EDUCATION
Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities,
because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled,
can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.
John F. Kennedy
That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
Abraham Lincoln
Enlighten the people generally,
and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits
at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson
Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education.
The human mind is our fundamental resource.
John F. Kennedy
The Diagnosis:
Education is in crisis.
Spending. We spend almost $10,000 per student per year and still, in many areas of this country, are not providing quality education to our children . The percentage of young adults(18-24 year olds), who could not identify the countries of Iraq and Afghanistan on a map were 63% and 90% respectively. And those countries just happen to be where our precious troops are fighting terrorism. And 50% of the young adults could not even locate New York State on the map. In 2006, the National Center for Education, performed international testing and found American 15 years olds ranked 21st in math, and 16th in science out of 29 countries. And only average in reading.
Self-esteem. It seems the number one concern of the government run school is that of the students self esteem, not of learning. Thus using purple pens to correct papers, because red is "frightening." No right and wrong , no correct or incorrect? So instead of having only a few kids with low self esteem (which could easily be corrected), we are aiming for all kids to have low self esteem in order to be "fair." No, the best way to improve self esteem is through achievement. (i.e. less red ink on the second paper than the first.)
Indoctrination. Bill Ayers, has changed in his thinking from blowing up buildings to having much more patience. He now believes in using the education system as the "motor-force of revolution." Many of our students are coming out of our education system not knowing where Iraq is but they are taught that the polar bears are drowning and that America is a fundamentally a bad place.
The Rx:
More Spending? No, we have been there and done that. Spending (per child and adjusted for inflation) has quadrupled since 1970 but educational achievement has not improved. The No Child Left Behind, while it sounds like a worthy goal, has increased spending and if it looks like there is improvement it is often because standards have been lowered. In 2004, Michigan's failing schools dropped from over 1500 to 216. Wow! It is working? No, to get those results the passing score was lowered from 75 to 42! Michigan may think it looks great but our children's education is suffering. No this bill just added to the bureaucracy and did very little to education.
The answer lays in parental choice. Currently, there are several states (including Pennsylvania) that have implemented this and they are starting to seeing improvement in results. Why? Because there is competition. And competition is not evil. In fact the lack of competition results in continuing the same failed policies. (More on that in the health care section.)
Moving control of education back to state and local governmental levels. This what the founders called federalism. If it is not specifically in the constitution it is reserved to the states. And there is no mention of education in the constitution (see home page.) Currently the role of the local school boards is to just figure out how to use the money they have to meet the federal government mandates. We the people need to tell the Federal government to "Get out of our Way. "
Reward quality teachers. Let me be clear, teachers are true public servants and by far the majority do a great job. But the tenure system needs to go. It is very difficult to get rid of incompetent/bad teachers once tenured. And also once tenured, even the best teachers may burn out. So why not reward the good/great teachers and help the others move on to another line of work. While the numbers of inadequate teachers are few, our children are too important and too precious to risk their education to lifetime appointments who no longer care about what they are doing.
The Heritage Foundation has broken down their research into three Education Initiative Goals:
1. Restore federalism and citizen ownership of public education by moving educational control out of Washington and into the hands of state and local authorities who are responsive to parents and other taxpayers.
2. Enact and implement parental choice in education policies in the states and the District of Columbia.
3. Persuade the public and policymakers that educational and cultural factors are critical to upward mobility.
Why in 2010 do we need # 3? Shouldn't everyone know that without needing to be persuaded? We should, but we don't! Graduation rates in the 50 biggest cities in the country range from 77.1% down to 24.9%. Some, obviously do not feel, nor are they taught that a quality education will lead "to upward mobility." So some those who drop out of high school, may end up inventing the next big thing but far more will end up depending on government. Maybe this "government" likes people dependent on it! But this is America and we the people are telling the "government" that that is not acceptable. We want our children educated, and not indoctrinated, so they can achieve what President Kennedy said in that first quote, "Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities."
