This may sound like common sense – and it most certainly is – but this nation has lost sight of this very simplistic idea.

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The belief that superior education is a hit or miss game is categorically false. Outstanding research and numerous success stories provide clear answers to many of the issues involved. Unfortunately, these heroic efforts are severely limited if their results go no further than an occasional newspaper article or a handsomely bound report that sits on a shelf somewhere.

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Charter schools are an excellent example. Although the U.S. charter school movement has mixed results, there are extraordinary charter schools that have pioneered extremely innovative educational concepts. However, without a centralized effort, it’s virtually impossible for other schools to benefit from the invaluable knowledge these charter schools have gained. It’s highly doubtful that thousands of school administrators can travel across America to observe these successful schools. Even if they could, the process would be too invasive, too arduous, and too time-consuming.

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It’s an irresponsible, reckless waste of resources if the successful components of these endeavors aren’t incorporated into a national strategy, based on pragmatism instead of political quicksand. We will not see a significant shift in our education crisis until a far-reaching framework is created that allows educational achievements to be learned from and replicated.

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But here’s the good news! 1787 has created an educational model of excellence called America’s Best Chance. Our strategy is to bring everyone and everything UP to the highest common denominator in education instead of bringing everyone and everything down to the lowest – which is what is happening now.

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We will achieve this by leaving no stone unturned. America’s Best Chance addresses every aspect of the school experience, from the material taught in the classroom to what is served in the cafeteria. This policy is not a consequence of a guessing game, politically motivated, or a product of preconceived notions or opinions. Every single thing in it is backed by extensive evidence to justify its inclusion.

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America’s Best Chance will eventually become national policy – when 1787 reaches the White House – but we’re not going to sit around and wait for that moment. We need to start making progress in our educational crisis now! So, in the meantime, 1787 will present this groundbreaking policy to the White House, all members of Congress, every state governor, every state legislature, state boards of education, state education departments, local school boards, local superintendents, and school principals.

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Privately raised funds will allow America’s Best Chance to be offered to schools free of charge, to include all instruction materials and staff for the transition. Schools will retain complete control of school operations and the decision-making process, plus the school’s existing budget will be honored, so participating schools will need no additional funds to accommodate the program.

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Some people say the federal government should stay out of education policy altogether, and we're in complete agreement that, in a perfect world, the federal government’s role in American education would be limited, if not completely absent. Education policy would be decided at the state and local levels, and local communities and their respective states would be responsible for their schools, including the standards and curriculum.

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But unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution says that “Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.”

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Tragically, we have arrived at a point where the general welfare of many of our children and their Fourteenth Amendment equal protection guarantees are being infringed upon by terribly inadequate education.

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… and inadequate education and achievement gaps are not the only challenges our kids’ face. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Americans ages 10-14. The PISA results revealed that America has more kids than average living with food insecurity (13 percent, compared with an average of 8 percent in other OECD countries), more kids who don’t feel safe at school (13 percent versus 10 percent), and more kids who are lonely at school (22 percent versus 16 percent).

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If you think about this in a much broader sense, since the general welfare of the entire United States relies heavily on properly educated citizens, we are all getting screwed by terribly inadequate education. As a result, like it or not, we have no choice but for the federal government to step in and be a part of the solution (with a mechanism for states to opt out, of course).

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Without a doubt, we recognize the federal government’s track record in education policy is abysmal, to say the least. If past is prologue, the federal government being involved could be the kiss of death. But it doesn’t have to be. Under the right leadership, it’s entirely possible for the federal government to enhance our ambitious plans without strangling them.

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The most important – and exciting – thing about America’s Best Chance is that it incorporates ways to help achieve a dramatic increase in achievement for all children while significantly decreasing racial, ethnic and socio-economic discrepancies. There are very specific and overwhelming challenges for children who are born into low-income families, and racial disparity has reached crisis-levels. A major focus of America’s Best Chance is to develop enhancements outside of the standard curriculum that will address and attempt to solve these inequities. We will continually search for the root causes of the disparity epidemic and incorporate programs to help end this terrible trend once and for all.

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Without question, it is possible to develop a school structure that brings success for all children, regardless of their demographics or home situation. Wait a second…what? But what about those social factors we always hear about like poverty, race, etc.?

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The Gallup organization once asked the American public why the U.S. has such low educational outcomes in low-income communities. Among the most frequent responses were the home life of the students and a lack of community and parental involvement.

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This may be true, but lower outcomes in vulnerable communities are not prevalent because the kids are more difficult to educate; rather, systems and circumstances have them starting on severely cracked foundations, then ensures they fall right through.

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1787’s contention is that creative restructuring and an overhaul of curriculum will alleviate many of these factors, including elevated dropout rates, from even being an issue. For this to happen, education must now be viewed as an autonomous endeavor, meaning it must completely stand on its own. Parental involvement can no longer be an automatic assumption, and issues such as race, economic status, and the dysfunctional home life of the child can no longer be an excuse for our failing to properly educate them.

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Like it or not, the future success of many of our children is largely dependent on what they are provided during the school day. We know well the argument that it is not the government’s place to raise children and in that elusive perfect world, we believe that to be true.

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The involvement of parents is incredibly advantageous for the children blessed to have it, and parental commitment should be loudly applauded whether demonstrated at home or within the classroom. But, in crisis mode, you must build strategies within the context of the realities of the situation, not what you wish the realities were.

 

Not everyone’s experience is the same. Obviously, in a perfect world, all children would learn basic life skills – everything from self-control to sex education – within the home environment. Unfortunately, it appears this is not the prevailing trend. Sex is an excellent example, and one that can have lifelong implications for the children who are not adequately educated about its potentially dangerous consequences.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 32 percent of high school students have had sex and 52 percent of them didn’t use a condom the last time they did it. Around half of the nearly 2.4 million new sexually transmitted diseases reported each year are among people aged 15 to 24. Nineteen percent (19%) of all new HIV diagnoses are among people aged 13-24. Over 143,000 babies are born to adolescent females every year.

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Clearly, not everyone is hearing these things at home, and it is our responsibility to make certain they hear it somewhere. 

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We're always baffled when we hear resistance to this concept. How can anyone possibly justify withholding age-appropriate sex education from our kids while, at the same time, be aghast by high abortion rates and furious that the government (in their words) has to financially provide for babies who have babies and then their babies? 

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This is ridiculously flawed logic and unbelievably unfair to our kids. We recognize things like sex may be outside some comfort zones, but the faster we face these difficult truths, the faster we can fix them.

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Because most education still happens at the state and local levels, schools can obviously opt to not take advantage of America’s Best Chance, but we're not really worried about that happening. Once we prove this model works – and we most certainly will – the program will spread like an inescapable wildfire, because it’s hard to argue against successful results.

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Wow, we’re almost there! Now all we need is an infusion of good old common sense. We feed our children Froot Loops for breakfast and pizza for lunch, give them a fifteen-minute recess, and then force Ritalin down their throats because for some odd reason they can’t sit still and concentrate. Common sense. The ratio of our publicly educated students to their school counselors is 376-to-1, even though the counselor’s primary purpose is to enhance students’ academic achievement, personal development, and to help them develop future career plans. Common sense. We have systematically dismantled the discipline function in our schools giving our educators no recourse against kids who essentially run wild, cause trouble, and have free reign to recruit other kids to come along for the ride.  Common sense. We spend $27 billion a year for the federal Pell Grant program; meanwhile, the American public spends $152 billion a year on their pets. Common sense. Common Sense. Common sense.