Everybody is an expert on education, and because public schools have listened to all the "experts" they suffer from an identity crisis that threatens to pull them apart.

As dramatic as that sounds, it's the plain truth. I know; I've been teaching in District 271 for 36 years, and when I retire at the end of this school year I'd like to think I'm leaving the system in better shape than when I began in Coeur d'Alene in 1978. But I feel as if this district is part of a U.S. public school system that has lost its way. I work with dedicated and caring people, but from my perspective the identity crisis has hit these busy public servants because they have listened too much to others and not enough to themselves.

For one reason or another we have let politics and special interests and business dictate to us how to educate, and because we are a public entity we've allowed forces in the public to dictate policy, forgetting what we know in our hearts: Politicians are after votes, business is after profit, and just because parents have kids it does not make them experts on learning, no matter how rich or loud they are.

In our hearts we know that the business model does not fit the public school model. Businesses can hire and fire, but we have to take and keep our students. And if a school turns a profit, something illegal or unethical has occurred. But we continue to give big business a big voice in education. We even make business leaders and not educators our state school superintendents. We have also allowed big government to dictate policy. Usually we have no legal right of refusal, and if local districts think they know better than the feds or the states, they face financial penalties or school closures, especially if we do not have test scores that satisfy bureaucrats and politicians. It has gotten to the point where testing now inhibits rather than enhances learning, and as one of those who spends every working day with America's kids I can tell you that it won't matter if it is "The Common Core" or "Race to the Top" or "No Child Left Behind" or "A Nation at Risk" or any other program we adopt; if students don't buy into it and become engaged, it won't work.

Teachers know this in the common core of their hearts, but somehow the public that pays our wages is blind to the fact that education is a two-way street and that a lack of buy-in by students is a broader problem. Youthful recalcitrance is an ancient societal trend that has never been solved and is often exacerbated by giving more tests and striving for higher scores.

Yes, teachers need to be held accountable, but if only the messengers and the message are under that restraint, what about those who are in charge of the kids for all those other hours of the day? And while it is true that this year's high school graduation rate will be the highest ever, teachers also know that we can't pat ourselves on the backs because we are aware of the great potential that has gone untapped while kids have simply jumped through hoops instead of being given the additional task of attempting to design and make better hoops. Good teachers know that if given a chance students can create their own hoops to form a chain that leads to a good life and not just a good job.

Teachers have relinquished their expertise to those who have spent little or no time with children, and it has caused an identity crisis that won't be fixed until we tell the public that there is a difference between an educated person and a trained one. When E.D. Hirsh pushed his cultural literacy movement decades ago, he knew that certain things must be known to be a literate American, and while that list may have changed, the fact remains that students and parents want more from public schools than just skills that will bring employment. Kids want good lives, not just good jobs and admission to good colleges. That means both training and education must happen, and that will come at a monetary and philosophical expense I fear the public will not be willing to pay. Too many from the "me" generation who have crossed the bridge to a good life are willing to keep others from crossing it, usually for selfish reasons. It is my hope that educators find their identities and fight this trend.

Public education can still be the great equalizer and noble idea it was before losing its identity. My parting wish is that the public allows its schools the opportunity to become noble again.

Mike Ruskovich is a Blanchard resident.