I do not remember the term exceptionalism used in the seventies when I moved south. The word had been around for quite some time in political writings. I encountered people all the time who were proud of their heritage, their lilting southern accent, and Judeo-Christian values. They opened their homes and their churches to any newcomer, foreign or domestic, and welcomed them with a healthy dose of southern wit, apple pie, and fear of God.
The small conservative community was a cocoon of safety in their collective Americanism and pride. Nobody was ashamed of being American or harboring feelings of misplaced guilt that their ancestors had committed grave errors in their “imperialistic quest of the world.”
The Americans I was meeting were proud that they had liberated Europe of fascist Italy and Germany, that they had put an end to the advancement of the Japanese Empire. Slavery had been abolished, they were all Americans; people had left feelings of hurt behind them. Nobody was talking about hyphenated Americans. They shared a common language, English, in a rich, melting pot. There was no press 2 for Spanish. The divisive liberal concept of mixing bowl and multi-culturalism had not taken root yet.
There was great pride in owning an American passport and a privilege to travel abroad representing America. Foreigners admired Americans and wished publicly to emulate their uniqueness. Many dreamed that someday, they would be able to immigrate to the land of plenty.
I was curious how the education system worked that had produced so many successful writers, engineers, doctors, artists, and architects. What were their secrets? Was it really the school system? Was their deep faith in God? Was it the freedom, independence, vast lands, and wide-open spaces? Was it the natural resources? Was the political system of checks and balances, or a combination of all of the above?
I was in awe that so few farmers could produce so much food not just for the domestic consumption but to export to other countries and help those in dire need from catastrophic occurrences.
I admired the selfless American volunteerism of missionaries who put their lives on the line in faraway places to improve the worldly and spiritual lives of people who were seldom appreciative or thankful.
I visited the local high school to understand the concept of superintendent. I understood principals, the counterparts of school directors in Europe. Counselor was a strange profession. Did people really need to be told what to study? Was it not obvious whether you excelled in math and science and should pursue such a field or that you were perhaps better in humanities? Why would you bus students to school when they lived less than two miles from school? Whatever happened to walking? Why feed students in school? Is that not the parents’ job?
I learned slowly that the elementary or secondary education system were not responsible for American exceptionalism. I witnessed a principal hold the entire student body and faculty hostage in an auditorium for eight hours awaiting State Department of Education investigators because five graduating seniors had the audacity to prank their own dorm lobby by spray-painting poetry on the walls. It did not suffice to suspend the five and make them repay the damage as well as repaint the lobby; they had to be expelled one week before graduation, with no diplomas. I realized that zero tolerance was the hallmark of total control by communist administrators and faculty.
The National Education Association had a very powerful lobby in primary and secondary education. Their members were certainly not the brightest and the best prepared graduates of the College of Education, but were licensed by the state.
I also learned after thirty years of college teaching that exceptionalism did not come from higher education either. Communist indoctrinators made up a high percentage of the faculty, particularly those who staffed the College of Education, English, Foreign Languages, Psychology, Sociology, Counseling, Social Work, Women Studies, and any other department that offered degrees in “studies of.”
The first Department of Education was created in 1867, demoted in 1868 to just an office in the Department of Interior, transferred to the Federal Security Agency in 1939 and renamed the Office of Education. In 1953, the Federal Security Agency became the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
Jimmy Carter signed into law The Department of Education Organization Act on October 17, 1979 thus dividing The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare into the Department of Education and The Department of Health and Human Services. The Department of Education began operating on May 16, 1980 and thus began the dumbing down of American education.
I wonder how education fared in the U.S. prior to the establishment of the mighty Department of Education. Let us consider the exceptional achievements of Americans prior to 1979: space flight, first man on the Moon, satellites deployed in space, numerous surgical and pharmaceutical breakthroughs, architectural wonders, feats of engineering, cameras, computers, cars, bridges, railroads, interstate system, tunnels through mountains, airplanes, air conditioning, modern conveniences, washing machines, life-saving medicines, devices, surgical procedures, and thousands and thousands of other inventions produced by Americans who attended schools unsupervised, regulated, or funded by the mighty Department of Education.
Republicans opposed the Department of Education since the Constitution does not mention education and thought it an illegal federal bureaucratic intrusion into local affairs.
Liberals thought the Department of Education Constitutional under the Commerce Clause and the funding legal under the Taxing and Spending Clause. Pretty much everything Democrats did was justified as falling under the Commerce Clause.
Conservatives saw the Department of Education as undermining states rights while libertarians saw it as giving government too much power. President Ronald Reagan promised to eliminate the department during his 1980 presidential campaign. Sadly, he did not succeed.
Although education is decentralized in the U.S. when compared to other countries, the Department of Education plays an important role in determining curricula and educational standards and policy. The bureaucracy is daunting and the budget for 2011 is $69.9 billion.
The Department collects data on U.S. schools, enforces educational laws regarding privacy and civil rights, and pretty much influences the indoctrination of public school students. Their stated mission is to prepare students for “global competitiveness through educational excellence and equal access.”
Each state controls accreditation of its teachers. Worthy of mention is the controversial No Child Left Behind Act and the pitiful performance of students in math, science, and writing when compared to other developed nations as well as poor nations. It is obvious by now, to anybody who is an independent thinker that throwing more money at education does not improve the quality of it or the students’ performance.
Are Americans more exceptional or less exceptional because of the existence of the Department of Education? Let us look at the student performance data after 1980. The more dollars per pupil the U.S. has spent, the worse the students performed on standardized tests or when compared with other nations. There is only one other country that spends more for education per capita than the U.S., Luxemburg, a state the size of a postage stamp.
We seem to teach now to standardized tests only, not to long-term knowledge retention, perhaps because quick results make teachers look good and bring in funding to the school. Do teachers care if the students cannot remember much after the test? Some actually do and I was privileged to work with a few who were devoted to their profession beyond the call of duty. Our contracts were not union contracts. We were employees at will. We waited every year anxiously of the news whether we had a contract or not. We did not feel entitled to employment unless we performed well. Employment was based on our merit.
The 1995 Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) of half a million students in 41 developed countries found that American fourth graders performed poorly, eighth graders worse, and twelfth graders were unable to compete. Grade 4 scored in the middle, grade 8 scored in the bottom third, and grade 12 scored last.
Curricula, teachers, and the textbooks were to blame. The curricula were too dumbed down with basic arithmetic. Teachers did not have enough mathematics and science in college, their education was focused on social engineering instead of subject areas. Textbooks were also dumbed down, teaching how to use the math as opposed to how to do the math.
How then did Americans become exceptional in their 235-year history? Was it their entrepreneurship and the Wild West mentality that can conquer any adversity? Was it their work ethic and pride in a job well done? Was it their generosity and compassion to their fellow man? Was it their excellence in sports? Was it their volunteerism? Was it devotion to God and country? Was it their willingness to sacrifice in war, in a foreign land, for the cause of freedom? Was it their ability to teach themselves?
The American exceptionalism did not come from the liberal academics who have indoctrinated their pupils for the last forty years into the utopia of socialism and the nanny state.
Young people demand more and more from their country and feel entitled to basic needs that people used to get through hard work. Now they claim, it is their right. Everything that Americans used to earn for themselves is now expected from the federal government, a lazy cradle to grave existence, following the failed European model.
Education has diminished as exemplified by test scores and by students who hold diplomas and cannot read and write proficiently. Teachers are no longer the role models of moral compass and knowledge. The lack of ethics was on full display among the teachers on strike and doctors in Wisconsin, and among the 14 fleeing Democrat lawmakers who chose to run instead of doing their jobs. Never before had we witnessed former role models lie, cheat, and steal. They do not represent American exceptionalism and honor; they represent cowardice and deceit, blight on America’s collective history.
It saddens me that, for the past two years, the American president has apologized for our exceptionalism as if it was a character flaw and shameful. I am very proud of it and I would like to think that this pioneer uniqueness of spirit, the envy of the world, still exists among Americans.
