OPINION:
Historians have long told us that America’s “culture wars” began on Feb. 6, 1985. I was in my office in the intergovernmental division at the Department of Education that day when there arrived on the premises our newly sworn-in secretary. The country hasn’t been the same since.
Former Education Secretary William Bennett would soon be called a knight, a bull, a cowboy, a samurai, a brawler, a pit bull, an alley fighter, a tough Irish cop, and the Lone Ranger. From Day One, I loved Bill’s scrappy style and raw courage, and I was proud to soon find myself one of half a dozen federal education officials on the front lines with him.
With Bill leading the charge, we spent the next four years advancing functional values and common sense across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The battle was about character education, civic education and academic standards — and Mr. Bennett and those of us on his team fought the battle head-to-head on multiple fronts at the same time.
Even in the 1960s, most American public schools still taught values like personal responsibility, self-discipline, hard work, honesty, friendship, and love of family and country.
But beginning in the early 1970s, public schools had turned to moral relativism. Instead of transmitting sound values to America’s children and youth, they began teaching our young that all values were subjective, relative and personal, and that no set of values was right or wrong.
Bill believes that every student, by high school at the latest, should be familiar with the leaders of America’s founding and the key documents and debates surrounding it and how our political and civic institutions work in this republic.
Every American student should encounter the ideas and ideals contained in the great works of Western civilization and American history, including the works of James Madison, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.
We made some progress on character education and civics education in the 1980s, but it was in raising academic standards that the Bennett revolution struck gold.
Mr. Bennett took the press with him as he went to schools in inner cities that were graduating most of their students, enabling them to attain high ACT or SAT scores and helping them go on to college and successful careers.
It takes thoughtful, disciplined and loving teachers and principals who treat each student as special even as they expect and enforce good behavior and academic achievement.
Mr. Bennett spoke and wrote, drawing attention to what works in education. He placed great emphasis on empowering teachers and parents and on all of us urging students to take challenging classes and do their homework.
In the mid-1980s, states enacted some 3,000 separate school reform measures. Most of these involved new curricular and achievement standards within the work of the “excellence movement.”
The Bennett revolution had a deep impact. In 1982, only 13% of American public high school graduates had taken four years of English and three years each of math, science and social studies. By 1987, 29% were doing so.
William Bennett has always had a simple message: Adults should teach children how to read, speak, write, compute, reason, analyze, comprehend, and solve problems. And adults should teach children and youth how to be responsible, self-regulating, hardworking, honest, trustworthy, courteous, and respectful of other people.
In “The Devaluing of America,” his 1992 memoir of his nine years in federal office, Mr. Bennett expressed it this way:
“What determines a young person’s behavior are his deeply held convictions and beliefs. Nature abhors a vacuum; so does a child’s soul. If that soul is not filled with noble sentiments, with virtue, if we do not attend to the ‘better angels of our nature,’ it will be filled with something else.”
Today, when we listen to his podcast or watch him on cable TV programs, we hear the same William Bennett I’ve known for four decades. There is William Bennett, the brilliant intellectual with his doctorate in philosophy and his experience as a professor at five universities.
And there is William Bennett, the regular guy — slinging slang, keeping it real, and displaying his incredible wit. He speaks in a direct, straightforward manner, and he speaks with intelligence, goodwill, good sense and candor.
On this, his 80th birthday, let us pause to admire William Bennett — more than ever — for his moral philosophy, his profound commitment to children and youth, his knowledgeable leadership on policy, his communication skills, his competitive drive, and above all else his character.
Happy birthday, Bill. Please know how many of us remain grateful to you for your lasting legacy in the lives of all Americans.
• Samuel A. Brunelli served as a deputy director of intergovernmental relations at the Department of Education from 1985 to 1988.
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