Since the founding of our country, America has taken an interest in the education of her children. Even back in Ohio's pioneer days, a part of every community had a tract of land available for public education. These were generally one-room schoolhouses, having eight grades sitting in rows, with a recitation bench at the front of the room. A pot-bellied stove usually kept things habitable during the long winter months, although children near the stove generally roasted, and those farther away nearly froze to death. In the summer, of course, children stayed at home to help their families with the farming and housework.

Still, there was no question that a good education transpired back then. William McGuffey was a professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and he developed a series of sequential readers for children. McGuffey's readers came out in 1836 (the year that the Alamo fell!) and soon dominated American reading education. Beginning with the primer, the series proceeded through many reading and spelling lessons and stories that built effective reading skills, often intertwined with moral and patriotic themes.

Teachers often taught with minimal equipment or visual aids. At times, slates and chalk were used by the children for their answers, as were hornbooks, quill pens, and inkwells. Punishments were severe on occasion, but were generally fair, and virtually always supported by the parents.

From the beginning, however, there were those who were uncomfortable with America's system of free public education. Catholics started their own schools, feeling that the public schools imparted too much of a Protestant value system. Others resisted education because they wanted their children home to work or to take care of younger children. Relatively few children planned to go to school beyond the eighth grade. Often, there was a daunting eighth grade test to pass before a diploma could be awarded.

Also, there was serious disagreement at times as to what exactly should be taught to our children. Those of you who think that the creation vs.evolution argument is a new one would be surprised to learn that Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan argued these positions during the Tennesee Scopes trial way back in 1925.

Essentially, education advocates have either taken progressive or conservative viewpoints, leaving little room for compromise. Conservatives argue that values need to be addressed and social and even religious norms should be supported by educators. They also frequently take a dim view of controversial topics, like sex education and do-your-own-thing coursework. They often are the supporters of the core subjects, as well as rigid regimentation, even to the point of enforced school uniforms and rigid standards.

Progressives, on the other hand, often feel that conservatives impede progress. They generally support sex education, evolution, and a more diverse and open curriculum responding to a diverse population. They would probably favor keeping religion separate from the classroom as well, due to the many faiths present in the public schools.

Unfortunately, in the last few years, parents, educators, and politicians have brought the culture wars into the classroom. Science curriculums continually resound with the creation/evolution debate. English classrooms deal with colloquial vernacular issues, and everybody deals with the proficiency tests.

A few years ago, in a bi-partisan action, the Federal "No Child Left Behind" law was passed. On its face, the law appeared to address many of the concerns in the American classroom. Additional, but arguably inadequate, monies were allotted amid hopes that educational quality would improve for all children.

With the new federal and state mandates came more rules. The State of Ohio initiated "Standards Based" academic education, as well as an annual testing program. This testing, along with improvement rates, became the crucial part of the overall evaluation process for the schools, the other two measurements being attendance and graduation rates. By now, you've probably heard that Lakewood Public Schools dropped this year from "effective" to "continuous improvement." What, exactly, does this mean? Well, all it really means is that our schools were measured only by tests administered, adequate yearly progress, graduation rate, and attendance rate. Period. Allowances for a myriad of other variables were simply not considered.

Now, proponents of "No Child Left Behind" would argue that the bar for excellence has been raised to the point where more students than ever are experiencing success. Unfortunately, however, many children have been unable to compete at this higher expectancy, and have dropped out and turned to the streets. Asking all students to go through the same "cattle chute" in education at the same time in their lives has often brought an undue burden on the learning-disabled and on children with limited English abilities or severe economic disadvantages.

It can be hard to do homework if you have to look after your brothers and sisters, or lie awake at night, making sure the rats don't nibble on your toes. If you recently came from some bombed-out country and know little English, let alone the fact that you might never have been to school due to being in a refugee camp for years, how can you be expected to keep up with your studies as well? The government does make some allowances for these types of things, but in my opinion, these are superficial and inadequate efforts.

In fact, in my opinion, much of school continues to be superficial and inadequate. Take, for example, this notion that all children should be forced through the same cattle-chute of expectations. Do most people really need to know Plane Geometry? Scatter plots? Algebra? Trigonometry? Calculus? All the state capitals? And who, in their right mind, would ever need to have Chemistry's Periodic Table of the Elements memorized? Do you remember some of those books they made you read? Have you seen some of the books that some schools are having children read today? Gag. Give me a break.

I have an honors cum laude university degree, and I've had to attend post-graduate classes for years to update my certificates. If you ask me how much of this academic regimen I have been able to apply, either in my life or in my teaching profession, I would have to say: Darned little.

By the second grade, I could read just about anything. Heck, I read Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in the third grade. By the fifth grade, I could write about as well as I do now. The only improvements would come with vocabulary and life's experiences. I learned all the math I would ever need by the sixth grade, except for the rudimentary algebra and geometry learned in high school that I could help my students with later.

About the only other things I remember learning in the middle and high school grades were how to fight and survive the other students and how to endure the repetitous boredom of the American classroom.

There were a few good teachers, and a few good classes, of course. Dad taught my band and orchestra classes at Harding. Mr. Silverman did a good job with opening up the world beyond the classroom to me in his Social Studies classes at Harding, and at the high school.

Many of the rest of my experiences, and particularly some in my college years, could only be described as a useless Hell, or at least a form of pugnacious purgatory. Virtually nothing that I was presented with in higher education (with a few notable exceptions) prepared me for my first fifteen minutes as a classroom teacher.

As you can tell, after thirty-one years in education, teaching children with special needs, I've come to a few opinionated conclusions regarding our schools. We need to be more flexible, compassionate and responsive to our children. A Math teacher recently complained to me that there was no time to teach for mastery. He could only cover content superficially, moving from topic to topic, whether kids got the concepts or not. Music, Home Skills, Art, and Industrial Education teachers often feel marginalized, as their subjects no longer "count" in the evaluation of a school.

Academic tests, attendance, and graduation rates are the only measurements presently being used to rate our schools, and there are huge questions, in my mind at least, about how accurate they are and how much they address the needs of the exceptional populations.

In the eighth grade, a child may not be able to analyze the iambic pentameter of Lord Byron's "Sonnet on Chillon," but he or she might do well on the trumpet, or with some project down in the shop class. Measure that... and you might get closer to effective educational outcomes.

To try to force all children into a collegiate academic regimen is simply a failure to recognize and respond to the many needs and diverse talents that all children have. All children can indeed learn, but there are a great many things to learn. Vocational programs need to be updated and academic diversity encouraged, so that no child will truly ever be left behind.

Oh yeah...maybe it would be well for us all to read "Sonnet on Chillon" one more time. Particularly the part where it says:

Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou art:--
For there thy habitation is the heart,--