George Pyle: There is no simple trick to reforming education

An analogy that relates bullets to anything to do with education these days may be fraught these days. Bear with me.

A memorable installment of the weird newspaper cartoon “The Far Side” featured a man firing a pistol at an attacking werewolf without result. The man’s final realization, drawn from the uniquely ugly necktie the monster was wearing, was that the werewolf had been, before moonrise, the very sporting goods salesman who assured him that the bullets the soon-to-be victim was buying were, indeed, the finest silver.

That is to say, sometimes, there are no silver bullets.

Witness, for example, Utah state Sen. Howard Stephenson. The long-time Republican lawmaker from Draper told his colleagues last week that he had come to the sad realization that the state’s charter schools, which he had a large role in creating and funding, were performing no better than the traditional public schools around the state.

The senator’s hope that one or more of those schools would discover, invent or stumble upon a magic way of conveying to the next generation all the methods and memories of civilized life, and that it would come at a minimal cost to the taxpayers, has not been realized.

Meanwhile, investigative reporters were publishing in The Tribune a deep look into the history of another Utah school, the Innovations High School created by Kenneth Grover, a former Salt Lake School District administrator who became the school’s first principal.

While Grover was traveling far and wide talking up his concept of a technology-assisted school where students progress at their own pace and even pick up college credits in the process — and while he was picking up more than a few bucks as an out-of-town expert along the way — the school was drawing notice from district bosses for some unusual spending patterns and results that weren’t that different from high schools that were not so, well, innovative.

The point is not that Stephenson or Grover were wrong. The point is that anyone who says they have a really cool new way of pouring knowledge, understanding, competency and humanity into children who really haven’t evolved all that much in the last 10,000 years should be viewed with some suspicion.

Of course charter schools that are focused or creative or just small enough to care about every student can be worth every dime. Of course there will always be students who thrive in a less-structured atmosphere, who benefit from taking lessons from computers that never get tired, never lose their temper and are ready, willing and able to teach any hour of the day or night.

But education will always be, at its core, a human interaction.

The way to get better at it is to employ more humans, the most patient and empathetic we can find. Pay them — in cash and in professional respect — enough to show our eternal gratitude for the work they do. Test their students, but not too much. And be almost inhumanly patient with a process that, we will be pained to realize, can’t really be measured in any student until they look back at their lives at their retirement reception.

Most of all, reject the argument that there must be no increased funding for schools until those seeking the boost can explain to us the magic reform plan that will suddenly transform the education of small, imperfect and infinitely different humans.

That’s like saying nobody should have children unless they have a whole new way of being parents. Not gonna happen.

But, consider the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Yes, that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The one where 17 people were killed and more injured in the latest school shooting. Yes, those students. The ones who are proving to be incredibly intelligent and articulate in their crusade to say Never Again.

As explained by journalist Dahlia Lithwick via the online magazine Slate, these amazing young folks are the product of what can only be called a liberal education. No, not that kind of liberal. The kind that stresses the classical arts of rhetoric, debate, drama and, ahem, journalism, now magnified and accelerated by the tools of video and social media.

If we are going to demand reform in our schools, that would be the best. It’ll cost us. Big time. But it stands a chance of creating a generation or two that won’t hate us for leaving them a big mess and a box of fake silver bullets.

George Pyle, the Tribune’s editorial page editor, is proud of his classical education: Winnie-the-Pooh, Star Trek and Bugs Bunny. gpyle@sltrib.com