In contrast, a moral debt reflects the disparity between what weknow is right and what we actually do.
This idea of moral debt is interesting, especially in terms of education. As teachers, how do we choose between policy and our moral debt? If we know policy is not equitable or effective, is it up to us to knowingly go against it?
National Debt Versus National Deficit
I actually don't really understand the importance of this whole paragraph. Why is the author explaining the national debt in such detail when the focus is on education? This has confused me.
In one scenario, we might determine that ourdebt is so high that the only thing we can do is declare bank-ruptcy. Perhaps, like our airline industry, we could use the pro-tection of the bankruptcy laws to reorganize and design morestreamlined, more efficient schooling options. Or perhaps wecould be like developing nations that owe huge sums to the IMFand apply for 100% debt relief. But what would such a cata-strophic collapse of our education system look like? Where couldwe go to begin from the ground up to build the kind of educa-tion system that would aggressively address the debt? Might wefind a setting where a catastrophic occurrence, perhaps a naturaldisaster—a hurricane—has completely obliterated the schools?
This is an extremely interesting point given today's societal climate. With the global pandemic, the rules of schooling and education are essentially being rewritten. Online education may be the new norm, with new policies already arising such as the elimination of snow days. Perhaps through this new education system that is being paved to adapt to the outside world, we can help education become better from the inside as well by promoting equity in every aspect.
The history of American Indian education is equally egregious.It began with mission schools to convert and use Indian labor tofurther the cause of the church. Later, boarding schools were devel-opedas General George Pratt asserted the need “to kill the Indianin order to save the man.” This strategy of deliberate and forcedassimilation created a group of people, according to Pulitzer Prizewriter N. Scott Momaday, who belonged nowhere (Lesiak, 1991).The assimilated Indian could not fit comfortably into reservationlife or the stratified mainstream. No predominately White col-leges welcomed the few Indians who successfully completed theearly boarding schools. Only historically Black colleges, such asHampton Institute, opened their doors to them. There, the Indiansstudied vocational and trade curricula.
This paragraph is important because it highlights another underlying goal of American education, the idea of "missions" and "conversion". Though efforts were made to separate church and state in education, it was not always like this. In fact, church and state were heavily intertwined in education. Our president is attempting to bridge that gap once again if elected for a second time, allowing schools to make mandatory the Pledge of Allegiance as well as morning prayers. This takes away from diversity and individuality amongst our students, as well as promotes a less-inclusive atmosphere...not to mention uncomfortable.
Scholars have offered a variety of explanations for the existenceof the gap. In the 1960s, scholars identified cultural deficit theoriesto suggest that children of color were victims of pathologicallifestyles that hindered their ability to benefit from schooling (Hess&Shipman, 1965; Bereiter & Engleman, 1966; Deutsch, 1963).The1966 Coleman Report, Equality of Educational Opportunity(Coleman et al.), touted the importance of placing students inracially integrated classrooms. Some scholars took that report tofurther endorse the cultural deficit theories and to suggest thatthere was not much that could be done by schools to improve theachievement of African American children. But Coleman et al.were subtler than that. They argued that, more than materialresources alone, a combination of factors was heavily correlatedwith academic achievement. Their work indicated that the com-position of a school (who attends it), the students’ sense of con-trol of the environments and their futures, the teachers’ verbalskills, and their students’ family background all contribute to stu-dent achievement. Unfortunately, it was the last factor—familybackground—that became the primary point of interest for manyschool and social policies.
This paragraph highlights the idea that educational scholars and researchers have been asking the wrong questions for years because they have been focusing on the wrong things. Most of these scholars mentioned wished to find a reason or excuse as to why African American children WOULD do more poorly in school. They did not focus on a reason for or solution to FIX the issue. It wasn't until Coleman et al. researched into a combination of factors that a larger conversation began. Even so, people chose to focus on aspect that is inherently un-changeable (family background), still making it seem as though there is no solution.
It is important to point out that the historical debt was notmerely imposed by ignorant masses that were xenophobic and vir-ulently racist. The major leaders of the nation endorsed ideasabout the inferiority of Black, Latina/o, and Native peoples.Thomas Jefferson (1816), who advocated for the education of theAmerican citizen, simultaneously decried the notion that Blackswere capable of education. George Washington, while deeply con-flicted about slavery, maintained a substantial number of slaves onhis Mount Vernon Plantation and gave no thought to educatingenslaved children.
I think this is extremely important to note. The higher up the chain of command you go, the easier it is to see education fall to the wayside. I think of who the president placed as the head of the Education Dept. (Betsy DeVos), someone with no personal experience in education or the public school system. Yet she is in charge of what happens to public school children. There is a complete lack of advocacy in government which leads to many oversights and complications.