I think we all agree with the role of the parents in education is critical. Positive parental involvement has a large impact.
I've also seen teachers with decades of experience look like wide-eyed children when they visit the central office and really see the behind-the-scenes stuff for the first time. Most teachers simply have no idea how the system actually works outside of the actual school buildings.
I'm well aware that sometimes district-level decision-making is far from optimal. But the classroom is where the rubber meets the road. It's where education really happens. I've seen instances in which the district office was pretty dysfunctional, but education continued to happen, anyway. That's not to say that district administration has no impact. But the classroom has far more. For instance, Marzano studied achievement patterns for students in four groups: those in a bad classroom in a bad school, those in a good classroom in a bad school, those in a bad classroom in a good school, and those in a good classroom in the a good school. To the surprise of practically no one, the students in a good classroom in a good school performed best, and students in a bad classroom in a bad school performed worst. However, the real takeaway was that when school and classroom varied in quality, the classroom was far more important than the school. True, Marzano didn't measure bad vs good school districts, but I think it's a logical inference that if school administration's impact is small compared to the classroom's, then district impact is likely even smaller.
I'm familiar with the educational-industrial complex, a creature most people don't know exists but is just as slimy as the more widely-known military-industrial complex. And no, I'm not talking about textbook publishers.
I don't doubt it exists, but I question that its impact is anywhere nearly as universal as the presenter alleges. Yes, there are organizations that try to influence educational policy, though they don't all agree with each other in terms of which way they want to move. Yes, there are tech companies and textbook companies that push. But they, too, are hardly a monopoly. And in the case of the latter, some districts are divorcing themselves altogether from such companies and having teachers with content expertise write their instructional materials instead.
If your experience was in a larger district, it was probably more bureaucratically influenced than smaller ones are. I taught in three different ones (two small and one large), and the large one was by far the least efficient administratively. The smaller ones were less easy targets for bureaucratic manipulation because communities were more directly involved. School district are run, at least in California, by elected school boards, typically five people in the smaller ones, with two or three up for election every two years. The same parents who take the time to read to their kids and otherwise support their education often also keep an eye on school policies. And you know what? A big enough crowd showing up to a school board meeting has changed district policy. I've seen it happen several times. I've also seen board members lose reelection bids when the community was unhappy with them.
Does that mean nothing bad ever happens in the back office? No, it doesn't. Human institutions are inherently imperfect. But without even considering the diversity in state governments and the relatively limited federal role, it's clear that there are a lot of moving parts at the local level that are hard to control by some sinister outside force. (The US has over 13,300 local school districts.) And small districts also have relatively small administrative staffs. That means if something weird is going on, there are only a small number of people who could be responsible. I've also seen administrators, even superintendents, fall because of community dissatisfaction. (And one went to jail, but that's another story.)
Local bodies like school boards end up being more responsive to public opinion than more remote ones. Enough parent and community scrutiny can improve schools that are having problems.
Are there still bad teachers, bad administrators, and bad schools? Yes. But are there also good ones? Yes. The video's monolithic presentation just doesn't reflect reality.
The Military-Industrial Complex has the advantage of being able to work with a number of unelected decision-makers and a president who (since I think Dwight Eisenhower) doesn't have any military command experience. Also, for national security reasons, a lot of discussion is behind closed doors. Contrast this with education, in which much more discussion is public (at the local level by law, at least in California, only personnel matters can be discussed in closed session). You have also a large number of people involved in decisions, from the president and congress to the fifty state governors and legislators to the 13,300 school boards. That could be a problem in that it's harder to make constructive change universally. But it's also hard to corrupt the entire system.
Aside from the nature of the system, as I've said, the video presenter's narrative doesn't square with my classroom experience. And, as both a speech coach and a department chair, I interacted with colleagues in a number of other districts, locally and nationally in the first case, locally in the second. Experiences were diverse, but in no case did anyone have an experience that exactly mirrors what the presenter is talking about. That the issue exists in some places, I don't doubt. I'm not questioning the presenter's own experience--or yours. But that experience is far, far from universal.
I'd have to say the same thing about people being unable to write. I think people turn to something like ChatGPT because of laziness or the desire to improve efficiency (PJ, for example, is in the latter group). I disagree with the use of Ai, but its use isn't proof of incompetence. Other forces are also at work. And I still have no trouble finding good and sometimes even great material to read. is there also garbage? Sure. But again, it's far from universal. One of my students who graduated not that many years ago is turning out beautiful prose, and he's far from being alone. There's a whole flood of younger people on Substack who know how to write perfectly well, some even brilliantly. (And yes, a very few write badly, but not enough to justify the sweeping generalization that no one can write.)
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