Seems I'm not the only one who's had it with the public school system. TownHall.com features two columns from two nationally syndicated columnists today that point out the public school system is an abysmal failure.
From Dr. Walter E. William's latest:
ABC News anchor John Stossel produced a documentary aptly titled "Stupid in America: How We Cheat Our Kids" that gives a visual depiction of what's often no less than educational fraud. During the documentary, an international test is given to average high school students in Belgium and above-average New Jersey high school students. Belgian kids cleaned the New Jersey students' clocks and called them "stupid." It's not just in Belgium where high school students run circles around their American counterparts; it's the same for students in Poland, Czech Republic, South Korea and 17 other countries.
The documentary leaves no question about the poor education received by white students, but that received by many black students is truly disgusting and darn near criminal. Stossel interviewed an 18-year-old black student who struggled to read a first-grade book. ABC's "20/20" sent him to Sylvan Learning Center. Within 72 hours, his reading level was two grades higher.
Williams points out how beneficial to the consumer competition is in the private sector, and advocates it for the education system through vouchers and/or tax credits.
Williams says ABC's John Stossel and "20/20" sent an 18 year old student who struggled to read a first-grade book (I graduated with and got the same diploma as students like this--22 years ago!) to Sylvan Learning Center and the student was reading two grade levels higher within 72 hours.
Johah Goldberg's column makes similar indictments against the public education system:
Out of the 100 largest school districts, according to the Washington Post, D.C. ranks third in spending for each pupil ($12,979) but last in spending on instruction. Fifty-six cents out of every dollar go to administrators who, it's no secret, do a miserable job administrating, even though D.C. schools have been in a state of "reform" for nearly 40 years.
I recently pointed out in the Rapid City Journal that close to half of the education staff in the public school schools aren't even teachers.
Goldberg's article also says the D.C. school district, what should be a bastion of enlightenment in our nation's capital, has an average of nine violent incidents a day in a system of 135 schools.
Golberg asks:
Really, what would be so terrible about government mandating that every kid has to go to school, and providing subsidies and oversight when necessary, but then getting out of the way?
This is essentially what some advocate when we call for "thinking outside the box" and completely redoing education in this country.
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. The socialists think they can break that axiom by just throwing more money at the education system (notice that their most substantive idea for improvement is either more condoms or more money--or both?).
Some mental giants out there say I have no right to say anything about the public education system because we homeschool our children. I'd like to remind these pinheads of two things: (1) I still pay the same taxes for the miserable failure we call an education system, and (2) have you ever stopped to consider WHY I don't have my children in the public education system?
Even the best of public schools are forced by judicial secularists to teach children, directly or indirectly, that their faith and values are something they need to leave in the pew on Sunday morning. That is a message I will NOT send to my children. In fact, the opposite is true.
I care too much about my children to see them short-changed academically and turned into mindless drones that just regurgitate Leftist dogma for the social engineers.
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