Education Reform and the Economy

If teachers, like many I know, would have their hands unchained by the fetters of "No Child Left Behind" and federal mandates and would be given the freedom to teach with the talents and gifts they have possess, perhaps the ignorance and dropout rate in the U.S. wouldn't be so high.

I've not seen a study that addresses the real "whys" of the dropout rate, but I've certainly seen the issues in real life.

Kid's who most need encouragement and education are considered troubled. Teachers are so overwhelmed and overburdened most do not have the time or the resources to give those students the extra encouragement they need. A downward spiral begins. A student can't or doesn't understand. The parents can't afford a tutor. The student doesn't want to look dumb, so he becomes the class clown, from class clown, too often to trouble-maker. Make his life miserable until he quits. Be too hard on her. Get the child out of the system before they bring the test curve down. (No, it's not about what students learn it is about how they perform.)

Blame the parents.

Is it the parent's fault? Maybe. Maybe not. Many parents do the best they can with the education and means they have to support their children. No parent makes 100% on target decisions all the time, but most parents want the best for their children. They don't want to see them drop out, but both parents are working to support the family, so they don't even know until it is too, late.

It's easy to sit in your easy chair and point fingers at parents, but if you are involved, you know it is not easy to stay on top of your child's education and discipline. Men and women who work blue collar jobs and come in filthy and tired after a day of toiling labor often do not have the physical or emotional energy to do much more than sit down in their old recliner. Men and women with office jobs that are demanding face the same fatigue. Life becomes overwhelming.

Pundits sit behind their microphones and say, "They shouldn't have had kids." Moot point. They did. No one gives out an instruction manual when you get married about marriage and family, so let's chalk another one up to lack of education.

Of course there are people in our society who don't want to work, refuse to finish their education, and are enjoying the "safety net" of welfare as a "hammock." They need to have their hammock flipped over. Not only should they be encouraged to look for jobs, but they need to finish their education or have their benefits cut off. Education is the key to finding a sense of self worth, self responsibility, and the desire to improve the life of yourself and your family.

Our entire outlook on education and the family needs to be rethought.

If our educational system was fixed, with merit pay for good teachers, allowing individuals with the skill to teach and experience in the field of study about which they wish to teach would go a long way toward improving the education system. "But the teachers union..." Yes, the teachers union intimidates teachers into joining. They seem to be such a big force. The teachers union protects bad teachers. It encourages all teachers to join because someone may one day cry "wolf" and you will need the support and insurance you get through the teacher's union.

The teacher's union is as big an albatross as "No Child Left Behind." The concerns of the classroom need to be given back to the people who care the most about the educational outcome of their students. That is the local community and parents who do care and can have a voice that matters through their local school. Why should anyone join PTA now? To help promote wrapping paper sells and decide whether the money will build a playground or buy books?

If the PTA could make decisions that weren't already made for them by federal legislatures hundreds of miles and thousands of dollars removed from the problem perhaps there would be more family involvement. PTA struggles for members now. Of course, no one wants to join an organization where you can vent and have fund raisers but never have a voice in the education of your child.

As it now stands, we have dumbing down of the curriculum that didn't happen overnight. It was happening nearly twenty years ago when I was in teacher education classes. It was more important to learn to socialize, affirm, and build the self esteem of a child than to educate them. It is a strong basic education that will build the character that is needed to sustain a self-sufficient, responsible civilization.

Local school boards and involved parents are in a much better position to work with their teachers and school administration to develop schools that take the students where they are and move them where they need to be. Local administration is able to judge the quality of teaching. Give them the authority to fire teachers who don't do their job, like other professional occupations. Reward teachers who do their job with pay that is equivalent to the value we place on education.

Up and until this happens, I will home school my children if I have to do it from behind bars. Why? Because public education is adrift with no moorings. Contradicting philosophies of education are bantered about while our children are guinea pigs to the latest fad in curriculum. Saxon math was the greatest, until students failed standardized tests in massive numbers. Now Saxon is out and investigative math is in. That's hands on, critical thinking. It's not bad, but what happened to drilling the basics. Who's going to do the math without a calculator or computer nearby?

Teachers are only allowed to administer politically correct discipline. Forty-five minutes of asking kids to please calm down, left about fifteen minutes for instruction when my son tried a semester at public high school. He learned more in the semester he came back home than he would have in a year at public school. Not because of the teachers. There are some excellent teachers, but because the teacher's hands were bound behind their back, they were given a mile-high stack of paperwork, told what standards had to be met, and tossed in a classroom where their authority is undermined by society and some parents. It is a travesty.

Education in the United States must be reformed. Deserving teachers must be applauded instead of vilified.

Teachers are now only allowed to teach politically correct doctrine. I don't remember being indoctrinated in school. I remember being offered both sides of an issue and challenged to research and choose. No, I didn't grow up in private school. In fact, it was in a small town in Alabama, back when the local school board had a little say so. No one told me what to believe. They taught me facts, in as much as they were proven to be truth and theories were called just that, theories. There was no agenda.

Education needs to get back to the basics and teach our kids to compete in a global market and economy.

If teacher pay is a reflection of where we value education in our society and I compare it with entertainment earnings, it is no wonder we are in this mess.

Education needs to be given some of the bulk tax refunds that are going to oil makers and other big businesses. Of all people, big business sees the need for better educated Americans to move into key positions in their industry. Get off your fat tax dollars and do something to help. The federal government doesn't want to do anything more than control, control, control. How about big business stepping up to the plate to reward more teachers? Thanks for the token scholarships and teacher recognition programs, but teachers are struggling on salaries that are 1/3 and in many cases much less than executives make in this country.

Darwinists call it survival of the fittest. The fittest have become servants to our communities in an effort to raise stronger better educated citizens. Yes, chunk the very Darwinist principles teachers are forced to teach. (Now, that's interesting.) I choose to call it survival of the most educated, determined, and motivated. That has nothing to do with being the fittest if you haven't had a fair shot at a decent education.

Back the federal government mouth-pieces out of local school systems and we may have a chance at change. That's not going to happen at the hands of Democrats. It is going to be a fight to get it to happen at the hands of Republicans.

Education reform is worth the fight. Get involved. Support your local teachers and if you are tired of seeing our students fall short internationally let your voice be heard. It really doesn't matter if you have a student at all. It is about the future of our nation and our world. It's not a fix-all, but it is a start in the right direction.

**I am a conservative, homeschooling parent and former teacher in a private school.