Posted on 01/14/2008 7:53:12 PM PST by kathsua
Seldom will you read anything in a newspaper critical of public education. In small towns, the public school system is the lifeblood of the community, its largest employer and a main source of news and advertising for the local paper. Ball games, concerts and other school functions are often the only live entertainment available. Even churches plan events around the school calendar.
When local control was local, this was not a problem, but powerful organizations have wormed the apple. School board members are whisked to Topeka for VIP treatment while the agenda-driven Kansas Association of School Boards instructs them on education issues and the complexity of school finances. They often return representing "education," not parents and taxpayers.
If you haven't figured it out, a "looming teacher shortage" has been carefully prepared as the next education issue. There are far more employees (not to mention lobbyists and law firms) working for the public schools than ever before, the amount spent per student has increased exponentially, but the KASB talking points obscure the obvious with alarming statistics that will cause widows on fixed incomes to give up eating lunch to help solve the "looming teacher shortage." They compare starting teacher salaries with other states, but not with the average salaries in their own school districts. They say teacher pay has not kept up with the corporate world, but is that the standard for tax-funded institutions?
The way the education crowd presents its case to the public is in itself an education. Why not use the massive funding increase the state Supreme Court ordered to hire and pay teachers? That money is solving the "disequity" issue, remember?
The education funding formula is purposely designed to insure all public schools will forever have budget-related compromises. There will be a desperate funding issue every election cycle.
Newspapers practically serve as bulletin boards for local education representatives who parrot the talking points sent down the chain via conferences, seminars and e-mail alerts. Interviews with administrators and teachers start popping up with increasing frequency as the election nears: "Teacher shortage looming! Vote for candidates who understand education issues!" If the biased news coverage wasn't enough, editorials pound the core message over and over. At the last minute, letters to the editor come pouring in from concerned friends of education.
We all know teaching in a public school is hard. Getting a diverse group of today's kids to just pay attention requires a combination of talent and determination few people have. Not only is teaching much harder than it used to be, it is getting harder each day. Why is that?
I would lay the blame on parents, but the main job of training children for adulthood has been taken over by the public school system for generations. It surely deserves some credit for the direction our culture has come, and where it is headed.
You might think the state of our culture would trigger introspection, but the public school system is too busy showering itself with accolades. If I listed all the education organizations that award teachers, it would fill this paper and then some. This continual public relations barrage makes it extremely difficult to discuss the agenda of those who control the direction public education is moving.
Consider the National Education Association, which works relentlessly to influence who runs the state. While funding is a major issue for the NEA, so is protecting its influence over public education. This influence gives the NEA power to implement objectives so radical no sane person would ever link them to improving education. The NEA thrives on deception, poli-speak and edu-talk. It is an ends-justifies-the-means organization, yet most public school teachers are members - even in rural Kansas. If you ask teachers who don't approve of the NEA's progressive agenda why they are members, they point to the insurance or other benefits, showing how ends-justifies-the-means works on a personal scale. The NEA is not the only progressive organization influencing education. There are several extremely radical organizations that control textbook content, determine reading lists, choose curricula, define testing standards, and of course, spend lots of money to sway election results.
There are good teachers in the public schools who more than earn their pay, but turning schools into left-wing campaign machines will not make their job easier or solve the looming teacher shortage. It is more likely to create a looming student shortage.
When education organizations, casino operators, abortion providers, and the press banquet together, guess who picks up the tab?
Kansas is losing it's most priceless commodity - a quality of life built on the values powerful education organizations are working to destroy. Faith in God, strong families, honesty and . . . thrift.
Russell Steen is a husband and father who lives and works in Pratt.
puhblic edjookashon tawt me reel goode. ;)
{ 8^D
>Shouldn’t that headline read, “Public Education doesn’t Work Good.”?
Just wondering here...
No, because the word being modified is a verb (doesn’t work) so therefore the modifier would be an adverb (well).
I, as a public school teacher in one of the most difficult to work in urban districts in the nation (Jackson, MS) believe that the key to making good schools is FLUNKING STUDENTS. So many of our kids are passed on from class to class with little, if any, standards. The primary reason is because the counselors come behind the teachers that fail the kids and change the grades at the end of the year. You fail half the kids and when you get back in August, you find out that they are all matriculating on to the next grade. If they are athletes, they can fail half their classes and still move on.
You got to keep those seats filled. No bodies, no money.
“The primary reason is because the counselors come behind the teachers that fail the kids and change the grades at the end of the year.”
Is this unique to your school or does it happen frequently in other school districts? What is their reasoning behind changing grades?
Thanks for the grammar explanation, but I was just kidding.
Really.
that should read “Union Teacher” or “NEA indoctrinator” shortage. Have you noticed that the DEMs want to put preschools in the hands of the NEA? If they were Honest, they'd be trying to OPENLY rename the Dept of Education as the Dept of Indoctrination.
They don’t teach sarcasm in public schools? Personally, I hate public school. Minimum security prison. My life started when my jail term ended, after senior year of high school. School sucks the life out of you. Then again, you gotta put all them nosepickers somewhere while the adults go to work and earn a living. It’s day care, really.
Well I wonder sometimes if that is the actual case or its one of "those" issues like Social Security, you don't want to fix something that gets you lots of votes.
And think about it, whether you need more teachers or not if you are the administration and the education lobby you want as many Teachers union members as you can get. Then they can persuade more and more friends and family to vote for more and more tax levies because its all:
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