Posted on 10/20/2006 1:24:53 PM PDT by achilles2000
Regarding sports, etc. , in most larger communities there are extensive homeschool sports and extracurricular activities, often run through coops or churches. Many kids also are in extracurricular programs provided outside government schools, and there are a lot of those programs.
I think Blogger is being a bit hyperbolic to make a point.
The frustration levels among the competent teachers who have to deal with the system are beginning to boil over. Teacher attrition rates are high, and many are marking time waiting for their earliest possible retirement date.
My work life revolves around professionals (investment bankers,lawyers, doctors, accountants). It was evident when I was on Wall Street, and now mainstreet, that two disturbing things were going on over time. First, beginning in 80's the newer professionals were showing up with very poor writing skills, a surprisingly low level of general knowledge about government , history, literature, etc., and, except for the investment bankers and accountants, inadequate quantitative skills. Worse, the difference in character between the older people I worked with and those coming out of school was more than a little noticeable. Obviously, these are generalizations, and there were certainly exceptions, but it was happening - the trend was unmistakable.
While there was no single cause, as someone who spent a fair number of years in higher education, it was and is clear to me that the primary, but not only, source of the problem was the collapse of standards (of all kinds) in the school system (exacerbated by high education).
If you have a candid heart-to-heart conversation with good principals in schools, ask about the new teachers they have to manage. What can no longer be taken for granted might surprise you.
As for what the government schools have been producing over the last twenty years and more, it is clear that colleges and universities are devoting massive funds to remedial work. Employers are very unhappy about the shortage of graduates with just solid basic skills.
Now, look into the pipeline. 2/3's of government school children cannot read at grade level by 4th grade. If you compare what passes for a 4th grade reading level on the NAEP with the 1836 McGuffey's Readers, I think you would agree that the standard for reading has declined. With respect to math, 2/3's are also below a not very demanding grade level benchmark. Dropout rates are probably at over 50% in many urban areas and are probably about 30- 33% nationwide, although no one really knows the exact numbers because the ed industry lies about these numbers (the Manhattan Institute has more detail on this).
Is the huge illiteracy problem I've adumbrated above a problem of "diversity". Not at all. Consider a state with a nearly 90% white population and a reputation for really good public schools - Iowa. The numbers are just as I described them above. Moreover, the numbers in Iowa are worse than reported because the ed establishment cheats in order to improve the public's perception of its performance. This is a problem with the ed establishment everywhere. Here is a useful Iowa site for getting a handle on some of the detail: http://www.iowalive.net/
Blogger, and teachers like her, feel strongly about this issue because they are seeing a system wastefully consuming hundreds of billions of dollars a year while simultaneously ruining the futures of children. Yes, many schools districts conceal their pathologies better than others, but the buildings, sports teams, drill teams, etc. are not the point.
For example, in a prosperous N. Houston school district (don't want to pick on Iowa) the administrators sold the public on a big bond issue that included a nearly $80 million education support center. The "education support center" has no classrooms or academic function relating to students. It is a sports facility with some space for teacher conferences tacked on. Here it is: http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/index.php?showtopic=5809
The parents go by these facilities and think that they have "world class" schools for their children. And indeed, the school district is better in some respects than Houston Independent School District. But the comparison is academically irrelevant. The suburban school district, given what it has to work with, probably adds less value than HISD. In fact, in the suburban district with the educational support complex and that local Baptist pastors and parents will smugly tell you is "different" (in a better way, of course), not one high school has an academic rating from the state higher than "Acceptable", which is the rating just above failing.
I suspect that if the state accountability tests were administered there with third party supervision, the rating would fall to failing (that would probably be true for many schools in Texas, including a number of the really swell suburban schools). BTW, here is a taste of what "Acceptable" means in Texas: A high school will be rated as Acceptable in science, for example, if 35% of the students pass the state accountability exam on which the passing score is set at about 53%. Here is a story about the hardest questions on the high school exit level TAKS: http://www.clipfile.org/2006/08/07/854/ As you can see, the bar is set so low it is difficult to see how anyone could fail.
These are just examples, but the problems are everywhere. The problem is not "diversity", "students from different cultures", or a lack of money. The government school model is the mistake. Mr. Chips has left the building, and he isn't coming back. Eddie Haskell is now in charge.
Actually, "a bit" hyperbolic is about as far as I will go here. I have had college students who could not construct a complete sentence. One student plagiarized an entire article from the internet rather than write a required essay himself. Though I was very tempted to report him (and probably get him dismissed); I gave him a limited time to rewrite the essay himself because I wanted to push him to do that which he apparently had never been required to do before. What I received back was horrible. Yet, it was his own, so I worked with him to try to teach him what public schools had not.
Unfortunately, his ability to write was only slightly below that of his fellow classmates. I am stunned at how few skills our students are receiving while in public school. Teachers want to help. However, the pass them at all costs mentality is killing our nation. Other nation's students are far outpacing ours, and our cries for reform are going unheard. I am with the Southern Baptists on this issue. Our children are our responsibility, and if they aren't getting what they need in public schools, we need to bring them someplace where they will get what they need - a basic education.
And what caused that? The anterior primary cause: the retreat of parents.
The problem is multigenerational, with the schools acting as a negative feedback loop.
How about a Baptist exist strategy to rid yourself of this jargon?
I'll get right to work on the "exist strategy"...
You score, but on the periphery.
Hmmm...very interesting. Thank you. I especially liked the opening bit on Washington which gels with my understnading.
I still say that they were not evengelical in any sense that we understand today. Their Christianity was more...not diest in every case...but more generic (but strong and influencial).
"Unfortunately, his ability to write was only slightly below that of his fellow classmates. I am stunned at how few skills our students are receiving while in public school."
That's bad. And here's what I'm seeing that's even worse; the demise of the work ethic. Ignorance can be remedied. But without the internal drive to improve oneself, there's just not that much that can be done.
I have seen that as well. I was one of the "nice" teachers. That "niceness" was taken advantage of at times. But, I have also seen the opposite. A dyslexic girl in class was probably my best student. She worked hard for every "A" she received, and wasn't "given" anything.
While I don't agree with the Baptists on much, they definately got this one right. You don't hand your kids over to the government for 7 to 8 hours a day 9 months a year, filled in various ways with sodomites, athiests and activists.
You won't trust them with your health care, but you will willingly give them your kids for most of the day? Insanity.
I am not speaking as a Christian leader, but as a simple man who's seen the differences in Private and Public education first hand.
While you find it repugnant, I have no other conclusion to draw personally than those who send their kids to public schools, and have the means to do otherwise, are indeed guilty of child neglect/abuse.
I have heard all the rhetoric from public school defenders, and none of it holds up to serious challenge. government schools are the schools of last resort, better than ignorance, but not nearly what education should be.
As they say, ignorance is bliss... better to be blissful than informed, enjoy.
Unfortunately, most Baptists still think that their government schools are "different". On the other hand, many parents, and some pastors, are starting to see through the standard rationalizations. I think that the ranks of those who have given up the usual excuses are starting to grow rapidly.
With respect to those who genuinely don't have the means and are not being helped by their churches, their pastors ought to be hanging their heads in shame.
"Unfortunately, most Baptists still think that their government schools are "different". On the other hand, many parents, and some pastors, are starting to see through the standard rationalizations. "
It would seem that the urge to rationalize one's own (mis)behavior is very strong one indeed. And those who profit from the status quo are only all too happy to provide all sorts of convenient rationalizations for parents to parrot.
You seem to be worried about image, but I think it aptly describes a school system in which it appears fully 2/3 of 4th grade students are headed toward illiteracy or functional illiteracy (NAEP results). As bad as that is, the situation is much worse for black and poor students. Then there is the early sexualization of children and the promotion of sexual promiscuity and "lifestyles" that are quite deadly. This doesn't begin to touch on the (largely unreported) level of crime and violence in the schools, the mass drugging of children encpouraged by the schools, particularly boys, the Gramscian Marxism embedded in the curriculum, the fact that a majority of 12th grade students lack even a basic understanding of American history (the NAEP again), etc. What would you call an educational system with these characteristics? It strikes me as child abuse, but you can call it whatever you like.
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