PENNSBURG, Pa., March 13, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- One does not need to look far in the American media to find concerns about the current state of public education. As different groups advocate myriad solutions, R. Winfield Smith contends that none of their proposals recognize the fundamental cause of the problem and what is required to solve it. Enter his new book, The Rise and Fall of Public Education in America: The Interdependence of Public Education and Society (now available through AuthorHouse), a three-part discussion centered on reversing the decline of education in the United States.
In Part I, Smith describes the rise and fall of civilizations since the origin of written language and what each did, or didn't do, for education. In so doing, Smith identifies and proves the validity of the first of the book's three principles -- that public education and the larger society are interdependent; what happens to one affects the other.
Discussion of public education makes up Part II, where Smith provides readers with a history lesson as he puts the notion into perspective. The world's first instance of public education occurred in Pennsylvania in 1834. In this section, Smith explains why the concept took so long to develop and how and why it happened when it did. He also points out the second of his three basic principles, which says that when a society decides to provide a certain level of education to all of a given segment of its population, that better-educated group soon begins to create better ways of doing things. Within a couple of generations, society has grown so complex that still more education is required.
Each of the five major revolutions since the beginning of public education was spurred by societal change, says Smith. This supports his theory that the two are inseparable. "...our enormous technological and information revolutions cry out for more education for all young people, but the cry goes unanswered," he says.
Part III of The Rise and Fall of Public Education in America illuminates the last of Smith's three basic principles. This one says that when education and the larger society get out of sync, unless steps are promptly taken to get back in rhythm, both begin to decay. He cites numerous examples and urges Americans to overcome the resistance they "have traditionally shown to conceptual change."
A native of Albion, Pa., Smith was born in 1919 and graduated from Oberlin College. He received his master's degree from Ohio State University and served in World War II as an officer in the Army Medical Department. He served as executive director of the American Lung Association of Pennsylvania until 1974 and as a member of his local school board for 28 years. Smith has written many articles for educational journals, but The Rise and Fall of Public Education in America is his first book.
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