If William Bennett’s tenure as Secretary of Education will be remembered for any one thing, it will probably be for his efforts to improve the content of the curricula taught in schools and universities. From his booklets on “What Works” in public schools, to speaking up for requiring university students to read the classics of Western civilization, he has striven mightily for improvement in not only how but what our young people are taught.
At his last news conference before departing from the Department, Bennet launched his new booklet called the “Hames Madison Elementary School Curriculum.” It makes a strong please for improved content in elementary grade materials and provides a sample of what an exemplary core curriculum would be for Kindergarten through the eight grade.
Unfortunately, only about one-fourth of public elementary schools measure up to the standards set forth in the Bennett booklet. The rest of them are taking children through boring, repetitious, vocabulary-controlled materials that turn off promising students and completely fail to prepare students for contract with the great literary works of our culture.
The model curriculum of Bennett’s mythical James Madison School specifies that, from the first grade on, students should be introduced to the classics of children’s literature. In addition, they should be given a rigorous schedule of mathematics and science, plus “early continuous and cumulative instruction in history, geography and civics.”
Bennett points out that current so-called “educational wisdom often stands opposed to common sense; today, unfortunately, much of it also stands opposed to content.” In teacher training institutions, content-rich materials are derided as “rote learning” and “mere facts,” and teachers are falsely told that children can be taught “higher-order thinking skills” without first acquiring specific knowledge.
Bennett cites several prominent authorities who have criticized the current low-level content of school materials. Harvard University’s Jeanne Chall has identified a “4th grade slump” in reading comprehension. One reason probably is, as Bruno Bettleheim has pointed out, that school books are so dull.
The most important part of this learning process is the first grade where phonics must be taught if the child is to progress further. Bennett says that phonics instruction should be completed in the second grade and, within a short time thereafter, the child should no longer be “learning to read, but should be reading to learn.”
The local and state policymakers for the three-fourths of our 81,000 elementary schools that do not have course content that measures up to the James Madison curriculum may or may not accept Bennett’s challenge. His booklet drew predictably snide comments from some in the education establishment who either refuse to admit that public schools are a problem or take the elitist view that some children cannot be taught the classics.
Bennett encourages parents to get involved in the curriculum content area; he thinks that “determining goals for elementary curricula isn’t an esoteric or scientific pursuit for experts only.” Accordingly, Bennett’s booklet contains reading lists for all the elementary grades to which parents can refer and on which they can rely.
By consulting these lists, parents can test whether their local schools are assigning worthwhile books or waste-of-time books. Parents can guide their children to select the better books from optional reading lists or the school library.
When Professor E. D. Hirsch, Jr., of the University of Virginia wrote his 1987 book called “Cultural Literacy,” he uncovered a curious situation that appeared to be news to the education establishment. He said that, at the first-grade level, middle-class and disadvantaged students perform about equally; that is, all pupils learn what they are taught.
About the fourth grade, however, Hirsch discovered that the children from middle-class homes, who have acquired more background and general information along the way, perform significantly better, while those who lack the basic knowledge required for significant reading begin to be left permanently behind.
Hirsch concluded that cultural literacy is necessary for academic achievement in high school, college and adult life. Secretary Bennett, as his parting gift to America from inside the walls of the Department of Education, has given us a formula and a tool which parents can use to start their children on the track to cultural literacy.
