EDUCATION - POVERTY
I've said it before, that the problem with our educational system is deeper than just throwing
money at the problem. It's always, we need more money, or we need better buildings, or we need high teacher salaries, as if money was the only answer to the problem. But it's not.
Still, the education establishment and its supporters say, no one knows for sure because no one's ever done it.
Well, that's untrue and Kansas City is the example, where tons of money were thrown at the
school system, upwards to nearly $12,000 per pupil, which on a cost of living scale, was the largest influx of money than any of the 280 largest school systems in the country. Teacher
salaries went up, along with 15 new schools, one with an Olympic swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25 acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12-1 or 13-1.
The results were crap. No change in test scores, No diminishing of the black-white gap.
And get a load out of how they spent all the money. The blind are leading the blind and in this case I will give you just one guess who had the most influence over how the money was spent..
Famous speaker and author Zig Zigler says it best:
"How is it that a total population of three million people was able to produce George Washington, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and a host of other luminaries with the moral and mental capacity to draw up plans for the greatest country in the history of civilization? I believe the credit goes not so much to these individuals but to the character of the population as a whole. In other words, the Founding Fathers were a reflection of the people from which they were drawn.
And what was the source of such character? There were two primary sources: the Bible and the New England Primer that was used in America's schools for over two hundred years. From the New England Primer, first graders were taught BIG words - words of four, five and six syllables. Looking in the Primer, I see words like gratification, edification, abominable, admiration and beneficial - words that were associated with character, either good or bad.
Also in the Primer, lessons were tied to the Bible. For instance, letters were learned by memorizing biblically-based rhymes:
A: In Adam's fall, we sinned all.
B: Heaven to find, the Bible in mind.
The biblical basis for character was taught to all children who learned to read and write. The Bible and the New England Primer were the two indispensable tools for educating the youth of the new country called America. In fact, the Continental Congress purchased twenty thousand Bibles to distribute to citizens who did not have their own.
According to the Thomas Jefferson Research Institute, in the first two hundred years of our country's history over 90 percent of the educational thrust was of a religious, moral, and ethical nature. By 1950, the religious, moral and ethical content of the curriculum of public schools was so small that it could not be measured. By 1960, we had become anti-Christian, particularly in the media and in many of our educational institutions...Today we tolerate everything with the exception of Christians and Christianity.
Without the Biblical benchmark, character has wandered from pillar to post in America over the last fifty years. America's corporate and government landscape is littered with the moral and ethical failures of leaders in recent years. I don't believe it is possible to be truly successful without possessing moral character and values that are consistent with the time-honored traditions of the Bible." - Zig Ziglar, Better Than Good (Integrity Publishers, 2006).
The problems may have started in the 50's but they really took off in the 60's. And I'm sure it's only coincidental, but the first teacher's unions were established in county public school systems at exactly that time, in the late 50's. But that's not all that changed. I remember going back to my high school after being away for a year at college, and I asked one of my favorite instructors how things were going, and I'll never forget his comments. He declared that education was doomed and I may have gotten out just in time. He lamented how parents were beginning to get involved and attending school board meetings with their ideas on how things should be run. One of those included the banning of corporal punishment, which was quickly leading to the loss of control in the classrooms. The deterrent had been taken away.
The old "board of education" was removed from the classroom. I can't speak for your schools but in mine, there was never a loss of life by a student who was on the receiving end of a lesson in respect. I got my lesson in junior high and it stuck. Never saw another one until high school and I was amazed at the new technology that teachers were applying to them. My gym coach had one with holes drilled through it everywhere(less wind resistance we were told) And "comeuppance" usually occurred as we were coming out of the shower...a swat on a wet behind would send a sound through the entire tiled basement of the gymnasium that left little to the visual imagination, and usually resulted in quick bets all around as to who was on the receiving end. The holes in the board left strawberry welts making a bit sensitive at sitting down when reaching the next class, which easily allowed for all the bets to be paid off.
Anyway, the point I was making is that when you lose control of a student, you're losing control of a classroom, and in turn you're losing control of an atmosphere that's conducive to learning. Before you know it a mob mentality takes over classrooms, hallways and school grounds. Mainstreaming was also added during that period, and while it was beneficial to many, ground rules for what was permitted were lax, to the point where the mainstreamed student sometimes became the disruption. And like I say, parents getting involved in a whole host of issues based on the false premise that their kid remains an angel even when he is away from the house. School dress codes fall by the wayside and before you know it, school becomes a fashion statement and a social event rather than a place of learning.
So, how does your school stack up? At my high school, the bus would pick us up around 7am and we were dropped off at school between 7:30-7:40, Homeroom was at 7:45 and the first of seven "periods" began at 8am. We had four 50-minute classes, a half hour for lunch and three more classes before the day ended at 3:30 and we boarded the buses again. No one was allowed to leave the school grounds, except our senior year. There WAS a dress code, there was corporal punishment if needed, but for the most part, it was a rare case indeed for the paddle to be pulled out, and actually, outside of gym class, I never saw it used on anyone in my classes. But I was attending school back when teachers were given respect, they dressed properly and actually knew the subjects they were teaching and the learning process was more important that becoming buddies with the students. And each of the four years focused on English, Math, Science, History/Civics, Foreign Language, Gym and a study hall. Extra curricular activities such as the various "clubs" took place from 3:30-4:30pm. And gym wasn't any walk in the park either. Our former marine gym coach, had been nationally recognized by JFK for his physical fitness class courses. Every day's class ended with us taking the "tour", and if just one person rubbed the coach the wrong way, we were treated to the "grand tour", which always made us ten minutes late to our next class. Detentions were also treated differently at our high school. They were never held after school, oh no-no-no. You had to be in the school and in your detention room at 6am sharp! That meant if I had one, hypothetically speaking, I had to walk four miles to town and the school, and there was little chance anyone would stop their car and offer you a ride. Not at 5am. And if I were at the school and running down the hallway to the classroom and the church bell sounded the last of six chimes, the teacher, Mr Hurst, I'll never forget him, would just smile at me running down the hall, and slowly close the door, peering at me through the window, holding up his hand with three fingers raised, meaning you now have three more detentions. Hypothetically, of course!
Our public school system needs to go back to the basics, not just teaching the basics, but getting back control over what takes place inside the walls...dress codes for the students and teachers, restrictions on what is and is not allowed, distractions eliminated, classrooms back under control and ...yes, even corporal punishment. And for the seemingly incorrigible student, parental responsibility enters the picture with possible fines levied if improvement is not seen. I think there should also be considered a final option of a military-type school to get that student taught and graduated, at the parents' expense. I cannot accept our current attitude of letting kids fall through the cracks, or letting them drop out to become the dregs of society. Free public education should be the way out of poverty and the gateway to endless opportunities, and parents need to hammer that in. Whether that be college or additional vocational training or learning a trade, the first twelve years and a high school graduation are critical for the corner to be turned, and poverty to be erased. Maybe we do need to rethink and revisit our religious aspect in schools. Perhaps in our elementary grades we should return a portion of our educational thrust to a more religious, moral and ethical nature, to help build a stronger character and morality in our young people. I know this goes against the grain of what's acceptable today, but I must remind you that shortly after our new federal government took over the reins, in one of its first acts, Congress had published hundreds of copies of the Bible, for the expressed purpose of being handed out to all the public schools, once again showing the sheer nonsense of this separation of religion and government, that was never intended. It was a 1947 Supreme Court ruling, which was based on factually inaccurate information that was used in arguments before the court, which got us heading down the wrong path. In a more recent 1985 ruling by the Supreme Court using the 1947 case as precedent, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, writing his dissenting opinion, spoke eloquently on the miscarriage of justice that occurred back in 1947.
When I was in Baltimore, there was one of those federally subsidized "enterprise zones" established in one section of the city, with the intent that industry would relocate there, providing much needed jobs for the neighborhood. But after they moved in and we eventually did a story on them to see if it was working out, we found out the jobs were going to people outside of the neighborhood, because as the owner told me, the lowest entry level position was shipping and receiving, but to do the job you had to be able to read the invoices, shipping bills of lading and be able to accurately count goods being received or shipped out, and the applicants he was getting from the neighborhood were having difficulties reading, writing and counting. The way out of poverty is truly through education and personal responsibility for making the right choices. Common Sense.
Should we also look at the structure of public school? I've kicked around ideas and wondered if we should start kindergarten at the age of 4 instead. Kindergarten is only a half day as it is and is mostly for getting use to child-parent separation and adoption of a classroom setting with its new rules and for formulating longer attention spans. That could give us an extra year to work with. And while its at least worth discussing, call me old fashioned but I still think that might be too early an age. I actually have a better idea to start junior high at the 6th grade level, instead of the 7th which would then give us an extra year of high school, which is what I think we really need to have, while still graduating at the same age of 18, as we do now.. And that extra year would do wonders at allowing other topics to be introduced or re-introduced from the past. First and foremost, I think that U-S History should be taught over two years. Early American History from the beginning to the end of the Spanish American War, with the second year focusing from the 1900 forward. And it won't hurt to get in an extra year of English, Math and Science. In addition to all the basics I think there should be some additional emphasis placed on home finances and budgets, the skills in shopping and purchases, grocery shopping tied to meal planning and nutrition and finally the basics of starting a small business or getting involved in vocation skills. Each one of those will not only prepare them for the real world but will be saving the them a ton of money when they get out on their own.
The problems with education need to be dealt with on a national security posture, since our country's future is in the hands of today's children. And right now our educational system is broken. If you think the technology of today is unbelievable, you should see what is waiting for us just five or ten years down the road. And our children have to be ready for that world.
We used to have the greatest educational system in the world. Isn't it time we fixed the system and give our children the greatest gift of all?
