Newspaper Op-Eds

I recently found myself listening to a lengthy and rancorous debate about the ''horrible'' state of our country's public schools and the need for a voucher system to let the free market set things right. Finally, I had to put in my own two cents.

First, I don't think that public education has been, as one combatant put it, ''a failure for 50 years.'' I was in third grade 50 years ago (my brothers were in first and fifth grades) and I thought our local school in Louisville, Ky., did an excellent job of civilizing us and getting us the basics that allowed us to go on to an excellent college. Much more recently, my own two sons attended public schools in Waterville, Me. Both received an excellent education and went on to excellent colleges. Of course, not all public school systems are thriving and many of them are struggling -- especially in our cities. Before we blame the schools, however, shouldn't we diagnose the causes?

What has changed most fundamentally are the culture, the economy, and the expectations we have of our schools. I suggest there have been several dramatic shifts over the past half century:

First, concentration of the poor in urban areas resulting in overwhelming numbers of kids with little or no support for the educational enterprise in the home or the community; I worked with the rural poor in a junior high school setting when I was just out of college. The problems were challenging, but nothing like the challenges presented by urban poverty today.

Second, the overwhelming number of households where both parents work full-time outside the home. This is not to suggest that women shouldn't have equal opportunities, but it would be foolhardy to claim that such a radical shift in households has not played a role. When I was growing up, my parents rode herd on my homework and performance in school relentlessly, every day. Though my wife worked part-time when our boys were young, she was always home when they got home from school. And we both nagged them relentlessly about their homework and school performance.

Third, the drug problem. When I was growing up, I was shocked to hear that there was beer at an 11th grade party. My date to the senior prom smuggled a flask of gin in her corsage box (unbeknownst to me). Now we are witnessing a culture that is much given to addictions of many, many kinds. Drugs are a temptation to kids, but what's worse they are destroying the family infrastructure in poor areas so that kids have little supervision or support at home.

Fourth, an electronic culture that is saturated in materialism, sexuality, and opportunities for distraction. In my youth, there was one television with three channels. My wife and I had to work a lot harder to keep our boys focused (Walkman, Nintendo, video arcades, two televisions with many more channels ... and a computer).

None of these problems can be blamed on liberals or conservatives, Republicans or Democrats. They are too big, too pervasive. I've known Democrats and Republicans who failed as parents and I've known liberals and conservatives who were selfish and materialistic.

But, it is not fair to blame the schools for not fixing these problems either. These problems are much, much bigger than public schools designed for a 1950s society can solve. Education has always been a partnership between schools and families, and it is families that, more often than not, aren't holding up their end of the bargain. In my view, a voucher system would result, at least in the short and medium term, in rapidly spiraling tuition at private schools and the devastation of our public school systems. Could the marketplace eventually make it all right? Perhaps, though we would have to write off several generations of young people. I'm not convinced that the free market is a panacea for all of society's ills. There are rip-off artists and profiteers wherever there is an opportunity to take advantage of people. We would simply be adding education to the mix.

I don't think solutions are likely to be cheap, quick, or political. In fact, I don't claim to know what the ''solutions'' would be. I don't think that pointing fingers and demonizing teachers or school administrators is very helpful or a step in the right direction. Money alone is not the solution. It's going to be tough, and it's going to be complicated, and there is no guarantee that we will succeed. But it is guaranteed that if we don't, we will see our country decline in prosperity and, to use an old-fashioned word that is not owned by either party, in virtue.

Peyton R. Helm, Ph.D., is the president of Muhlenberg College in Allentown.