Ronald Reagan’s Thoughts on Education

Remarks at the National Forum on Excellence in Education in Indianapolis, Indiana
December 8, 1983:

And today our children need good schools more than ever. We stand on the verge of a new age, a computer age when medical breakthroughs will add years to our lives. Information retrieval systems will bring all the world's great literature, music, and drama into the family home. And advances in space travel will make the space shuttle Columbia look as old-fashioned as Lindbergh's plane, The Spirit of St. Louis. But if our children are to take their places as tomorrow's leaders we must teach them the skills they need.

If America is to offer greater economic opportunity to her citizens, if she's to defend our freedom, democracy, and keep the peace, then our children will need wisdom, courage, and strength—virtues beyond their reach without education. In the words of Thomas Jefferson: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be."

And yet, today, some of our schools aren't doing the job they should. Of course, there are many fine schools and thousands of dedicated superintendents, principals, and teachers. But from 1963 to 1980, Scholastic Aptitude Test scores showed a virtually unbroken decline. Science achievement scores of 17-year-olds have shown a steady fall. And, most shocking, today more than one tenth of our 17-year-olds are functionally illiterate.

Now, some insist there's only one answer: more money. But that's been tried. Total expenditures in our nation's schools this year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, will total $230 billion. Now, that's up almost 7 percent from last year, about double the rate of inflation-more than double the rate of inflation and more than double what we spent on education just 10 years ago. So, if money alone were the answer, the problem would have been shrinking, not growing.

American schools don't need vast new sums of money as much as they need a few fundamental reforms. I believe there are six that can and will turn our schools around.

First, we need to restore good old-fashioned discipline. In too many schools across the land, teachers can't teach because they lack the authority to make students take tests and hand in homework. Some don't even have the authority to quiet down their class. In some schools, teachers suffer verbal and physical abuse. I can't say it too forcefully: This must stop.

We need to write stricter discipline codes, then support our teachers when they enforce those codes. Back at the turn of the century, one education handbook told teachers that enforcing discipline—and I quote—"You have the law back of you. You have intelligent public sentiment back of you." We must make both those statements true once again.

Second, we must end the drug and alcohol abuse that plagues hundreds of thousands of our children. Chemical abuse by young people not only damages the lives of individual users; it can create a drug culture at school. We need to teach our sons and daughters the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse, enforce the law, and rehabilitate the users. Whatever it takes, we must make certain that America's schools are temples of learning, and not drug dens.

Third, we must raise academic standards. Today, 35 States require only 1 year of math for a high school diploma; 36 require only 1 year of science. Many exchange students from foreign countries—Japan, West Germany, and others—are quick to point out that our academic standards are not as tough as theirs.

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Fourth, we must encourage good teaching. Teachers should be paid and promoted on the basis of their competence and merit. Hard-earned tax dollars should encourage the best. They have no business rewarding mediocrity.

Fifth, we must restore parents and State and local governments to their rightful place in the educational process. Decisions about discipline, curriculum, and academic standards, the factors that make a school good or bad, shouldn't be made by people in Washington. They should be made at the grassroots, by parents, teachers, and administrators in their communities.

And sixth and last, we must teach the basics. Too many of our students are allowed to abandon vocational and college prep courses for general ones.

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One other idea at the core of our basic values. I just have to believe that the loving God who has blessed this land should never have been expelled from America's classrooms. When we open ourselves to Him, we gain not only moral courage but intellectual strength. If the Members of Congress can start each day with a moment for prayer and meditation, so can our children in their schools.   [read more]

Good advice.