Posted on 09/22/2011 3:33:56 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
This is a recurring annoyance for me. The RNC seems to have no idea that education is hugely important to most Americans, and should be a major campaign issue.
Frankly, big visions are NOT required. Details need NOT be mentioned. Just say that public schools are a mess, liberal ideas made them that way, and Republicans can turn things around. All true.
Problem is, we need people at the top with practical common sense and a desire to win. These people need to be aggressive. The weird wizards now in charge of public education will not notice anything less than a forceful attack on their position.
Well, I write a lot about education and I contact conservative organizations now and then...Bottom line, it's not encouraging.
Last week I stopped by a local congressman's office with an article published locally and this note:
".... I’m always looking for the aggressive person or organization that is actually trying to improve the schools. To tell you the truth, I find very little seriousness in this area. Education should be a huge issue for the Republican Party. Do you see that happening? Remarkably, we almost get the impression that the Republican Party approves of all the nonsense in the public schools. This is suicidal. My broader thesis is that if we don’t save the public schools, we won’t save very much else....
"Right now, we have a thoroughly confused and almost inert public. We have an intellectually lazy and corrupt media, such as our local paper. We have poor leadership even from the conservative side. Nothing looks very promising. However, if there were aggressive leaders or organizations, they could make some strides...."
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Realistically speaking, I think our best hope is to inform people, make them angry, and stir up debate. The grand strategy, as I see it, is all about discrediting the Education Establishment. They claim to be sincere and competent. I argue that they are neither.
This post is addressed to candidates, staffers, campaign workers, donors, political pundits, anybody who agrees that education might be a bigger issue.
The link is to a piece titled "The BIG Problem in Education," which clarifies the battlefield (namely, most of what we hear discussed is NOT what we should be discussing). It also has links to other articles that can provide ammunition for stirring up debate about education.
One of the diabolical things our Education Establishment has done over the last 75 years is to make the field of education an endless swamp of sophistries and confusion. Nobody knows what to think. I'm having a lot of fun trying to understand and explain it all. If I can provide more articles, links, analysis, etc., please contact me.
Bruce Deitrick Price
Improve-Education.org
Word-Wise Education
757-455-5020
http://fastpitchnetworking.com/pressrelease.cfm?PRID=69837
.
I know. There is so much nonsense going on in the public schools. Result: dumb people that can’t compete with Asians and don’t know their own history. End result: more voters for Obama.
Try never. They are called "establishment Republicans" for a reason.
The BIGGEST problem is that the Federal Government has no business WHATSOEVER in being overseer or dictator over a LOCAL ISSUE (schools).
Short of that, never.
The BEST thing the GOP could do to encourage people and let them know they are serious is by stating that they are going to defund and disband the Department of Education!
Why in the heck do we have a Federal DOE? Education is a local issue (that is why most school districts are “Independent”) of local governments, etc...
Get these politicians out of my kid’s school! If you are not there to actually teach reading, writing, arithmetic and science, then you are expendable! Anything beyond those subjects listed, we should make the parents pay from the dang class!
Unfortunately, the public mostly buys into that. Thus the standard GOP public school platform is standardized testing, charter schools, limited vouchers -- and more cash. The new fiscal realities may make more radical reforms possible, but such reforms will still need to be explained and promoted to the public. There is no escape from the battle of ideas.
I, however, do not.
Quite so. There must be ideas.
I mean, the agenda is simply stated, but it’s not the things normally discussed, as the FastPitch article explains. (All those boring specifics about dubious programs are killing us. Let’s stick to stuff that everyone can understand and applaud.)
Here, I can state the whole platform in 20 words: Teach reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography in the early grades, then shift more to history, science, literature, and the arts.
The schools are working exactly as designed. They are prisons to coerce children into little statist trolls. Anyone who thinks schools (public, private, religious, whatever) have ever had anything to do with education has been hoodwinked. And if you think schooling was better in the good ol’ days, you are a fool. It was always evil.
Lucky kids have homeschooling and unschooling homes. This is spreading and is the only hope for our nation.
That sounds much like how I was taught in Catholic schools a few decades back.
” And if you think schooling was better in the good ol’ days, you are a fool. It was always evil.”
Baloney! I attended public school in the 40’s and received an excellent education. (Yes,I’m old)
It was not “ALWAYS” evil.
You're right, of course, but that horse left the barn 50 years ago and isn't coming back in our lifetimes. Repubs would be wise to seize the issue in a forceful and plain-spoken manner and may even be surprised with the support they'd get from certain unlikely demographics. I'm not holding my breath given the current crop of GOP "leaders."
When government controls those subjects they insert their allowed philosophy in all subjects (Marxism).....
Such as: mike and bill get married and adopt three boys. How many are now in that cute family?
Look at the poor people in Los Angeles....they are all brown people. Look at the wealthy...these are the Rich white Europeans who live there because they stole the land from Mexico. Government needs more welfare programs and to pay for everyone’s college education.
(as Holder noted the other day). Schools can not fire people with “bad” English. It is discrimination of the worst kind. Proper English is no longer necessary. Write....Me do it.....ten times.
Read Das Kapital and Daddy has a Roommate for literature. No books allowed with refer to mother and father. We only allow the use of “partner”.
You get the idea....when government controls education, they control the ideas put into the heads of children. They create useful idiots. It is unconstitutional—as John Stuart Mill so clearly outlines in On Liberty.
All control of schools needs to be the parents of the children who attend the school. No outside board members—nothing. Just those who want the best ideas and the truth (and their worldview) given to their children. Burn all text books created after Dewey.
“Nobody knows what to think. “
Based on actually being in the classroom, here’s what I think:
1. The Federal Department of Education could disappear tomorrow, and millions of teachers would never notice, because this turd of a department essentially does nothing except absorb taxpayer dollars and craps out wads of paper that accomplish nothing. Education is a state matter, and it was done better when it was left up to the individual states to decide about.
2. NCLB was an usurpation of state power; it also caused an outbreak of cheating because it mandates an essentially unreachable goal of 100% effective schools. Only a complete idiot thinks any human enterprise can achieve 100% of anything. 80-85%, without the useless “growth model”, is about all that can be done. Hoping for ever-increasing scores until 100% is reached is a stupid proposition.
3. Teachers get hounded by administrators, educrats, politicians, and other people touting whatever snake-oil theory some PhD came up with for their doctoral thesis (supported with research that has as much validity as witchcraft) designed to increase student learning. It would be nice if these folks would just go away, because they are not helping. Nobody actually in a classroom would use whatever nostrum, because it is usually obvious that the ‘theory’ doesn’t match the reality in front of you.
4. School discipline matters. We need to return to the more stern old-fashioned (conservative) methods of disciplining students, i.e., the “Board of Education”(young students) or expulsion (high school). Nobody should be allowed to take up a teacher’s time at the expense of other students who are doing what they are supposed to.
5. My state long ago did away with public-sector unions; all other states should do the same. Teachers can be compensating fairly without bankrupting the public treasury. As long as there is are some due process procedures to prevent abuses of power (i.e. a Conservative teacher getting canned because a Commie administrator doesn’t like them)there isn’t a need for labor unions in education.
6. Conservatives need to get control of local and state governments and control public education, especially in terms of curriculum. Abominations like homo history or sex education occur because liberals get into positions of power and use it, while conservatives get there and try to ‘get along’.
7. Social promotion: this is a great evil. If a student does not pass the 6th grade because they do not do the work, then they should remain in the 6th grade, or whatever grade, until they do. And if they get to the point where they are old enough to leave school, and are not making any progress, show them the door.
8. Last one: Students should be accountable for their own success. Neither I nor any other teacher can guarantee an equal outcome, or even a good one. It is not like stamping sheet metal or some industry where the worker has 100% control over the product until it goes out of the factory door. The best that can be done, is to guarantee the chance of a good outcome.
Sorry for the long rant Bruce...its been a long week.
That was excellent. There are many teachers in my family, and they would agree with you.
GenXteacher,
I enjoy a long rant....But please note that we are not primarily discussing how to fix the schools, but how to get the Republican Party to participate in that process, as opposed to standing diffidently on the sidelines. There seems to be some spark missing at the top.
“how to get the Republican Party to participate in that process, as opposed to standing diffidently on the sidelines.”
My opinion on that is that the Republican Party needs to define a position on public education as the party of excellence and achievement, a return to basic skills, making orderly schools, and pursuing policies centered around the idea that the public schools represent an opportunity for an education, not a guarantee.
Great. I agree 100%. So why aren’t they doing this?
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