The Chicago Teachers Union, meanwhile, instructs the nation on how not to succeed in education.
P erhaps the most dubious among the many indignant clichés that are trotted out during our interminable political arguments is the claim that the continued existence of this or that intractable social ill is “a choice.” Jesus told us in Tiberius’s time that the poor will always be among us, but, to the Democratic socialists, this contention still seems absurd. If we could just tax Elon Musk or pass Medicare for All or mandate free school lunches nationwide, they insist, such problems would be relegated to history. In its present, quasi-utopian form, the American right often finds itself tempted by the same call. If only its enemies would relent, all would be well abroad the land. “Tradeoff,” alas, has become one of the last profane words in the language, for all that stands between us and the sunlit uplands is will, bellicosity, and derring-do.
And yet sometimes — mirabile dictu! — there arises a contrast so acute, so clear, so utterly, head-spinningly obvious that even the least excitable among us are tempted to shout, “Damn it, the Quixotes were right all along — it’s a choice, it’s a choice, it’s a choice!” This month, we were treated to such a contrast, courtesy of two education-sector stories that, taken together, ought to remind us that enthusiasm can be a positive, as well as a malign, political force.
The first story was that, per the Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, the state of Mississippi has continued to make extraordinary progress in childhood literacy. Not only has Mississippi gone from a ranking of 49th in the country for fourth-grade reading to ninth, but these improvements have been felt across the board. According to Kelsey Piper over at The Argument,
The difference is most pronounced if you look at the most disadvantaged students. In California, only 28% of Black fourth graders read at or above basic level, for instance, compared to 52% in Mississippi. But it’s not just that Mississippi has raised the floor. It has also raised the ceiling: The state is also one of the nation’s best performers when you look at students who are not “economically disadvantaged.”
The bottom line, Piper concludes, is that students in Mississippi — and, to a similar extent, in Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee — “haven’t just caught up to your state; they are now wildly outperforming it.” Frederick Hess wrote about the “good-news story brewing down South” in the October issue of NR.
The second story was that the Chicago Teachers Union decided to “honor the life and legacy” of Assata Shakur — an anti-American terrorist, bank robber, and murderer, who, in 1973, killed a state trooper in cold blood. Shakur was sentenced to life in prison, but after just six years she managed to escape to Cuba, where she lived the rest of her life under the protection of the Cuban Communist party.
As of 2024, only 22 percent of Chicago’s eleventh-grade students were able to read at grade level, and even fewer were proficient in math.
This juxtaposition is important — not because the answers to our education problems are simple, or because perfection is just one vote away, or because one political side has a monopoly on good ideas, but because, in this instance, one institution (Mississippi) is attempting to educate children, and another institution (the Chicago Teachers Union) is not.
To an average observer, this may sound rather odd. For decades, “Mississippi” was a byword for backwardness and pedagogical failure, whereas the Chicago Teachers Union has the word “teachers” in its title and insists publicly that it exists to advance the interest of students. But times change, and so do incentives, and it seems clear now that whatever presumptions one might have historically applied to those two organizations ought to be swiftly and emphatically reversed. Put simply, Mississippi is succeeding in education because Mississippi wants to succeed in education, and because Mississippi has resolved to abandon all extraneous considerations that stand in the way of that task. Put simply, Chicago is failing in education because Chicago does not want to succeed in education, and because Chicago has decided to elevate every conceivable extraneous consideration over the successful pursuit of that end.
In politics, the desire to make something better is necessary but not sufficient. There are people who wish devoutly to improve a particular problem who will nevertheless fail. As with the poor, the illiterate and the underachieving will always be with us, and there is no amount of care or funding or zeal that will change that. But, just as most of life begins with just showing up, so most political success begins with wanting to succeed. That part, at least, is a choice.