Education is filled with problems today. Lax discipline, unions, lousy teachers, lousy parents, single-parent homes, drugs, and the sad spiritual state of our country.
So what do Democrats think we should do? Send more money to the schools and raise the standards. What do Republicans think we should do? Send less money to the schools and raise the standards.
Why doesn’t Congress pass a law for all SUV’s to be completely safe and get 50 miles per gallon? Why doesn’t Congress pass a law that all jobs must pay at least $75,000/year and mandate every state to have 100% employment? If fact, why does Congress outlaw death, in order to reduce medical costs? The reason is, these things cannot be mandated. Simply passing a law won’t make it so.
You cannot mandate that students have higher standards and that everyone maintain these higher standards. You cannot simply mandate that standards be raised and figure, standards will be raised. Here is what happens (and I can testify to this, as I was a teacher for 29 years): on the high school level, when I began teaching, 1 year of math was required and it could be a low, low level course. When I left teaching, all high school students had to take 3 years of math and they had to be tough courses, which included Algebra I, Geometry and Algebra II.
At one time, Geometry marked out those who were going to college; and those who did not take Geometry, probably would not go to college (or, at least, not in any of the hard sciences).
Now, let’s think about this for a moment. Nearly 40% of kids go off to college and complete their college education. Maybe another 10% go to college, but never complete a degree (these are rough numbers). So, now my school (as a result of Texas legislators) are requiring all kids to take a set college prep classes, and what do you think was the result? Our dropout rate increased and continues to increase. A 30–50% dropout rate is not unusual for any school district now (schools all over have done the same thing).
What else happened? The curriculum for all of these college-prep courses was watered down. You simply do not mandate from on high that all kids, no matter what their abilities, will take college prep courses. This was one of the worst changes in our system.
And what did not happen? Kids did not go to college in greater numbers and kids were not better prepared for college (I know this because the remedial courses at our local community college increased in number during this same time period).
Why is this? Algebra II was no longer Algebra II; Geometry was no longer geometry. Since every kid had to take these classes, these courses got watered down, year after year after year.
Every kid deserves a decent education. 50% of the students in any high school have an I.Q. below 100. So, the last thing a school district ought to do is structure its curriculum for only half of the students.
I had one gal in one of my classes, and let me just call her Sadie (not her real name). Sadie was a darling little girl, and she worked hard and she paid attention and she took school seriously, and Sadie was not very bright. She could not pass the standardized exit exam to save her life (she was no longer my student at this time). This was a little girl who was seriously stressed, and she was made to feel like she was a 2nd class person because of this.
She came to me and told me her problem had been diagnosed and that she suffered from A.D.D. (attention deficit disorder) and she was going to be give drugs to help her concentrate.
Here, I failed her as a former teacher. I didn’t know what to say to her. Could I tell her, “Don’t take the drugs.” This was the result of many people making this decision, and I felt horrible that I did not know what to say to her, in order to dissuade her. It is 10 years later and I still feel badly about that situation.
There are millions of girls like Sadie. They do not need college prep courses. They do not need drugs to help them concentrate. They need a curriculum which is designed for them.
It is because of girls like Sadie that 30% and more kids drop out of high school as our standards are increased. School is not relevant to them. They are taking classes which are not related to them in any way. They are being pushed to do things that most of them cannot do.
When there is a top-down imposed curriculum (from the state or federal government), in which each school trying to outdo the others in academic excellence, they forget about Sadie. After all, you have academics trying to impress other academics pushing that which they understand: academia.
Sadie doesn’t need 3 or 4 years of English; she needs maybe 2. She does not need 3 years of math, starting with Algebra I and working her way up; she needs 1—some reasonably easy course of applied arithmetic.
More than this, Sadie needs options. Maybe she is talented in band or basketball; maybe she should be in foods or autoshop. As long as her high school is not oppressive and does not attempt to prepare her for college, she will work hard and enjoy her high school years. If she has 1, 2 or 3 open periods each year, she can explore a variety of classes or hands-on work or get a job on the outside and have that count as school credit (once, a very common approach for girls like Sadie).
Schools need to have a minimal curriculum, and parents and students need options. Teddy may want to go into computers; Sadie into foods; and Bill into academia. Today, most kids have to go to a particular public school, and they have no choice in the matter. It might be good and it might be lousy; but that is their one option (unless their parents are rich enough to pay for a private school). That’s simply wrong. We need minimal standards and a variety of options. We do not need high standards geared toward college.
One idea which I believe is used in Belgium is, every kid has $7000 (or whatever) each year which follows him around. He can go to any school in his city and that money goes to that school. It might be a Christian school, it might be a vocational school, it might be the school with the toughest football team in the county. Will some public schools be shut down? You bet. Thousands of them. What will happen to those campuses? Probably a successful private school will decide, that is about the right size for us and they will buy it or rent it.
Nearby, where I live, there are about 6 different supermarkets I can go to. I like that. If I decide that this or that store is not giving me what I want, I go elsewhere. These supermarkets all seem to be busy and prosperous. It is how our schools need to be.
We need to rethink education. We should not forget about Sadie.
From Conservative Review #143 (HTML) (PDF)
A retired math teacher who spends most of his time exegeting the Old Testament and, once a week, puts out an ezeen.