"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards."
Mark Twain

By international comparison, our primary and secondary schools fall far below the quality of many developed nations and yet our universities are recognized as among the best in the world. One system operates bureaucratically and the other competitively. Averages are of course no more than that, merely averages. Some lower schools are great and some not, the quality all too often following the economic structure of a particular area or the dedication of its parents. National standards pull up the worst and yet they accomplish this by pulling down the best to settle for a mediocre center. Therein lies a part of the problem, the need to recognize that schools are more businesses than bureaucracies and their business is education.

We're arguably the most informed people on earth, we Americans. Whether or not we are well informed may be another issue, but with television, radio, books, newspapers, magazines, billboards and adbenches, we are exposed relentlessly to an enormous amount of information. Filtering the messages that come rushing through our eyes and ears is an individual matter and subject to some degree of discrimination. Most of what we know is seen on the TV or heard on the radio, but some of it needs to be read.

Unfortunately, we're less and less a nation of readers. It's been said that a man who will not read is no better off than a man who cannot read and it's fashionable nowadays to mourn the decline of readers. A lot of the mourning is done by those of us who write.

For better or worse, television pretty much dominates our kids and perhaps the intellectuals should lay off for a while and recognize the power. Television's impact could bring back reading

Students have gotten turned off to books and if you looked at the quality and content of most of their schoolbooks, you'd understand why. Little has changed for a century in classroom presentation, while imagery has carried us away. Writing a textbook won't make the author much money, but writing a screenplay for television will make millions. Television has become a stronger and more appealing option for kids. Most of us would rather see the movie than read the book.

So, if we're going to get our kids back to learning and reading, we're going to have to make the appeal visually as television does, where they're already voluntarily spending an average of five hours a day. Hollywood, the ad agencies and Writers Guild would love to show us how. But we need to understand the economics involved and make it profitable to "sell" education and reading.

Can you imagine "Introduction to European History 101" as a consumer product? An exciting and memorable story-line with film clips and gangbuster graphics, videogame chapter review and a class-interactive television quiz? The textbooks would include a commercially produced cassette, designed to be used by teachers to promote student participation and discussion. The textbook and cassette would be upgraded and re-produced every two years.

Suppose "Introduction to European History 101" cost ten million dollars to produce. The amortized cost, across 100,000 schools, is only $100 per school. Cost of individual books could be held to $10 per book, on average. If a student had ten such classes per year, the cost per student would only be $100. The economics are there. School districts, across the country, currently spend between $2,500 and $10,000 to educate each student per year. A hundred bucks doesn't impact that number all that much.

Can you imagine the possibilities in professional production of such subjects as American Literature, Black History, American Indian History, Chemistry, Physics, Creative Writing? Fifty years after seeing Gone With The Wind, I still have a vivid impression of that presentation of Civil War experience. How accurate it was is not the point, the point is remembrance and interest in that struggle, compared to my long lost memories of other history taught. The Boxer Rebellion is a forgotten date for me, but the burning of Atlanta is seared forever into my mind.

The profits to production companies, MGM, Leo Burnett and who knows else, would be substantial. Production companies would spring up to compete in varied markets. The product would be Physics instead of Coca Cola and the consumer would be school students. Advertising is the most formidable force on our planet and we have abandoned its precepts in education, allowing high school graduates who cannot read well enough to get and hold a good job, or any job for that matter.

No government subsidy required, because the user, the school system, already has a budget adequate to cover the cost of the product. If we had a couple of production companies competing with their own version of "Introduction to European History, 101" we'd have some stunning results, because the aftermarket in books and re-production would be huge.

Kids would learn and, more important than that, look forward to learning more about what interests them, which is what education is all about. The reading experience would be paramount, but would be supported with a very sophisticated graphic and audio visual program.

Anyone who has watched our youngsters in school take themselves out of the loop, knows that they can't be dragged or threatened back. The thirst to learn is born early and dies quickly. But that natural and delicate desire to know can be captured by the same instrument to which they willingly devote five hours a day. The potential benefit is that we can unlock their minds.

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