John W. Dahmus

Comments -

• Dr. Barry Munitz¹s speech with accompanying questions appeared much more substantive to me than Professor Zemsky¹s address. In the hopes of contributing to the ongoing dialogue on these ACE addresses, I make the following observations.
• After listening to Professor Munitz I am convinced more than ever that the problem with higher education lies primarily in the K-12 schools and indirectly with the universities that supply those teachers. It seems to me that universities could ameliorate the problems of K-12 education by raising their own standards for teacher education. No student with less than a B average in the content courses of his/her major and minor should receive a teaching certificate. Nor should anyone teach a discipline for which s/he has not received the appropriate training. We surely wouldn¹t want doctors with less than B averages operating on us or lawyers who earned mediocre grades advising us. Why should be entrust our own children and the future of our country to students who performed in a rather lackluster fashion as college students? It goes without saying, therefore, that school boards and principals should not grant emergency certificates that weaken this criterion of excellence.
• Universities should take particular care for elementary education. It seems to me that only the most energetic, the most dedicated, the most altruistic, and the most knowledgeable should be granted elementary education certificates. I am convinced that sound education in the elementary schools is key to success everywhere else.
• Remedial education at the college level, I believe, has been essentially a failure. The Texas legislature is apparently coming up with the same conclusion. If a young person at age eighteen does not have the necessary skills to handle college work, s/he will need extraordinary motivation to surmount his/her deficiencies. S/he will need an extra supply of time and money to catch up, more than average native ability, and tremendous dedication in order to succeed. It would be far better to teach these young people in the elementary and secondary schools.
• In addition, many of these young people should be encouraged to attend some other post-high school educational facility, such as a computer training facility. Europe for generations has tried to place students in settings more conducive to their abilities and interests. College is not for everyone. If American parents could be convinced that their non-college bound children could still live productive, satisfying, and financially successful lives, they would eagerly grasp alternatives to a college degree.
• One of the most serious problems, it appears to me, is that K-12 teaching lacks sufficient remuneration and prestige to draw the best and the brightest. Too many teachers become administrators because those jobs pay better or because those positions hold greater power. If American society could revolutionize education by cutting down on the number of administrators (and instead use many secretarial positions) while instilling in the educational ethos the idea that administrators are to be servants (from the root of the Latin word) not superiors, perhaps the best teachers would stay in the classroom. In an even more radical vein‹why don¹t the teachers manage the schools with the assistance, not the domination, of a few administrators?
• I hope these thoughts will encourage further response.
• John Dahmus
• Professor of History