The United States has built many roads to nowhere in an attempt to help people living in rural poverty areas gain access to the greater world. Our Army Engineer Corps has built “roads to nowhere” in Central and South America, and probably in other unreported (by the media) places to help indigenous peoples.  We have even built roads at the South Pole. We are not alone in building such roads. A half a century ago Brazil built a “road to nowhere” into the heart of Brazil. Today that road goes to the Capital of Brazil.  I suppose the criticism of Governor Palin was because the road was built in the United States.

Currently working on the Census, in and out of homes reflecting all levels of society, it occurred to me that there is a real “Road to Nowhere,” one that neither politicians nor the media discuss publicly. It is called the American educational system.  

When I still watched television news, a local station lamented the under-funding of schools in Tennessee. As a horrendous example they interviewed the superintendent of one small school system. To illustrate his need of more tax dollars, he showed the reporters the terrible shape of his high school football field.  

When I had children in high school, in a wealthier district, one son reported to me a shortage of equipment and supplies in the chemistry class. My daughter’s soccer coach was also a chemistry teacher. He agreed there was a problem. At the time, an older son was manager of a chemical factory in Boulder. He wrote that he had an entire warehouse full of equipment that was outdated to them, but that he believed was better than our schools possessed. He said that if they would send him a list of their needs, he would supply them. The only cost would be a letter of appreciation to the company. I turned in that letter to the teacher.   My son never received any reply or request. Incidentally, both high schools in that system have a football field, restricted to games, a practice field, restricted for the football team, a weight room and a training room. We know what is important in Tennessee.

I began teaching in a St. Louis slum. When introduced to the school, the principal told me, “These children need to be able to earn a living. They need to know how to read, write and do arithmetic.” My usual class size was forty, slightly higher than average because all boys and girls in the area, released from the reformatory in the fifth grade, were sent to me. Did we teachers work! So did the children. A result was that our class averages on the national achievement tests, despite being from a slum area, always matched, and exceeded in math, the national averages. Our school was a three story brick building with a black-top yard and a gymnasium. It had 1300 students, twenty-six teachers, one principal and one half-time secretary.

When I moved to Tennessee and enrolled children in the elementary school, I was impressed by the beauty of the building, the size of the landscape and the number of administrative personnel. There were three full- time secretaries, a full-time assistant principal and a full-time principal. Impressed, I wondered how many thousand children attended that school and asked. I was told approximately six hundred and fifty.

A recent Wall Street Journal article reported on the “plight” of the public school systems in cities including Washington D. C., New York and Los Angeles. School administrators want more tax dollars despite failing state economies. The article reported on class sizes, salaries and retirement benefits. I was impressed. New York City school classrooms have an average of THIRTEEN students. Despite this, the article reports that achievement of the high school graduates on national tests bounces around the eighth grade level. 

Were I nasty, I might wonder what grade level their teachers would achieve if they took those tests, but I won’t.

Extremely interesting is that teachers and administrators of these school districts are among the highest paid by major systems - and it takes a lot of administrators when there are thirteen students to the class. (In my school of thirteen hundred students, that would have meant a hundred teachers.) People in those cities and states already have the highest taxes.  Their children also receive the poorest educations. Going to school in those districts, and in others like them, does not teach students the necessary skills to succeed in a technical society.

It would be helpful if reporters would focus on what is happening to the American people, beginning with our children. But promoting clichés and slogans, such as “Hope and Change” is easier than investigating and safer than reporting which might offend the powerful. Besides, the teachers’ union, with its powerful support of the Democratic Party, is happy with school systems as they are. They provide high salaries, excellent retirement benefits and few expectations.

Twelfth grade graduates who can’t read, write or do arithmetic! The true “Road to Nowhere” in the United States is the public system of education.