The State of the Education System
The 'public school experiment' has failed and we need to correct it. While some children graduate with a decent education, most of those children would be just as successful on their own, as most of them as self-learners. It is absolutely ludicrous to put 20+ same agers together and expect them all to learn at the same levels. The one-room schoolhouse had many advantages; a major one being that with older and younger children together in the classroom, the older ones knew that these children were looking up to them and that they had a responsibility for those youngsters, too. Also, the classes were smaller and community run--- TRUE public schools.
I was public (hereafter, called government) schooled for most of my school life, with 1 year in a private school because there wasn't a qualified teacher in the government school. I was bored to tears all through school. It seemed like we were constantly being held back because 'little Johnny' didn't understand something. Most of the time, I had my assignment done in class because it was everything ran so slowly. Another issue was teachers who would READ out of the text books in class; just give the assignment- WE can read! Fortunately, I have parents who realized that learning is not limited to specific government owned buildings and they made sure that I had many educational experiences outside of a ‘school’ setting.
I have one birth child who was government schooled and one who was government schooled for K-1, then homeschooled. With my child in the government school, I found the schools were much more concerned with social issues (aborting our grandchildren without our knowledge while suspending that same daughter for taking an aspirin or Tylenol) than with teaching basic skills like the three R's. When I stood up some so-called school norms, and for our family rules, standards, values, and morals I was told that this would "harm" my daughter by making her 'different
As a teacher, I was disgusted at the dumbing down of our education system. I taught in government and a private school, and there was little difference. Teachers are told to not fail (it might hurt the child's 'psyche'. I was told to overlook test results because, it doesn't look good to have children fail. At one time, I was told to pass a student because, "you really don't want to be stuck with him again next year, do you?" or “ if you hold her back it will hurt her self-esteem”. We as a society seem not realize that self-esteem comes from accomplishments, not from breathing 12-20 times/minute.
The federal Department of Education needs to be abolished. There is no allowance for federal government run education in the Constitution, therefore is in the realm of local governments, not federal. With control closer to the people, it could become "public (by the people) education again, rather than a government institution. I believe that tax breaks would be the best thing possible for all parents. With tax breaks, the parents could send their children to government (or ideally, public), private or home schools. A tax credit system would invoke a free market in which, you have a good competitive market or you go out of business. Government schools would have to improve or they would crash. At this time, government schools are receiving more money per student than private schools and are achieving less. Taking money from parents (in the form of taxation) who are not using the government schools and not allowing them an option of using it for alternative education has an old name "taxation without representation".
No Child Left Behind has a corollary- "no child gets ahead". When you treat all students equally and no one moves forward until all "get it" you are dropping to the lowest common denominator. I see no benefits to this plan and, though I think it was good in theory, it has failed. Businesses are seeing less than 35% of high school graduates capable of passing 8th grade reading and math entrance tests for entry level jobs. This is a sad commentary for our country.
- Jaynee Germond For Congress's blog
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Great article, Jaynee!
"We as a society seem not to realize that self-esteem comes from accomplishments, not from breathing 12-20 times/minute."
I love it!
I wrote in another article that education seems even harder for most people to let go of as "publicly funded" than even healthcare. My position is that education, like healthcare, software, and textiles is no more than the fruit of somebody else's labor and that no one can claim a "right" to it. Freed of our conditioning, we would see that taxing one person to pay a teacher to provide education to another person's child is no less socialism than taxing one person to pay another person's rent.
I propose an experiment. Establish a private, not-for-profit school to compete with the local public school. Then, establish a FOR PROFIT private school in the same area. Use your idea of tax breaks to allow the competition to be somewhat fair.
Within 5 years, the FOR PROFIT school would be beating the other two by any measurable standard of quality of education, performance of its students, etc. It would also cost far less to to be a student there.
Sacriledge? What do you think?
Tom Mullen
www.tommullen.net
www.myspace.com/skepticsongs
...cannot tell time on an analog clock or say the months of the year in order. He was graduated from a "government" high school last year. Makes me sad and angry.
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams