An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
The Decline of Education
This article, while about Memphis city schools, could have been written about any large city across the country.
Memphis City Schools graduation rates decline
The latest graduation rates are a sinking sign for a school district with the motto “Every Child. Every Day. College Bound.”
Only 66.9 percent of the 2004 freshman class at Memphis City Schools received diplomas this spring, down nearly 3 percentage points from last year.
No matter the dollar amount thrown at a school system, the graduation rates drop. Many who do graduate are barely literate. Why is that?
Under guidelines of No Child Left Behind, the federal law that mandates improvements in academic achievement and graduation rate, MCS was supposed to hit a rate of 71.6 this year. By 2010, it should be 77.6.
NCLB was a pretty good idea. Unfortunately, it didn’t take into account special needs, and I’m hoping they’ll rectify this problem. They can throw silly mandates in all directions, but, sadly, you can’t mandate kids to learn. You can’t mandate that they care about their education, or their future. Teachers and parents have to instill the desire to learn.
Despite a decade of education reform, including an escalating number of optional schools, fully one-third of the freshman class in any U.S. high school does not graduate.
The number is the highest of any industrialized nation in the world and has been rising since the late 1960s when the United States turned out its best graduation results.
What happened in the 1960s that would have such a profound affect on our education system? Well, let’s take a look at that, and see what we can come up with, shall we?
A law suit by a lunatic, Madeline Murry O’Hare, forced public schools to end all prayer. Not that prayer actually stopped (ask any kid who has taken a test), but school could no longer instill values in the students. Then, we had the hippies. Now, being one of those late 60s, early 70s ‘hippies’, I can tell you, education was not on the top of my list. I did finish high school after a year of ‘fun’, but many didn’t….. the parents and grandparents of today’s students.
You had the radicals of that age, now teaching school. You know what they say…if you can’t do, teach. Not to say that all teachers in the public school systems are of that mind set, but those who teach in their colleges seem to be. Just look at college campuses these days. And why would a high school graduate need to take remedial reading????
Over the last 40 years, we gradually stopped demanding the best from our kids. Heaven forbid we should actually expect them to do well! Might hurt their little psyches. They are no longer allowed ‘recess’. You remember that break in the school day, where you use to run off all that pent up energy? Might get a boo boo, too.
We had LBJ and his welfare programs. Have you noticed that the ‘war on poverty’ never ends? We have a generation of parents, teaching their kids how to suck the system dry, instead of demanding they achieve something with their lives. Make a contribution to society, and all that good stuff. We’ve got cities, and even a state or two, totally “owned” by the teachers unions. (You know who you are!) They demand more and more money from the taxpayer, and do less and less for it, all the while, whining “It’s for the children!” Hog wash! The union leadership couldn’t give two squats for the kid’s education. They want more money so they’ll be set for life at the taxpayer’s expense, all the while taking trips to ‘conventions’ and never attending one seminar.
It has become an ugly reality. We no longer care enough that our children do well. We expect the government will take care of all their needs, so why bother?
The long road to recovery begins with one step. Do away with teacher’s unions! Once the power has been removed from unions, return it to the actual ones who do the teaching in the classroom. Restore discipline. Return power to the parents of the students. We can’t solve this problem overnight. It didn’t happen overnight. The process will be slow. It’s hard to remove such power once it’s been granted, but it can be done. One step at a time.
Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to get rid of the corrupt politicians who have been aiding and abbetting the decline either!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122480597946864923.html
Big Labor Does Gay Marriage
Because a teachers’ union has other priorities besides education
Here’s a pop quiz: Who’s donated the most money to an effort in California to defeat Proposition 8, an initiative on the November 4 ballot that would define marriage as between a man and a woman in the state?
A) Gay-advocacy organizations
B) Civil-rights groups
C) The California Teachers Association
If you guessed “C,” you understand the nature of modern liberal politics. And if you didn’t, perhaps you’re wondering what exactly gay marriage has to do with K-12 public education. The high school dropout rate is 1-in-4 in California and 1-in-3 in the Los Angeles public school system, odds that worsen considerably among black and Hispanic children. So you might think the CTA, the state’s largest teachers’ union, would have other priorities.
In fact, the CTA and its parent organization, the National Education Association, have used tens of millions of dollars in mandatory teachers’ dues to advance all manner of left-wing political causes. And members like Ms. Peart are right to ask questions. In some years barely a third of the NEA’s budget has gone toward improving the lot of teachers themselves.
In addition to vigorously fighting school choice and other reforms that benefit underprivileged children but threaten the public education monopoly, the NEA has directly (or via state affiliates) bankrolled Acorn, the Democratic Leadership Council, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and, naturally, the Human Rights Campaign, which lobbies for “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights.”
[...] capitalism, Education in America, Politics, socialism, The Cold War I attempted to comment to this post from An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings about the decline of education, but since I tend to [...]
@Gary Kayser:
(I finally got the chance to actually READ this. Been in a tizzy for the last few days.
)
This is one of the MANY reasons I believe it’s way past time to get rid of unions….ESPECIALLY the teacher type. They have destroyed what was once a really good educational system.