I’ve been thinking for a while, that some of us 50-somethings need to get teaching credentials and take back our schools...
I positively agree. There’s an adage I once heard: those that can’t do, teach; those that can’t teach, write text books. Nothing can replace life experience when it comes to teaching, IMHO. I don’t, so much, have a problem with a 22 year old college grad teaching my toddler how to count to 10 or identify colors... Conversely, I have a huge problem with them teaching my teen philosophical and interpretive subjects.
The Soviet KGB certainly understood that education of the young was the key to eventual communist domination. If you haven't already seen the following interview with the former KGB spy, I high recommend it:
http://russianfun.net/videos/interview-with-the-former-kgb-spy-oleg-kalugin/
The Marxist/leftists in our nation have education by the neck from kindergarten through graduate school, yet conservatives seem to be asleep. They fail to understand that Marxism is our nation's **most** serious threat and that schools are their **most** important weapon.
There are two reasons why attempting to retake or reform the government K-12 schools is **not** the solution:
*The first reason is practical. If we don't reach out to our nation's youth **immediately**, I fear that freedom in our nation is lost. It would take far too long for conservatives to infiltrate the existing government K-12 system and turn it around. The the United States Titanic is sinking. Repairing the Titanic is impossible. Our nation's children need educational life boats **immediately**, not repair crews. ( Yes, it is that urgent!)
* The second reason is the government K-12 schools are fundamentally incompatible with the First Amendment and freedom of conscience. This can **NOT** be fixed. The biggest and most organized political group **will** impose their political, cultural, and religious worldview on those with less power. At the moment the government schools are atheistic and Marxist dominated. If it it wrong for them to indoctrinate our children, it is fundamentally a crime against freedom of conscience for us to do that to their children.
Conservatives **must** do the following:
* Get your own children and grandchildren out. Encourage friends and neighbors to remove their children from the government schools. Homeschool or privately school in a conservative private school. Not all private schools are conservative.
* Conservatives must immediately set up private educational foundations that would award grants to conservative teachers willing to open tuition-free mini-schools, one room school houses, and homeschool cooperatives. The foundations could certify the teachers, approve the curriculum, and test the students.
* Conservatives must recognize that the govenrnment schools have a monopoly on team sports in many counties, as well as all access to bands, orchestras, chorus, art, and theater for youth. These teams and other arts programs generate tremendous "rah-rah" support for the government schools in many communities, and assure that many children attend. Conservatives should work to move these programs to their county parks and recreation departments, and/or set up private alternatives.
The NEA has thought about it and made it hard to get those credentials. You can either go back to school as a freshman and get a college degree in "education" or you can get certified (in some states) via an "alternate route" which takes into account other degrees you have, experience, etc. My wife looked into that (she's a lawyer) but discarded it because apparantly alternate path teachers can't get hired.