Hitting The Ground Running

The decision for what I wanted to write about in my first real blogpost was not really hard to make, because this subject has really pressed hard on my mind since I saw the John Stossel report "Stupid In America". What really struck me was not that American children in public schools fare much worse in education than children in public schools in other nations. In fact, according to the report, American high school students placed 25th in a test given to high school students in 40 countries. When parts of an international test were given to high schoolers in New Jersey and in Belgium, the Belgians easily overtook the American students, scoring 75% to the Americans paltry 47%.

But poor scoring of American high school students is not surprising given the state of public schools today. What really struck me and surprised me were the attitudes of those responsible for the education of our children: parents and educators.

One segment of the report focused on a high school student in South Carolina who struggled to read on a first grade level at the age of 18. Think about that for a moment. A high school senior was allowed to progress throughout his entire school career without achieving the most basic fundamental required in obtaining an education. And what was worse is that his mother allowed this to happen.

The flaw of most parents today is that they do not believe that they are truly responsible for parenting. They believe that they can subcontract that obligation to someone else, namely public schools after children reach compulsory attendance age. The fact of the matter is, undeniably, that the education of YOUR child is YOUR responsibility. It is a parent's obligation to a child to see to it that he is receiving his education. And report cards will not tell the story. You actually have to do some investigating and homework to get the real scoop.

Apparently, the mother of this South Carolina teen had conference after conference with her son's school, but to no avail. So what did she do? She sent him right back to the school that was passing him on without addressing the issues he had.

He was sent to a Sylvan Learning Center on the dime of ABC and improved significantly over only the course of a few weeks. It is a shame that his mother could not have taken it upon herself to do something like that earlier on in his school career.

But are the educators without fault? While the United States Constitution does NOT guarantee all people the right to an education, many state constitutions do. Public educators are employees of the state, therefore they have the fiduciary responsibility to provide public education to the best of their ability.

Now it is my belief that most educators truly care about trying to teach children. However, the present system makes it almost impossible and gives no incentive for achieving excellence. A teacher who comes in every day giving 110% of himself to his class will be paid and given the same benefits as a teacher who comes in each day, writes and assignment on the boards, kicks back in his chair, and sleeps the rest of the day away. So why not change the system if it isn't working?

Enter the National Education Association. The name would imply that this group would be established to the betterment of education for our children. Disappointing as it may be, this group is a union for educators, teachers, and employees of public schools, such as bus drivers, lunch room workers, and maintenance people, now called "Education Support Professionals". And like all labor unions, their goal is to maintain a reason for existence.

A quick scanning of their website would reveal some insightful and intellectually heavy debates, and example being "Should I or Shouldn't I Eat Lunch With My Students?" More scanning reveals that the NEA is backing efforts "with a new salary initiative to secure an “appropriate living wage” as starting pay for ESPs and a $40,000 minimum salary for teachers". A $40,000 minimum salary? How about adding a cell phone and company car to that pot.

The union members interviewed in the Stossel report held nothing back about their true feelings. When questioned about the difficulty of firing bad teachers by Stossel, one stand-offish union member proclaimed "YOU prove that I'm a bad teacher!" Many openly proclaimed that teachers should never be fired. But the most appalling of the quotes was from a teacher who, when asked about school vouchers and competition in education, stated that "competition is not human". What?

The one point that both evolutionists and creationist could agree on is that competition is very human. Evolutionists would point to survival of the fittest, which is to say that genes compete to remain in the evolutionary chain, and the weak ones are weeded out while the strong ones prevail. Creationists would point to Cain and Abel. Cain, who was upset because God was more pleased with his sacrifice, killed Abel out of anger. In other words, Cain lost the competition for God's favor in sacrifice while Abel won. And the NEA, like Cain, had rather kill the competition than to concede that their sacrifice is inferior.

If this is truly the mindset of today's educators, and it appears to be with new grading methods, what are our public school children learning about capitalism, which is the cornerstone of the economic system in the United States. A tenet of capitalism is competition. If one wants to make a good argument for competition, consider the monopolies of the industrial revolution. Or, a more recent example, is the pre-privatization of Ma Bell. Can anyone say one style of black phone?

To answer my rhetorical question above, I would say very little, which is why I believe that the only way to save our education system is to privatize the entire education system. Yes, NEA executives would probably have to find work as education support professionals, but, at least it would be honest work. At the very least, we should attach our tax dollars for education to each student (currently public education costs $10,000 per student annually) and allow parents to choose the school that their children attend. Oh, by the way, most private schools can educate children for $3K to $6K per year.

Competition breeds excellence. And if we want excellence in education, there is no other way. Else, we continue to make the less favorable sacrifice of our children on the alter of the NEA.