Posted on 02/15/2011 4:29:04 AM PST by Kaslin
Former first lady Barbara Bush said on Greta Van Susteren's "On the Record" this past week: "We've got a real problem in public schools. ... This is a national crisis. It's as bad as anything in our country."
When Van Susteren was pointing out from Bush's own op-ed piece that "Texas (is) 36th in the nation in high-school graduates (and) 3.8 million Texans don't have a high-school diploma," Bush said, "No more, you're killing us."
Bush was commendably protecting Texas pride as she told Van Susteren not to cite any further degrading statistics about the state of Lone Star education, though she herself references it in her op-ed piece:
--Texas ranks 49th in verbal SAT scores, 47th in literacy and 46th in average math SAT scores.
--Texas ranks 33rd in the nation on teacher salaries.
Such low verbal and literacy scores make it even more unbelievable that just this past week, some of the state's educational administrators joined the feds in seeking to mandate Arabic classes for Texas children. No joke!
The Arabic studies program -- funded by a five-year, $1.3 million Foreign Language Assistance Program federal grant -- was to begin this semester at Cross Timbers Intermediate School and then spread to neighboring schools in the Mansfield Independent School District.
Thank God for the parental passions and patriot fires of the almost 200 parents who showed up at a meeting last week to question the wisdom of school officials. They are fighting in their own personal education Alamo and presently have the upper hand. For the moment, the school district has backed off plans for its Arabic studies program.
With 14 percent of American adults (32 million) incapable of reading a newspaper or instructions on a prescription bottle, don't you think federal monies could be put to better use by helping Americans learn to read and write English?
I appreciate Bush's non-politically correct stance on the primacy of English in America, which she echoed to Van Susteren: "I'm against English as a second language. My great-grandmother came here as a German. She didn't have someone give her English as a second language. She learned it in three months. It's survival. And you see it in schools all around now where you're allowed to speak English only, and you sink or swim. And they swim, because they're immigrants from all different countries. I've seen a school in Boston where they asked me to read, and I said, 'Read? They all speak 80 different languages.' But in three months, they learned English."
What Bush and I (and others in this educational reform movement) are essentially calling all of us to do is fight in a local education Alamo! To square off and fight against all the negative forces that besiege our children and impede their proper education. You don't have to have kids to engage in this culture war; you only have to be concerned about their future -- America's future.
It is people like the 200 parents helping to overturn that Texas school district's decision to mandate classes on Arabic who are showing the way. They prove another point Bush made to Van Susteren: "I don't think government can do everything at all. Parents, grandparents, neighbors, churches, everybody ... we've got to get ourselves geared up and not be lazy parents and not be lazy neighbors, but we've got to help children."
The only way to get America and its educational system back on track is to take back the primary role of parenting from teachers and other societal guardians (including Big Brother government). That also includes our not expecting those who lead Sunday schools to be the primary spiritual teachers of our children, rather owning that area of their maturation, as well.
What U.S. educational reform entails is that we all find a place in the battle. It might mean that you join an influential group that makes decisions in your local schools or pressures those who do.
What I'm saying is this: Be proactive. Don't wait for first lady Michelle Obama to correct your children's school diet before you do something about it. Ensure that civic organizations in your area, including tea party groups and churches, are activists for your public schools. Call parishioners out of the pews and into school community outreach.
My wife, Gena, and I are fighting for the next generation, and our life mission is to take physical education up a notch in public schools by offering our KickStart Kids program. For years, we also have supported The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, and we encourage you to do the same by going to its official website, at http://www.BarbaraBushFoundation.com.
It all comes down to one question every citizen in our country must answer: Are you spectating or fighting for America's children in your local education Alamo?
You are correct.
the stastistics about poorly educated children in Texas is very much about illegal immigrants. the schools are overwhelmed just getting the kids to speak english much less read textbooks and take tests.
Same goes for ‘child poverty’ statistics. this is all about an overwhelming rush of poor and semi-illiterate Spanish-speaking illegal immigrants.
I’m sure a big part of the problem is non English speakers.
Yes. Ever since the teaching schools and universities adopted socialist John Dewey as the philosophical model for American public school education the system has withered on the vine.
It won't be until we remove this fundamental poison from the system that we will start to heal again.
Almost nobody has heard of John Dewey. We need to change this.
Your two “cures” are good. Add to them things like:
- No more of the hyphenated race/ethnicity designations. Americans need to identify with AMERICA, as they did in the early 1900s. As long as kids are raised thinking they’re equally hispanic, black, Chinese, etc., they’ll never be true Americans. If they aren’t true Americans, they’ll blow off learning our history, language, etc.
- End the bi-lingual crap in the schools. It cheats the English-speaking kids when teachers have to adjust curricula to the lowest common denominator.
- End American adoptions from foreign countries. God knows there are enough children in America who need good homes. Why, on purpose, raise a kid who’ll always believe they’re only half American?
Could part of the Texas “problem” be that english is almost a second language?
Well, part of the cure is to not average in Illegal aliens in the formula’s, break ‘em out seperatly and see what they are....if you can.
Difficult to educate children who are just learning English.
You’re right - if the native English speakers’ scores were separated out, we’d see a very different story.
There’s a reason they don’t do it, and there’s an agenda behind that, as well.
Unless our country once again embraces the standards of our founders, IE, that of Christian ethos, and unashamadly denounces those ideas that are contrary to that ethos,
we’ll never have the education or character that will be possible in an education system that does so (home/private Christian schooling).
Yeah, but just check out the rosters of the Top Ten football colleges and you will note where they go to get their players, especially at the skill positions. How about a “wow” for that? :)
Btw, as the saying goes there's lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics. It would really give Texas' statistics a bump if our government would do a little something about the illegal alien flow across our border - just saying...
I agree. Well-intentioned people believe that a shortage of resources is the problem, or that immigrants are the problem, but that's a distraction. High-school students newly arrived from El Salvador aren't taking the SAT. Illegal immigrants aren't forcing the lowest-scoring college attendees into Education degrees, or producing teachers who believe their primary purpose is to build self-esteem.
The problems were created largely by highly educated, white, American citizens ... ideologues with a plan for social engineering that has produced an educational wasteland.
Absolutely true. Absolutely.
BINGO!!!!
I dont think teachers are the root of the problem. Its administration. They’re the ones steering the curriculum and generally calling the shots. Then theres the unions... Yes, I sure the teachers have a part in this but its minor in comparison the the other bigger players who are seldom mentioned.
When you do separate them out Texas still ranks poorly.That is to be expected in a state that large. Texas has a huge number of poor or run-of-the-mill districts but they also have a large - and growing - number of world class districts.
These high quality districts are where the focus should be. These are the schools that are pumping out the graduates that will determine the economic future of Texas. They may be able to raise the scores or graduation levels of the poorer schools by a few percentage points but it will be ineffectual. A few thousand top flight graduates of the better schools will do more to rachet up economic performance than will a million lesser lights who are taught to spell 'cow'.
SAT tests for ALL students is ridiculous. Many will not be attending any college at all. Many belong in trade schools, and many are barely proficient in english.
If we want to serious about education then we stop telling everyone they must attend college and then subsidizing their education. While the colleges may enjoy this extra funding, they must provide remedial reading, writing, and arithmetic for years before a student is even marginally ready for college courses.
I was at a baby shower with my wife, and most of the attendees were leftists and quite a few teachers, as well.
I don’t remember the context of the conversation, but you should have heard the gasping and harumphing when I blasphemed that “not all people should go to college, you know”.
Show the scores by ethnic group and they’d find more an illegal alien problem than some general problem with their educational system. It’s deliberately misleading to use overall average scores in states such as Texas and California.
The crazy part: Children of US citizens can be require require to prove legal residence in the public school's district to be admitted. iirc, a mother was arrested in Ohio for sending her child to a different school, or something like it.
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