused entirely on the results and would defy anyone and do anything to obtain those results. 

One of the main ways to achieve his objectives was the Great Sparrow Campaign, which drew on the peasants’ emotions and sense of a community to persuade them to join the campaign. Meant for use in school, one poster titled “Eliminating the last sparrow,”developed in 1959, exemplifies the heedless nature of the campaign. This poster features a sequence of two images, the first of which has a group of nine males, almost all holding shotguns, surrounding a barren tree with a lone sparrow resting on a branch. The next photo on the poster is the same group of males (adults and adolescents), but this time, they are surrounding the “last sparrow” that they just killed. All smile broadly, doubtless because they recognize their actions as beneficial and praiseworthy. This poster, by combining various age groups, demonstrates that eliminating sparrows and the other four pests requires everyone. Successfully recruiting a broad community effort is one of the main things that catapulted the Great Sparrow Campaign into such astonishing results in such a short time. 

The equation for improving agricultural production was unbalanced and unworkable without commitment from the people. The numbers of people involved in these campaigns were not limited to those living in the countryside; all citizens were in a war with the pests, notably the sparrows. Their personal accounts express what would happen daily, ranging from building scarecrows to continually banging kitchenware all for the sole purpose of exterminating sparrows and protecting their grain. People played their roles successfully—almost too successfully. Despite the impressive data, their personal stories and experiences reveal a darker side to the numbers. By November of 1958, less than a year into the campaign, 1.98 billion sparrows were killed. The primary technique used to eliminate the birds was to keep them flying until they died of exhaustion, which normally took four hours. To achieve this, citizens fired guns, drummed, and did anything that they could do in order to keep the birds in the air:

I saw that a young woman was running to and fro...waving a bamboo pole with a large sheet attached to it...I realized that in all the upper stories of the hotel, white clad females were waving sheets and towels that were supposed to keep the sparrows from alighting on the building...During the whole day, it was drums, gunshots, screams, and waving bedclothes...The strategy behind this war on the sparrows boiled down to keeping the poor creature from coming to rest on a rod of tree…[I]t was claimed that a sparrow kept in the air for more than four hours was bound to drop from exhaustion.

The above account discloses the efforts used in the Four Pests Campaign. And almost every citizen was involved, as Mao put the Campaign as one of the highest priorities, emphasized by the description of the Campaign as a war. The resulting noise—screams and gunshots—left no room for negligence, or thinking that the war against the sparrows was insignificant.

Mao exploited many other avenues in this campaign. In addition to mobilizing the peasants in the countryside, he targeted citizens in the cities. In Peking, every morning at 5 A.M., the radio would broadcast the song, “Arise, arise, O millions with one heart; braving the enemy’s fire, march on.” This revolutionary anthem was sung for the students going out to battle the sparrow population. They would bang cymbals, blow whistles, and beat kitchenware, using the same technique of making the sparrows die of fatigue. Education and regular activities were replaced with the duties of a soldier at war with the sparrows.

The Results
The Great Leap Forward and the Four Pests Campaign did not increase grain quantity, but resulted in the opposite. Sparrows play many roles, and not all of them are harmful to agriculture. They are the main predator for locusts, an insect which has a diet that primarily consists of grass and grain. The Desert Locust, specifically, targets the last moist part of the plant beneath the ear, causing complete loss of the grain. With the elimination of the sparrows, locust populations boomed and locust swarms would feast on the grain across the country. Locust outbreaks were common starting in the 1940s in China, as outbreaks occurred 1-2 years after El Niños and droughts. Floods and droughts created environments ideal for locusts to lay their eggs, as the survival rate increased with lack of rainfall. The largest damage often occurred just before the harvest was taken, “as swarms of locusts would obscure the sky and cover the countryside under a bristling blanket, devouring the crop...In the Jingzhou region more than 50,000 hectares were devastated.” The amount of grain that the growing population of locusts ate was far greater than what the sparrows would have eaten. Chairman Mao either did not know how to, or did not care to, make the calculations. 

If Mao had heeded the experts or even listened to his fellow members of the CCP, the Great Famine would probably have not occurred. He knew little about the environment or animals, and this deficit, combined with his refusal to consult, led to the death of 45 million people. Mao knew one thing only about the plans he was executing; sparrows eat grain. He ignored the issues of biodiversity, and refused to contemplate how removing sparrows might affect the ecology in China. Chinese experts had expressed opposition to this idea, but Mao distrusted intellectuals; in fact, he had millions of academics denounced and killed, so that no one would be able to criticize him. Mao raised ignorance to a higher level by disregarding and disposing of opposing opinions, with disastrous results. The pattern of eliminating anyone who criticized his actions carried on to the Lushan Conference, as we will see. Mao’s pride made him and his country vulnerable to disasters. 

The extermination of sparrows was also accompanied, ironically, by China’s ceaseless exports of grain, despite its starving citizens. In early 1959, in a secret meeting, Mao ordered the seizure of more than 30% of the available grain, an unprecedented rise in demand. Regarding the issue of exporting grain while people were dying of starvation, Mao observed, “It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.” The Chairman evidently was not concerned about his rapidly declining population, and as suggested by his words, encouraged the deaths of some so that others might be content. Mao placed China’s economic success above his people’s lives—illustrating where his true loyalty lay.
……
The Endgame
In the winter of 1960-1961, the government discovered how bad the situation had become and began to import grain and food from the West in efforts to rebuild the population. In January of 1962, Liu Shaoqi noted that the famine was caused by man, eroding support for the Chairman. Once Mao recognized that the Great Leap Forward and the killing of sparrows needed to stop and that he made “severe mistakes,” he was forced to import more than 200,000 sparrows from the Soviet Union to replace China’s wild population. During this transaction, even the Soviet Union’s scientists recognized the obvious fact that experts were not consulted, and that Mao acted solely on his own. Mao Zedong only acknowledged the reality that he had squandered the lives of his people when investigations revealed what his decisions had created.