Thomas Friedman in his column printed in the Dayton Daily News today advances, what sounds to me, a really dumb idea. Friedman says that federal income taxes should be eliminated for all public school teachers, “so more talented people would choose these careers.”

I fully support the notion that our public education system needs transformation via the application of radical ideas. And Friedman’s idea is radical. But, simply pouring great gobs on money into our public education system — via teacher tax breaks or any other method — is not the answer. Increasing teachers’ status to even higher levels as pampered and privileged government workers will not result in the transformation that is needed.

I agree with Friedman’s thinking, when he says, “J.F.K. took us to the moon. Let B.H.O. take America back to school.” But Friedman should give more thought as to what a transformation of public education would really mean, and how such a transformation might be accomplished.

Friedman’s comment about JFK reminds me that, last May, I wrote, Barack Obama’s ‘Go To The Moon’ Challenge For Our Time Should Be: Transform Public Education.  The post was in response to statements Obama made that U.S. citizens should be guaranteed “an education that will allow them to fulfill their God-given potential.”

Defining education in terms of the development of individual potential would require vast changes in our educational system. It would be a truly stunning goal, of the same magnitude as Kennedy’s go-to-the-moon goal, because, a system of public education centered on understanding and fulfilling individual potential would require a revolution in our system of public education.

The starting point for any meaningful discussion of educational reform is a recognition of the basic reality of public education: public education is based on a system that is very flawed, and it is the system itself that must change. What is needed is radical change in the system itself, not tinkering in the system. Such radical change would require making new system structures and would require a well thought plan to transition from the present system to a new system.

I expressed some of these thoughts recently on David Esrati’s web-site, and, a respondent on that blog, Gene, asked, “What are the real alternatives Mike? Pointing out the problem is easy. What is the better system that would work for Dayton in particular?”

But I disagree that “pointing out the problem is easy.” Most people don’t see the problem of dramatically improving public education as a system problem. Most people focus on the elements — a curriculum problem, a teacher qualification problem, a discipline problem, a disengaged parent problem — and come up with tinkering ideas. They don’t see that the elements are really just part of one big system problem.

In, Strickland Should Use Charter Schools To Help Fulfill His Promise: “Reform and Renew the System of Education Itself”, I compared our system of public education to the system that produced the notoriously deficient pre-1989 East German car, The Trabant. I wrote, “The Trabant factory was organized inefficiently and was kept going by government subsidies. Tinkering with the Trabant production — through imposing ever more government inspections or through new rewards and punishments for its workers or through new management rules — failed to change the Trabant into a quality product. Only a vast change in organizational structure could have had the quality impact that was needed and the political will to make such massive change never materialized.”

Recognizing that the problem is the system is a first start. No amount of tinkering in system processes would have fixed the Trabant — and doubling the pay of all the workers wouldn’t have fixed it either. The aim of the Trabant system was to keep communist bosses in power and for many years the aim of the system was accomplished. The actual aim of the system never was the production of a quality automobile.

We need to recognize that the actual aim of our public education system, as many see it, is simply to provide jobs to a multitude of government workers. This aim is accomplished brilliantly.

The ostensible aim of the system, as opposed to its actual aim, itself has degenerated.  Schools used to have wonderful statements of philosophy of purpose.  I worked on several school committees where we argued purpose with passion.  But now, the acknowledged purpose of public education, as asserted by local boards of education, is to produce test scores.  Today’s school purpose is not one that would have even been considered adequate by yesterday’s philosophy of purpose committees.  But, even though the aim of producing test scores is much too low and much too trivial, this aim seems to have a lot of public support.

A lot of people seem impressed when, according to government standards, their schools are deemed “excellent.” Such designations are all about test scores. But high or adequate test scores are not sufficient to indicate an adequate education.  I expanded this thought in To Transform Our System Of Education, We Must Redefine The Aim Of The System.

Gene asks a great question — “What is the better system that would work for Dayton in particular?” A better system, I believe, would first of all be focused on accomplishing a worthwhile aim — “an education that will empower every child to fulfill his or her God-given potential.” Then, a better system would find a way to structure opportunities that would effectively motivate new levels of hard work and creativity in both teachers and students and new levels of focus on accomplishing the aim of the system.

A capitalistic system with freedom for the individual is the system we say we believe in.  This is the system that has been proven to effectively motivate individuals to higher levels of hard work and creativity. Yet our school systems are quite the opposite of the capitalistic system.   A better system, I believe, would move away from the hierarchical, bureaucratic, system already in place and would create structures to encourage entrepreneurial initiative — initiative empowered to accomplish the aim of the system.

Isn’t Dayton spending in excess of $12,000 per year per student? That’s a lot of money. A reasonable proposal, I think, would be to let the system keep $2,000 per student, for overhead and administration, and, then, use the other $10,000 per student to establish a competitive Request For Proposal (RPF) system. I’m thinking that if teachers had the opportunity to respond to an RFP and were challenged to design an educational program that would highly motivate ten students, funded with $100,000, there would be a lot of viable ideas come forward that are not now being considered.  A lot of new teacher talent would come forward, at higher levels.  If teachers were given new levels of opportunity and accountability, I believe, many would rise to the challenge.  This idea, of course, needs a lot of work — but it speaks to the quality and type of system change that, I believe, is needed.