By Alan Caruba
Back in 2001 I wrote a four-part series on “The Subversion of Education in America” and more than a decade later not much has improved. The causes are easily identified. One is federal control and the other is the National Education Association (NEA) which, despite its name, is a union.
Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey became a nationally known figure when he took on the teacher’s union for the way contracts with generous pension and health benefits were bankrupting the State. Other civil service contracts also came under review for the same reason.
A recent headline in The Wall Street Journal caught my eye. “No-Child Law Faces Wave of Opt-Outs” reported that “Twenty-six more states asked to be excused from key requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, an exemption that would curb the education law’s impact considerably.” If the Obama administration grants waivers to all the new applicants, three quarters of the states would be exempt.
The federal Department of Education is a legacy of the failed Carter administration, signed into law on October 17, 1979 and given Cabinet level status. Generally speaking, the NEA made sure it was run to suit its purposes, not that of parents and students.
The best thing a new President and Congress could do for America would be to eliminate the DOE, returning the oversight of educational systems to the States. Clearly, when three quarters of them want out from the No Child program, something is very wrong with it.
Indeed, what is wrong is the notion that education is a one-size-fits-all proposition. Any parent and any teacher can tell you that children individually learn at different rates, have individual strengths and weaknesses that require something other than a federal straight-jacket. No Child is a legacy of the Bush43 administration; proof that no matter who’s in charge, education should not be a federal department.
What the federal government does is redistribute money and at a time when it is broke the notion of spending billions it does not have begs the question of who gets to waste it.
In 2010, the government “invested” $3.5 billion “in an effort to fix the nation’s bottom five percent of public schools and in 2011 it spent another $546 million through the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program. The funds were available to schools that were “eligible for up to an unprecedented $6 million per school over a three-year period to implement one of four reform models.”
Don’t expect much. It has been known for decades that schools in highly segregated, low-income, urban areas; those with more than half of their students representing African-American and Latino populations are the ones in trouble. Their problems are, as often as not, related to cultural attitudes and language difficulties. The student’s problems begin in their homes and transfer into the classrooms.
Minimum Security Prisons
Our schools have been turned into minimum security prisons with increasingly intrusive policies regarding every aspect of student’s lives, from the lunch they bring to school to proposed intervention in their lives off campus. Pre-school programs, often mandatory, have a long history of failure. Parents are under pressure to transfer their control over the lives of their children to schools. It is authoritarian. It is un-American.
So what was deemed an important DOE priority in 2011? Last year it was crowing about its “Green Ribbon Schools” program “to recognize schools that have taken great strides in greening their curricula, buildings, school grounds and overall building operations.” Slapping some solar panels on the roofs of schools does nothing to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the classrooms below.
As for curricula, it just means more indoctrination regarding phony environmental claims about global warming, melting ice caps, endangered species and other specious science. In April, new so-called science standards from the National Research Council will require students be taught the usual Al Gore version of climate change.
The NEA wants you to know that “the teaching profession has changed dramatically over the past fifty years.” That’s why it is sponsoring National Teacher Day on May 3rd. Astonishingly, the NEA admits that “45% of new teachers abandon the profession in their first five years”; apparently without understanding why.
Part of the answer is the poor quality of education they receive at the university level to prepare them to teach. Part of the answer, as the NEA notes, has to do with the “nearly one-quarter of school districts (that) do not require new teachers to have certification for what they are teaching.” Part of the answer is the union requirement involving tenure, making it nearly impossible to fire an incompetant teacher.
How bad are our nation’s schools despite the federal largess and their “greening”? In a report issued in February, the National Center for Policy Analysis, “Restructuring Public Education for the 21st Century”, noted that “Students in dozens of other countries, including China, South Korea, Germany and Finland, outperformed American students in reading, math, and science, according to the Program for International Student Assessment in 2010.
“The United States ranked 23rd in science, 17th in reading, and—worst of all—31st in math.” The dropout rate nationwide wavers between 30 percent and 40 percent with urban center dropout rates as high as 80 percent.
As for those who do graduate, some 76 percent, those who go onto a college education as often as not must first take remedial courses to bring them to a level where they can begin to acquire a higher education.
What happens then? According to the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, “61 percent of folks with a student loan are not paying” whether they are in school or have graduated. That adds up to an $870 billion outstanding balance, akin in ways to the nation’s mortgage crisis. Will public funds be tapped to “bail out” colleges and universities? Probably.
The nation’s educational systems are imploding from pre-school to kindergarten, elementary to middle to high school. Entire generations are either dropping out or graduating without the skill levels to compete in a world where students in other nations are learning how to run circles around their American counterparts.
© Alan Caruba, 2012
Comment
Comment by Willard A. Flippin on March 15, 2012 at 1:36pm As a former teacher of more than twenty eight years I can verify the failure of the national education system. Since the 1960's the educational system has been on a pathway to absolute failure. Schools, I have had the privilege to serve in, which have instituted successful programs for gifted, average, and less than average students have often seen their funding either threatened or cut seriously by bureaucrats who couldn't teach a worm how to crawl. These bureaucrats base their decisions upon failed liberal philosophies that have never and will never work. We fail our students when we expect too much from them due to their abilities as well we fail when we expect too little from them. Often the excuse given by the liberals is that excellent educators are not treating their students fairly and equally. News Flash "Life is not fair or equal".
Comment by Brenda Choate on March 13, 2012 at 7:38pm Billy, you are probably correct. I started school in 1950 and had to learn at my class level prior to graduation. My younger sisters were in school in the 60's and by the time of their graduation they knew less than I did when I graduated. It was about this time I noticed the trend of teachers to be your friend-not you instructor. Class room standards were lowered and expectations were "do your best".
Comment by Terri Rolan on March 13, 2012 at 6:21pm I work in a middle school as a paraprofessional - my current assignment is as the In School Suspension "teacher." I am, I admit, somewhat unusual for a "parapro" in that I have both a BA and an MA. I enjoy what I do (I have a background as a professional tutor, among other things), and am a "senior" so climbing professioal ladders is not my interest. Every day I see the most telling indictment of our school system when I hear children tell me, "You know, Mrs. Rolan, I don't really like ISS but I sure get a lot of my work done - it's so quiet in here!" I am very much "pro-teacher" as I see dedicated men and women try their utmost to teach children while handcuffed by regulation, bureaucratic paperwork, and the4 idiocies of Special Education's hold on the system. It is both sad and funny to have children tel me that without my help in ISS they would never have made it out of 8th grade!!
Comment by Billy Bowlegs on March 13, 2012 at 4:29pm Brenda, Failure goes back to 1960's - It had to have started in the 50's to be effective in the 60's!
I am a 1960 exit stage left snagle pusser.
Joined the USAF. During basic training, the First Sergeant chewed away at me one day, "XXXXX, &^%$#@1 people like you are why people like me buy Russian War bonds".
At First Assignment, a Major (dear friend for life type person) said, "xxxx, you are so damed dumb you do not know enough to know what you don't know". He tutored me to take night courses to get a degree. His best friend, who graduated from a one room school house (log building) in Alabama, also took an interest, especially, after 30 minutes of explaining chess (with demos on a small board) I beat several people in the game from the intelligence office across the hall. That wasn't hard to do based on where they worked.
The reason for the statement is that these too individuals molded intelligence into an otherwise "dumbed down" high school graduate.
So, it actually goes back father than you think, but back then we were all Forrest Gump's, 'Stupid is as Stupid does". And, we didn't know what a box of chocklett was.
Comment by Lizzie on March 13, 2012 at 3:58pm From my years working in schools, I've learned that teachers will gripe about the system-- but they will never support the measures which would actually improve the educational system. "Just give us more money, and how dare you suggest we have shortcomings!"
I have respect for teaching. I balk at being asked to respect the liberal policy of advancing pure, undiluted, short-sighted self-interest at taxpayer expense-- and passing it off as humanitarianism.
The funny thing about prioritizing, is that you can't put teachers' unions and administrators first, AND put kids first.
Comment by Brenda Choate on March 13, 2012 at 11:44am The failure in the school system goes as far back as the 60's
I am sure you are proud of your children, but is it right to ignore the less astute in favor of the gifted? Schools need to get back to the failure system. If a child can not achieve the level they need to pass to the next grade, then they should be held back, not graduated to the next grade. This whole concept of coddling the child from disappointment is doing far more harm than good. Your end product is a person who believes he/she is entitled just because he exist. They do not learn the basic fact of life not being fair and all things are not equal in this world.
Comment by Claudia Precure on March 13, 2012 at 10:52am My children are in school. They are both beautiful, and extremely bright (no mother's pride there) but they are bored. They are the ones who are getting "left behind" because the curriculum is geared toward the slower students. I have to make sure they have things that challenge them and increase their knowledge above and beyond what they are not learning in the class room.
My daughter is two years ahead of her classmates in math, and my son says math "bores" him because he "learned that stuff last year." I think the only students getting "left behind" are our best and brightest. There is no one left to address their needs.
Comment by Sue Devillez on March 13, 2012 at 9:39am Alan, I agree with you that the minds of our children are being sacrificed. Have you heard of HR998 and S555? They have given it an "innocent" name, No Child will be Discrimated Against, or something to that effect. But basically, it is to teach students about Gay and Lesbian lifestyle, and telling them it is OK if they experiment, ect. From the third grade up!! AND they have made sure this mandate will include the home schooled students as well.
Comment by Debrajoe Smith-Beatty on March 13, 2012 at 9:33am I have my levis on and am ready to clean house.
Comment by Billy Bowlegs on March 13, 2012 at 9:29am Me thinks that the "Failing Grade" also applies to every one alive in the United States today.
We have all failed.
We let Obama get into office. Our Teachers let us down - McCain, Bushes one and two, Reid and Pelosi, Boehner, maybe ISSA and Rubio. Appears the only teachers left are Newt and West. Bad lessons also, Jan Brewer ran from Obama on his threats. Place Holder teaches lie's can be continued with forceful decisions - like F-off Congress.
So, everyone gets an F today from BB
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