Last night, I was involved in an interesting conversation.
At the card game that I enjoy with my father and his friends, the discussion during the coffee break turned to the state of public education. I find it incredible that some people never let facts or logic interfere with their opinions. Opinions based upon a complete lack of logic do fit the old joke about opinions being like [anal openings.] To the dismay of most people with whom I'm involved in intellectual debate, I propose a different standard: Opinions are based on data and logical reasoning, and therefore, everybody's opinions are not equal in terms of validity. Such was the case in the debate.
Mr. H proposed the idea that in every generation, schoolchildren are more advanced than the preceding generation, and therefore, any discussion that our schools today are failing is ridiculous. With all due respect (which is nearly none,) to Mr. H, our schools today are failures, only improving their ratings by declaring lower standards as being acceptable, and blaming their abject failure in competition with the rest of the world on things such as "advancement in the scope of education," "lack of proper financial support," "lack of parental support," or my personal favorite, "bias in testing and evaluation." Folks, our schools fail because of a social theory that says that self-esteem and social indoctrination in schools is more important than, oh, I don't know, educating our children!
When children today can't perform basic mathematics or put together a coherent sentence, Mr. H. proposes that it's perfectly acceptable for our students to not be able to add, subtract, multiply, divide, read or write, because there are such things as calculators and spell check. Sure, our kids don't know that 6x8=48, but that's okay, because they can misspell text messages to one another at the speed of light! (Speaking of which, it would be interesting to find out if the average middle school student knows the speed at which light travels.)
Teachers' unions say that they cannot teach effectively because of increased class size, or because they have to subject their students to testing rather than teach, or any of a myriad of other excuses. While I don't disagree that there are MANY good teachers, there are also some horrific ones that because of socialist ideals, are kept on by the educational disease known as "tenure." Contrary to sensationalist reporting, public school teachers are well compensated for their work. They are among the highest paid in comparison with most other trades, and their solution to their failing performance is, "Give us more money, and we'll do better." Folks, we spend a LOT of money on education, and our students are failing. Although we can and should provide our students with the best education possible, throwing more money at failing systems is NOT the answer. Private school teachers and home educators do far better with far less resources than are provided by the government.
Heaven forbid the discussion of school vouchers comes up. "What?" the Statists say, "You want us to stop giving more and more money to systems that fail? Instead, you want to allow people the choice as to how best serve themselves educationally? You barbarian, you child abuser, you.... you Capitalist, you!" Sorry, folks. When a school fails, the parents should be allowed to use the moneys they are providing in school taxes to send their child to whatever educational institution they as parents see fit, even if that institution is the living room!
I won't even get into the discussion of the disservice that is done educationally by Affirmative Action. When our educational institutions become blind to race, gender and anything else but educational achievement, that is when nobody will be able to cast a doubtful glance at a "disadvantaged" person in our post-secondary system, and rightfully wonder, "are you the equal of your 'non-disadvantaged' classmate over there, or did you get inordinate breaks and relaxed scoring because of the color of your skin or your hormonal count?"
President Obama made a statement that successful folks didn't succeed because they were smarter, or worked harder than others. Under the Statists, of which he is the current leader, following in the footsteps of Marx, Lenin and Stalin, he's right. Undeserving people succeed, rather than deserving ones, because the current mindset of liberalism eliminates achievement and ability as any virtue. Rather, those people who are undeserving of a given opportunity through their own deficiencies are considered the downtrodden. Success is frowned upon, if not outright vilified. Failure is considered an unacceptable failure of society, rather than the normal mechanics of human striving. There is success and victory in the wonderful arena of human struggle; there is also failure and loss.
It is our self-serving educational system that interprets, "No Child Left Behind," as "No admission of failure and instead, give false promotion." I remember every year having to take the NYS Regents exams. The NYS Department of Education mandated that in each year, a given course would require a given curriculum. Each student was tested at the end of the year, and given a score commensurate with what they were able to show they learned in the subject. How appalling! Students being required to show they had actually learned what was taught, and if they couldn't, they were given a failing grade? How dare somebody hurt a student's self-esteem that way! Instead of falsely claiming to be sorry for hurting a kid's feelings, I'm honestly saying I'm not sorry if a kid's feelings get hurt. If you succeed, you feel good about your success. If you fail, you feel bad about your failure. That bad feeling is (or should be) an impetus to change. If we never let our children fail, they will most certainly never succeed.
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