Posted on 05/22/2002 4:25:40 AM PDT by Starmaker
Preliminary scores from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test are in, and the results are not good. According to published reports, "Statewide, in the ninth grade only 29 percent of students met or exceeded the state's minimum competency level in reading and math." Tenth grade scores were better, but not by much. When one considers the inordinate amount of tax dollars that are thrown into public education, these numbers scream of irresponsibility, waste, and utter failure!
Sadly, this report is nothing new. We have witnessed these kinds of statistics for years! Sadder still is the fact that the only answer being advanced by today's politicians (from both parties), academicians, and journalists is to throw even more dollars down this rat hole.
When are we going to admit it? Modern public education is nothing more than a monstrous waste of taxpayers' money! The failure of government schools to produce even nominal education is so glaring that to even consider sending our children to most of these institutions of sub-level learning should be regarded as cruel and unusual punishment. However, the worst part of the story does not even show up in FCAT results.
The worst part of the story is the utter vacuum of basic morality that permeates these halls of hideousness. The secularization of our state education systems (thanks to federal intrusion) has become so complete, so pervasive that it is considered unconstitutional and even un-American to recognize (much less teach) the most fundamental virtues.
There is no neutrality regarding Judeo/Christian principles in most of our public schools today; there is open hostility! Anything — and I mean anything — that smacks of these values is openly condemned. The animosity and anger against bedrock moral principles are so aggressive it can only be regarded as either pure propaganda or humanistic hysteria, or both.
Instead of throwing more money into an education system proven to fail, we should completely purge it from the things that contribute to its failure. This means dismantling the federal Department of Education, returning education to the states and local communities by accepting zero federal dollars, and reinstituting respect and appreciation for America's Judeo/Christian heritage.
Since it is extremely unlikely that any of the above will be done, the only sensible course left to us is to take the responsibility of educating our children away from the government schools. Home schooling, private schooling, and Christian schooling are very vibrant and viable options.
In the mean time, the vast majority of America's public school students will continue to languish academically but learn to excel in the fine art of social maladjustment and moral misbehavior. This is education?
For a corroborating story check this link about a Florida school board (with low FCAT scores, I might add) that nixed an assembly because the word "faith" is involved.
However, you'll never hear any school-related person ever mention GIGO.
Yeah, Right. Bubba Junior just signed the Education Bill remember. The one that dumps an EXPANDED Dept. of Ed. budget down the toilet of mediocracy.
But don't blame GW, he was real busy with other things to put too much time in on it, like the Campaign finance Bill and the super inflated Farm Bill.
Ahhhh, isn't it nice to have a Conservative at the helm......(/sarcasm)
Homeschooling is good for some, but not many parents in America. You are wasting your time dreaming about privatized education in America, it will be federalized long before privatized; and then the game will be over. The education industry will buy off the politicals even quicker than today and govt mind control will be the norm.
I see local education being corrupted more and more by federal money. The school districts would sell their souls to the devil to get more funding from the feds. Just take a look at special education and you will see the future designs on the entire education spectrum; and the repubs cannot throw enough money towards education. The school districts are still broke and underfunded. Writings on the wall, federalization.
I guess as a conservative teacher, I am astounded at the lack of understanding of the problem by many freepers. Playing right into their hands rather than solving the problems. Remember your vote determines who controls education. Maybe everyone should begin by attending a local school board meeting?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating flushing money down the education toilet represented by the current teachers or on more "resources" (whatever that means. On a theoretical level, salary economics determine who will do the teaching.
Try looking at NEA's agenda(I still get their propaganda in the mail), The Democratic Party's attempt at indocrination, and the Unions protecting the freeloading, burnt out "Colleagues" by fighting testing of Teachers for basics.
Example: WEA orders teachers and their representatives to be quiet, or else
Wasn't that a Republican Party platform goal once?
They had the opportunity in the latter half of the 1990s when they controlled both houses of Congress to defund this department. Indeed, they briefly, until Jefford's treachery, controlled both houses and the Presidency. So, opportunity existed, but they did not act upon it.
One can only conclude that the Republican Party wants the Department of Education to exist. So does the Democrat Party. So what's the difference? A dime's worth?
Second, admit that your love of this utterly failed system is really not how much you can do "for the children, for the children..." but rather your desire to have a nice snug, secure job in which you work, on average, every other day for that starting pay of $31,000, have a giant chunk of time to yourself in the summer vacation period to further augment your income, need be accountable to no one for performance, get protected by one of two unions (association or federation) which lead the union movement in corruption of every sort, in which it would take an act of Congress or a military attack to remove the incompetents who predominate in every level of your "profession."
Third, would you care to imagine what the level of support from an overtaxed and overregulated public might be for the exorbitant waste of dollars which is the hallmark of government schools if they were not not a necessity for two-earner families as government provided baby-sitting?
Fourth, would you care to justify the necessity of graduate education degrees for kindergarten, grammar school or high school? Would you agree that those who best teach math are those who best understand math. Likewise for history, grammar, language, literature, sciences?
Fifth, would you care to give us your or your union's justifications for the closed guild system of time and money-wasting pursuit of "education" degrees necessary to enter into your occupation?
Sixth, do you think that people who have reasonably orthodox beliefs in God are somehow obligated to turn their youngsters over to a system hostile to God and hostile to Judaeo-Christian religion? Should fifth-graders be receiving condoms from their government "schools" with or without parental knowledge?
As to dropping everything to run off to the local "normal" school as brainwashing factories for government educators used to be called, to show one's submissiveness to the agenda of government and the NEA as a qualification to become a brainwasher of children whether you know the substantive course material or not, no thanks. It is far easier to educate my own children at home in the values of their faith, their civilization and high competence in language, grammar, literature, the Saxon Math program (hated by government incompetents everywhere because that series commits the unpardonable sin of giving kids expertise in math), sciences, and courses unseen in generations like Latin, Greek, ethics, logic, speech and other classics courses.
And you have the colossal gall to claim that Freepers who object to this socialist, amoral system of raping the minds, competence and capability of America's children JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND!?!?!?!?
You suggest that we should go to school board meetings. Will that help educate my home-schooled kids? Will the school board listen? Will the educrats listen? No, in all cases. If my vote can strip the school board of those who want to STEAL more of my family's money, I will vote. Otherwise, it is in my interest and that of every taxpayer that this fraud mislabeled "public education" be abolished at the earliest opportunity. You, as a government teacher, when you collect your salary, are in receipt of stolen goods. You are not a moral role model for that reason alone.
In the event that you are actually a moral person, resign, set up a decent private academy for kids whose parents cannot homeschool them. Take the risk of depending upon parental recognition in a free market to pay your salary. You will find that most private sector teachers receive less than their government school counterparts BUT earn much more than they receive.
Finally, I suppose that the government schools do provide one good thing: a large supply of ignorant drones who will inevitably be ruled by those who possess genuine homeschool or private educations. My kids thank you for that.
AND, by the way, as you can see, we Freepers DO understand.
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