This column presents a conservative viewpoint about items of interest in our community and our lives. Focus is on items impacting your pocket book, your personal freedoms, and your rights. I hope you will read the column regularly and it occasionally influences your opinions and actions.
In my opinion the national approach to educating the youth of our country is a terrible failure. The remarks I will make in this column are not pointed at our local school system, because I feel we in our community are blessed with a system which is functioning at a level far above the miserable performance levels which predominate across the land. Admittedly, there are hundreds of thousands of dedicated, hard working, qualified educators working to educate our nation’s children. Unfortunately, there are also hundreds of thousands of unqualified, uninspired, lazy, and uninspiring people with the title of “teacher” working in a unionized system which provides them tenure and protection.
Across the nation, the graduating product of the existing education process is a young adult which can barely read and do basic math. They have little knowledge of history, geography, government, physics, biology, social skills, health, proper English, writing skills, science, and other needed areas of personal development. Their main skills are the ability to text on a cell phone, operate a play station….and be “cool”. We are suffering from a general “Dumbing of America”.
The problem is NOT lack of expenditures. The United States spends more money per student than any other nation, yet our comparative student scoring reveals that we rank near the bottom of all industrialized nations. Throwing more money at this problem is not the solution. In fact, in areas which invest the most per student, such as Washington D.C., the scoring is lowest. The problems lie with our basic approaches and philosophies.
This tragic situation exists from our Primary Education Schools through our High Schools. How has this situation been allowed to develop in a nation steeped in a rich history of technological and social development? What negative factors have entered the involved processes? What should we do to correct this national disgrace?
It is interesting to note that this same deplorable condition does not exist in our national schools of “higher learning”. The colleges of America are institutions which are revered throughout the world, and hundreds of thousands of foreign students travel to our country for the privilege of going to college here. What are the differences in our approach to college level teaching and primary and high school teaching?
It appears to me that the situation in our public schools has evolved over the past forty years because of the influence of several negative factors working in concert to diminish the effectiveness of our educational systems. In my opinion, the principal negative components are:
● The unionization of the school system teachers and employees. The presence of unions within the educational process introduces an influence which is focused on serving its membership instead of serving the students. This is a diversion of focus. Unionization has led to a system of tenure in most schools which protects teachers who are unqualified, non performing, and are a costly “drag” on the system. For example in the New York school system there are over 1000 teachers who are paid full salary and benefits, but are so bad in performance, work habits, and behavior that no principal within the system wants them on their staff. They are thus paid to not teach….just because of their union protection. This represents millions of dollars which are needed in the classrooms but must be paid to these incompetent, worthless teachers.
● The introduction of bureaucratic and political influences via the funding processes. School systems are no longer controlled by local opinions, philosophies, and desires. Instead, they are now regulated by politically motivated oversight which emanates from the federal Department of Education, and the state departments of education. In order to qualify for the myriad of grants, funds, and programs from the federal and state agencies, the local school board and Superintendents must fully comply with every bureaucratic edict, regulation, rule, and wish the herd of overseers at those upper levels spew out. They can only ask “How high?” when ordered to “jump”. This situation has led to the removal of God from education, removal of corporal punishment, adherence to rules of “political correctness”, excessive administration and overhead, and involvement with a long list of social welfare programs which have been imbedded within the educational system. These place emphasis on teaching those students who have refused to participate and learn throughout their student history, while often neglecting the needs of those exceptional students who wish to progress and learn.
● The development of a “sue, sue, sue,” society led by a horde of hungry lawyers. Just as our doctors are forced to practice defensive medicine out of a fear of being sued in today’s lawyer dominated society, our school boards live in an environment of fear of being sued because of some school program, philosophy, or action. Because of this they constantly practice “defensive education”. This fear has led to removal of corporal punishment, the idiotic rule of a teacher never, never touching a student, removal of all prayer or semblance of a prayer from all school functions, the involvement of the courts and police to handle many discipline problems which should be handled by school authorities as routine incidents. This fear has also multiplied the cost of record keeping and detailed documentation of every action taken in enforcement of school rules. This fear has led to every school needing a costly full time police staff on site.
● The continuing disintegration of the family structure within our society which leads to lowering of moral standards, drug use among youth, an absence of religious influence, and a general decline in personal character and values. This is exhibited by a society in which over 50% of the children are born out of wedlock, thus leaving the child with no father influence. The evolution of values and beliefs based on a social philosophy in which we should rely on government to provide us with all needs instead if stressing the need for self reliance, hard work, and providing for oneself an your family. As our reliance on government is increased from generation to generation of entitlement minded citizens, the emphasis and need for a good educational foundation for survival is rendered unnecessary. Consequently educational requirements and standards have been lowered, in some instances enabling a student who can not read to graduate.
What can we do to begin the process of correction and change which must occur if we ever hope to create an educational system which will “do the job” for our children? What should we do?
#1. I feel we must return control of the educational processes for primary and high school student development to local control. We must enact legislation which prohibits supervision, regulation, and attaching of “funding strings’ by state and federal agencies.
#2. All tenure protections should be eliminated.
#3. School funding, teacher pay and staff pay should be based on a fairly conceived and designed system of performance measurement. If a staff of administrators and/or educators are not capable of teaching our children, the system should identify their shortfall and enable their replacement. Competition should prevail between schools. Good schools should be rewarded and incompetent schools should be penalized and replaced.
#4. Schools should be no larger than 200 students. This will keep schools more closely tied to community involvement and bonding, enhance parental involvement, enable more students to participate in school activities (which I feel are an essential element of the process), and will strengthen the level of individualized attention the teachers and administrators are able to give each student. I realize this will increase costs of facilities and services, but why create huge, impersonal schools which produce an uninvolved, uninspired student.
If we can regain control of our local schools….we will be “Getting It Right”. Choose your elected officials carefully.
Rudiments: Odds and Ends Worth Mentioning-
● (Say Something Nice) I am very pleased with the decisions made by the County Commissioners and many City Commissions in regards to taxes this year. They voted to keep the millage rate we had last year, which when applied in many instances to a reduced property valuation will give the overburdened property owners a small iota of tax relief. Only the School Board raised their millage, and that was due to those “strings” attached to funding measures as described in this week’s column.
● Kindel Lanes will be sold on the court house steps on Thursday…a sad state of affairs. We can all walk down our new million dollar stimulus sidewalk and think about how it came to pass as we stroll along. This is an example of the recession impacting our community.
● Football season will be beginning very shortly. That should divert our attention from our national misery.
Note: The opinions stated in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hatcher Publications.
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