Do you know what "brittle" means? It is all around us and most of us don't even know it. It is the worst in our education system as I will explain in this blog.
Exactly what is "brittleness"? Think of a glass window in your home. If you touch it it will feel strong and very hard. You can wash it with a rag or brush and it will not scratch. If the window was made from bullet proof glass like Lexan, it would not feel as strong and it might scratch when you washed it. The bullet proof Lexan is not as brittle as glass and if you were to try to throw a rock at the window, the glass window would shatter. while with the Lexan window the rock would bounce off. Get the idea?
It is human nature for people to feel that centralizing will make things better or more efficient. It is true that it might make a situation more efficient and its product might cost less, but it has a down side and that is "brittleness". Here is an example. Think about a situation where you want to get 100 people across some wide river. What it you had 10 small fishing boats that could carry 5 people for the job. It would take two trips by each boat and take several hours. Since the fishing boats were small, it might be possible that one or two of the boats might sink and drown some of the people. What if there was a big boat that could hold all 100 of the people? It could take the whole group across the river in one trip in half the time. Most people would not think twice in going for the big boat. Would that be the best decision?
Ir might be the correct decision, but they should think about the possibility that the big boat could also sink and it would drown all the people. That is a big risk. Notice that our President and Vice President never are on the same airplane? They understand the concept of "brittleness" do you?
It was not so long ago that we decided to authorize a cabinet level Federal Department of Education that would oversee education in the USA. At the time for most people they saw this as a good decision. What they did not think about was that they were making our education system more "brittle". They only saw, what they thought. was the good side.
If you look at the quality of our education system since the creation of the Federal Department of Education, you will see that our scores have actually gone down in absolute terms and compared to most of the rest of the world. If you have had your eyes open then you already know this. Look at what has happened to unions in our schools. One monster union dominates our school system today, but not in the old days. It too has made our education system more brittle too. If we made a mistake with centralization of our schools, where to de go to find an example of where education is being done right? There is no such place because all public schools operate by the same rules.
Are you starting to see the danger with centralization. If there are benefits, one has to understand the risks and most of us do not.
