Light a Candle...

Judges running our schools???

See this article from Human Events by Phyllis Schlafly. The one point she fails to mention is that the quality of education by most students today is far less than that experienced by myself from 30 years ago.

There has been a 'dumbing' down of our K-12 system to such an extent that even honors students are having problems with anything other than remedial classes their first years in college (if they go that far). At the same time, the NEA is fighting tooth an nail to avoid and eliminate any system that would attempt to objectively evaluate the performance of teachers and teaching programs.

If you want to revisit the '60s flower children, you need go no further than most teaching colleges. Things like objective testing, measurement, and constructive competition among students are actively discouraged. Under no circumstances, is a student to be told that their perfomance isn't up to standards, as if that is any help to them in the 'real world'. Critical thinking, a particular skill/teaching goal of many of the teachers when I grew up, now seems unheard of. It something that many of the teachers themselves seem incapable of, much less teaching to their students.

These same 'liberals' want to make little carbon copies of our children at the same time. Discussion/debate of ideas on a logical basis seems gone from our classrooms in many areas. Government mandated projects/programs with little relation to actual teaching take class time while basic skills are given short shift. Recess, the one place where children can burn their energy just be is given even short shift in these 'plants'. Children by their nature are active, the very act of growing give them a metabolism that is running much faster than adults. No child can sit in a classroom for 6 to 8 hours and maintain their concentation and learning ability. They need the physical activity to maintain their focus. Is it any wonder that schools are so enthusiastic about diagnosing AD and tranquilizing the children? In many cases, the problem is not the child, but the environment. This same lack of outlet for their energy and drive (a lack of responsbility/accountability on them, parents, and faculty) is part of what drives the apparent increase in violence in many schools.

The plain fact is that our children spend the majority of their waking hours in school under supposed adult supervision. If they do not receive discipline, up to and including capitol (or licks as we called them), at school, then they will receive no discipline at all. Without learning accountability, how can they learn restraint, judgement, and become contributing members of society?

In Texas, spending on schools has increased dramatically in many areas. Yet, most of the visible spending (new administration buildings, auditoriums, etc) have little to do with the actual process of teaching. What has been seen is a growth in the bureacracy and administration that far outweighs anything spent on the students and their teaching. US k-12 students continue to be out performed by students in other countries, with no indication that spending is affecting this outcome at all. In Texas, most schools have to hold special classes to teach students to pass the test given to measure student learning performance. Keep in mind there is nothing special about these tests, they measure simple math, reading, and english skills as a student progresses through school, with the goal of minimal skill levels necessary to successfully hold a job when they graduate.

The question that no one is asking, is what is wrong with the basic cirricula and teaching materials that they cannot provide this? Instead of fixing the root cause (poor cirricula, teaching standards, and abysmal text books), schools continue to treat the symptom - poor test performance with out special preparation. It is apparent that no one is overcome with critical thinking skills.

In 1991, there was a new paper article discussing the Texas education system in general and the Houson ISD in particular. Houston ISD, then as now, is plagued by underperformance for the dollar spent, and has been hit by scandals regarding teaching and test measures. What was particularly interesting to me was a small side note - the HISD administrative organization was larger than the combined school administrative organizations of Western Europe. I never checked the veracity of this statement, but if true, then the biggest handicap/hurdle our education system faces is its entrenched bureacracy.

One more small item to note. Anyone who has children or been around them much, realizes that most have an unbounded curiuosity. It is a cliche that a child's incessant "Why's" can drive most adults to distraction. It is bred into us, since being curious, asking questions and learning as fast as possible is a survival positive traight. In other words, most of us are born wanting and needing to learn. Think on that, then wonder at how powerful a negative experience and re-inforcment must be used on our children to overcome eon's of instinct to want and desire to learn. When was the last time your child said, " I learned a lot today", when talking about school?

Even our popluar media contributes to this 'conspiracy' by giving nothing but negative or denigrating examples of 'geeks' who like and actively pursue learning while idolizing the 'popular' air heads or non-thinkers. I can think without trying of 'teen' movies where school and teachers where inherently bad and the enemy. I have to struggle to find a positive example of the same.

To paraphrase a news magazine article I read over a decade ago; " ...if what we see in todays' education system had been imposed externally, we would have considered it an act of war..."

It hasn't gotten any better...

posted by Clayton @ 11:35 AM