The Schools Didn’t Fail Us. We Did. |
The Schools Didn’t Fail Us. We Did.
What do we actually expect government schools to do? Who should be doing it instead?
Micheal S. Parkhurst | October 15, 2026
Every few weeks, a reporter takes a microphone onto the street and asks ordinary people simple questions. Name the three branches of government. Who is your senator? What was the Civil War about? The answers are alarming, and the surveys back them up. This year, 35 percent of Americans could not name all three branches of government. In 2018, a majority could not name a single Supreme Court justice. Then a legislator or a pundit delivers the familiar verdict: The schools have failed us, and reform is needed.
I am always struck by the hidden assumption: that the people saying it know what the schools are supposed to do.
I have seen American education from a few angles. I started in parochial school, switched to public school around fifth grade, and stayed in California’s public system through my bachelor’s degree. My Master’s came from Biola and my doctorate from Pepperdine, both private. Then, not by choice, I became a different kind of teacher: My wife and I homeschooled all three of our children.
They have led me to an unpopular conclusion. The schools have not failed us. American families have failed their children.
For most of history, education happened at home. Children learned to read at the kitchen table, learned a trade in their father’s workshop, and learned right from wrong in Sunday school. America began the same way. Massachusetts’s first education law, in 1642, made parents responsible for teaching their children to read. Towns were ordered to provide schools only later.
The public school system as we know it took shape in the 19th century, as immigration swelled, and its goal was clear and worthy: to make citizens. In........