One-Sided Narrative - Public Education is Bad

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Open any social media platform and search up public education. You will find an overwhelming number of posts disparaging public education and educators. I see it daily. Unfortunately, I also hear it in my own family. The message is usually the same: public schools are failing, teachers are not doing enough, students are out of control, and education is not what it used to be. Sometimes the criticism is about test scores. Sometimes it is about discipline. Other times it is about politics, technology, or the belief that schools no longer have high standards.

After a while, that narrative can start to sink in. Even as someone who has taught for 19 years, I am not completely immune to it. There are days when I look around and understand why people are frustrated. Teachers are being asked to do more and more. Students have more needs than ever. Many students are behind academically. Behavior can be challenging. Phones, social media, and constant technology have changed the way students focus and interact with each other. Schools are asked to solve problems that go far beyond reading, writing, and math. So when people say public education is struggling, I cannot simply dismiss that. There is a lot of truth there.

But that is also where the one-sided narrative becomes a problem. It takes real concerns and flattens them into one simple conclusion: public education is bad. That has not been my experience.

My viewpoint comes from being inside the classroom. It comes from seeing what does not usually make it into a viral post. I see teachers adjusting lessons for students who are reading years below grade level. I see educators giving up planning time to help a student, call a parent, attend an IEP meeting, or solve a problem that no one outside the building will ever know about. I see students who struggle all year finally make progress on a skill that once felt impossible. I see some families who care deeply, even when they may not always know how to support their child academically. None of that fits neatly into the online narrative that schools are simply failing.

Public education is not perfect. I would never argue that it is. I have seen the gaps, the frustration, the poor decisions, and the exhaustion. I have taught students with significant academic needs, language barriers, disabilities, and difficult life circumstances. In Houston, my students were primarily Hispanic and Black. In Tulsa, I have taught a mix of white, Black, Hispanic, Burmese, and Zomi students. That experience has made it impossible for me to see education in a simple way. Schools are not working with one kind of student or one kind of family. They are trying to serve everyone.

That is what the negative narrative often misses. Public schools take all students. They take the students who are advanced, the students who are behind, the students learning English, the students with disabilities, the students with stable homes, and the students living through trauma. They take the students who love school and the students who hate it. Then teachers are expected to move all of them forward, often with limited time, limited resources, and increasing public criticism.

This alternative perspective does not make me ignore the problems in public education. If anything, it helps me see them more clearly. We need stronger early literacy instruction. We need better support for teachers. We need to address student behavior, attendance, technology, and academic gaps. We also need to be honest about what is not working. But honesty is different from constant disparagement. Criticism can be useful when it leads to improvement. It becomes harmful when it turns into the belief that public education has no value.

Public education is struggling in many ways. Public education is also still necessary, meaningful, and filled with people doing difficult and important work. Both things can be true. This is dialectic thinking.

So, when I hear people say that public education is no longer good, I understand where some of that frustration comes from. Believe me, I have felt it too. But, I also know that the story is more complicated than that. The view from inside the classroom is different from the comment section. From inside the classroom, I see the problems, but I also see the effort, the growth, the relationships, and the small victories. I don't accept a single narrative about education, even when that narrative is loud.

 Public education deserves critique, but it also deserves fairness.

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