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The Failure of the American Education System
NewsMax.com ^ | Saturday, Nov. 20, 2004 | Steve Farrell

Posted on 11/20/2004 4:14:35 PM PST by wgeorge2001

Reprinted from NewsMax.com

The Failure of the American Education System Steve Farrell Saturday, Nov. 20, 2004 They never stop nagging.

The latest and greatest on education coming out of the mouth of the Anybody But Bush Party is that “No Child Left Behind” is synonymous with “No Money Left to Pay for It.” They’re referring to unfunded mandates. Now, just in case some of you aren’t sure what that means, an unfunded mandate is when the federal government tells the states: “Here’s a new law. Comply with it or else. And oh, by the way, YOU have to pay for it!”

But in this particular case, what Democrats and some states are calling “unfunded mandates” have nevertheless been backed up with, by far, the most federal money ever given to the states for education.

It’s hard to say, then, whether we are really having a debate over unfunded mandates or incompetence, but the debate goes on.

In some respects, you really have to take your hat off to the idea behind the president’s program.

“No Child Left Behind” pegs federal dollars to performance, something every capitalist can identify with. If your school and your state do well, they get more money. If your school or state does poorly, it gets less money. And the way the feds find out who’s been naughty or nice is through aggressive and repetitive standardized testing.

You could put it this way: “No Child Left Behind” rewards success and punishes failure, and that’s the American way.

Perhaps.

Perhaps not. For starters, to some on the losing end in this era of victims and crybabies, performance is a four-letter word. It smacks of racism, they say, and inequality. They need more money, indeed much more money, to make things fair, to level the playing field.

I wonder how these highly educated, tenured, union-protected towering powerhouses of learning explain the millions of parents who, without degrees and without federal and state monies, consistently produce homeschooled kids who crank out test results that are 150 percent to 175 percent of the national public school average in nationally standardized exams.

It seems that parochial parents know how to raise the bar, but tenured teachers do not.

They stand as an in-our-face testimony that the problem with continued failure in the public schools is not about money, and never has been. And really, even though the president has attempted to raise the bar and his intention may deserve a little praise, he, like every social planner before him, has missed the mark.

You and I know the truth. The decline in public education began the day the federal government took upon itself the unconstitutional duty to ‘help out’ the states, ‘help out’ the poor, ‘help out’ the minorities with their education.

They ‘helped out’, all right.

First, the feds ‘generously’ sent the states money, which they can only do by first TAKING IT AWAY from the states. Were we stupid?

Second, since we were, in fact, stupid, it was easy for us to next fall for the ploy that the feds were the ‘trustees’ of the money they stole from us, and as such, had the right to dictate how it would be spent.

Are we starting to see the picture? First the federal camel got his nose in the tent, and next, he moved in and took it over.

Third, once in control, the damnable animal unveiled a flair for revolution that no one could have foreseen. He kicked God, morality and creationism out of the educational tent and filled the void with Socialism, Humanism, and Evolutionism.

He missed nothing.

Eternal truth was replaced with relativism, reason with emotion, justice with tolerance, high standards with standardized mediocrity, independent thinking with the memorization of rubbish. The bar was set so diabolically low by this beastly new schoolmaster that our schools have never recovered. More importantly, kids who once believed themselves to be children of God called unto perfection now believe themselves the offspring of apes, pre-wired to succumb to every passion.

Does anyone in their right mind really believe that “No Child Left Behind” – a plan which empowers the federal educational establishment as never before – will fix this mess?

It seems to me true reform requires that we first kick the camel out. Anything less is smoke and mirrors.

Contact Steve

NewsMax pundit Steve Farrell is associate professor of political economy at George Wythe College, press agent for Defend Marriage (a project of United Families International), and the author of the highly praised, inspirational nove, “Dark Rose” (available at amazon.com).

For you West Coast night owls, every Monday you can catch Steve on Mark Edwards’ “Wake up America!” talk radio show on 50,000-Watt KDWN, 720 AM, 10 p.m. to midnight.

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TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: edreform; education; educrats; nclb; nea; punishesfailure; rewardssuccess; schoolreform; vouchers
What more can be said about the disaster we call the public school educational system.
1 posted on 11/20/2004 4:14:35 PM PST by wgeorge2001
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To: wgeorge2001

Is it 'just' the educational system, or is it the children 'in' the educational system.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

Mo' money isn't going to make Moe a better student.

The greatest teacher in the world can't make Moe a better student if MOE don't wanna be mo' than Moe wants to be (or become).

Homeschooling parents have their child(ren)'s rapt attention and the right to discipline as they see best.

The way I see it, since not all parents will homeschool (nor are they all capable, and I am not talking about whether or not they have HS diploma or college degrees), and these youth of today WILL be the workers of tomorrow, isn't it stupid to put our heads in the sand and complain about the problems with our educational system?

Wouldn't it be better if everyone (even those who choose to homeschool) were interested in supporting the educational system(s) in our nation (and not just financially)?


2 posted on 11/20/2004 4:22:17 PM PST by thinkingman129 (questioning clears the way to understanding.)
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To: wgeorge2001

What more can we say about education? One more thing: Vouchers.


3 posted on 11/20/2004 4:24:05 PM PST by nathanbedford
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To: wgeorge2001
Well, one thing the author left out was the Education Degree being given by our colleges and universities. Historically, these classes have been filled with many students who couldn't pass any other curriculum.

Add to that that the professors who are teaching these classes are, by and large, out and out Socialists, and they are the ones filling their students heads with garbage. Racism, is a huge word for these people, and they see it lurking it's ugly head around every corner. Then, of course, there's the "underpriviledged", who can't be expected to perform. Oh--and let's not forget that we have to feed these kids at least two meals a day, and provide after school child care.

Let's don't leave out parental responsibility---teachers aren't to even expect parents to have any input, and certainly, they can't be expected to pack a sack lunch for their offspring. And of course, we don't want the parents around anyway, because most of them would be horrified if they knew what the sex education classes contained.

And--while we're at it, let's make sure that each child must have tax-payer provided school bus service, even if they only live a few blocks from the school.

Then, in order to get away from neighborhood schools, where parents might be able to show up and get involved, let's build lots and lots of huge schools that draw students from far and wide, and make most students attend schools with thousands of other students, instead of a manageable number where teachers can actually know the names of the kids they are teaching.

Is it any wonder that parents who truly want their kids to actually become educated are keeping them home and doing the job themselves?

4 posted on 11/20/2004 4:33:57 PM PST by basil
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To: wgeorge2001
highly educated, tenured, union-protected towering powerhouses of learning

The trouble is that the unions only care about protecting the jobs of the teachers, especially the incompetant ones.

The decline in public education began the day the federal government took upon itself the unconstitutional duty to ‘help out’ the states, ‘help out’ the poor, ‘help out’ the minorities with their education.

The problem is that socialist public education appeals to the lowest common denominator: from teachers to students. It is threatened by those who excel. It confuses equal opportunity to equal outcomes and expends all effort to reduce the brightest (by boring them to death) to the equally low outcome of the mediocre student. No one is challenged or rewarded for hard work. And when they get to college, most students are interestd in easy degrees and jobs and not true knowledge and self-rewarding challenges.

Vouchers and competition are indeed solutions. Parental responsibility is another.

What we also need to do is get rid of unions, reward the good teachers with more money, pay the poor teachers very little so the deadwood leaves the system.

I don't know if this is possible, but it is a goal towards which to strive.

5 posted on 11/20/2004 4:36:30 PM PST by Republicanprofessor
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To: wgeorge2001

It did not fail. It was sabotaged.


6 posted on 11/20/2004 5:20:22 PM PST by boris (The deadliest weapon of mass destruction in history is a Leftist with a word processor)
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To: thinkingman129
"Is it 'just' the educational system, or is it the children 'in' the educational system.

Actually, no, it IS the "educational system".

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

Children ain't horses.

"Mo' money isn't going to make Moe a better student. "

No, but better (note--not "higher paid", or "more professionally educated", but BETTER TEACHERS) can and will. Before racial integration destroyed the public school system, my mother taught school for forty years, and had damned few failures due to "students not wanting to learn". Of course, she had tools of discipline that can't be used today.

7 posted on 11/20/2004 6:17:31 PM PST by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: wgeorge2001
The money wasted by education bureaucrats is obscene. It is the real problem that is not being addressed at all.
8 posted on 11/20/2004 6:23:49 PM PST by Bullish
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To: wgeorge2001
Well, at least the writer hasn't sipped of the NCLB kool-aid.

What districts need to do - pronto - is *learn to live without federal education money.* They will spend far more complying with NCLB than if they just ditched it altogether. No federal money, no NCLB nonsense.

9 posted on 11/20/2004 9:30:22 PM PST by valkyrieanne (card-carrying South Park Republican)
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To: wgeorge2001
Further, the performance of private/homeschooled students is NOT relevant to public school problems.

Private schools *select* in their admission and must adhere to behavioral standards to stay enrolled.

Homeschooling represents a tiny minority of students, and the claims about their standardized test performance is a good example of "how to lie with statistics." For one thing, any state that even keeps track of homeschooling test scores is a state that has some degree of homeschool regulation. When you have states that *forbid* people to homeschool if they have low scores, *of course* you're going to get higher test scores. You've self-selected your sample. Free states like MO, by contrast, have NO requirement that students take any standardized test, and have NO requirement that any performance data be reported to anyone.

Further, any data culled from the ranks of homeschool groups or membership-only organizations also is going to have a strong self-selection bias.

10 posted on 11/20/2004 9:35:08 PM PST by valkyrieanne (card-carrying South Park Republican)
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To: nathanbedford
What more can we say about education? One more thing: Vouchers.

For whom? For what schools? I certainly don't want to see a dime of my tax money go to Islamic schools that black out Israel on their maps. For example.

11 posted on 11/20/2004 9:36:02 PM PST by valkyrieanne (card-carrying South Park Republican)
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To: wgeorge2001

read later


12 posted on 11/20/2004 10:17:38 PM PST by LiteKeeper (Secularization of America is happening)
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To: valkyrieanne
I certainly don't want to see a dime of my tax money go to Islamic schools that black out Israel on their maps.

It goes there already in the sense that such schools can have tax exempt status. The problem you cite is a real one in Whahabbi world and could become a problem in ours. But the solution is not to deny the good for the want of the perfect everywhere. This kind of indoctrination is already occurring among Muslims so inclined and they do it after school or on weekends. Nor would I say that the solution is regulate what is taught in religious schools for that is what has got us here in the first place.

In reality, the problem is one of immigration. Freedom of education is more important to me than freedom of access.

13 posted on 11/20/2004 11:24:31 PM PST by nathanbedford
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