Posted on 09/10/2009 3:23:23 PM PDT by IbJensen
A new school year is under way, but we already can grade the condition of American education. Let's just say no ``honor student'' bumper stickers will be necessary.
The typical child entering first grade this year can expect taxpayers to spend more than $100,000 on his or her education through high school. (The Department of Education reports the average annual per-pupil expenditure in U.S. public schools is now more than $10,000.) But the data show that, all too often, our six-figure investment in every child's future doesn't guarantee a quality education.
A recent national test of eighth-grade students found that fewer than one in three were proficient in reading. The Department of Education reports that at least a quarter of all students fail to earn a high-school diploma. In many of our nation's largest cities, more than half of all students drop out before graduation.
Widespread failure in our schools imposes serious costs -- for students and society.
Consider how valuable having a high-school diploma is. If parents want to give their kids an extra reason to do their homework, here are a few handy facts.
Diploma improves lives
Statistics show that a person who graduates from high school has better odds of living a longer and more productive life. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that a high-school graduate can expect to earn at least $200,000 more over the course of his lifetime than a dropout. An analysis published by the Teachers College of Columbia University found that the average life expectancy for high-school graduates is about nine years longer than it is for dropouts.
Of course, it also matters that students actually learn while they're in school. McKinsey and Co. estimates that our failure to ensure that all children receive a quality education has created what amounts to a permanent national recession -- reducing our national economic output by $400 billion to $670 billion annually, or between 3 percent and 4 percent of GDP.
Moreover, since uneducated adults are more likely to become dependent on federal and state services, pervasive failure in American classrooms adds to our tax burden and ballooning government deficits.
The bottom line is that our nation's education system is in a state of crisis -- and everyone has a stake in seeing that it is fixed.
Tragically, we've known about this problem for decades. And for the most part, our elected leaders, collectively, have done little to solve it.
Special-interest groups that benefit from the status quo -- led by the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union -- have succeeded in blocking most of the aggressive reforms so desperately needed to improve the quality of our schools.
Why are the special-interest groups so successful? Because their livelihoods are on the line. They recognize that they're fighting for control of a $600 billion per year enterprise. And they're willing to do whatever it takes -- including hiring countless lobbyists and spending untold millions to win elections across the country -- to see that their interests are protected.
Can the same be said of parents, students and taxpayers -- everyone who should be concerned about the quality of our nation's schools?
Have we done all that we can to convince our leaders and neighbors of the urgency of the education crisis and the need to put children's futures ahead of the special interests?
You know the answers to these questions.
The simple truth is, we are responsible for the crisis in American education. We have let it happen. And millions of children will continue to pass through our nation's schools without reaching their potential so long as we, as a nation, continue to do nothing.
Get informed
As kids go back to school, here's some homework for adults for the coming school year. Become informed and make your voice heard in debates about education.
Learn about what we're spending on our public schools and what we're seeing in terms of student performance. Follow what is happening in the state legislature and on the local school board.
Write a letter to the editor and make your opinions known. Challenge your elected representatives and demand that they put the interests of kids' ahead of the special interest groups.
It will take hard work. But if enough people get involved and demand serious reform, we can fix the chronic problems that plague our nation's public schools.
The future of millions of children -- indeed, of the nation itself -- depends on it.
Americans allow the goobermint to screw up the nation's education, then elect a communist to overhaul the health industry by placing it under the control of the incompetent bureaucrats.
Abolish the DOE.
Give a voucher to every family for education and let them choose where to send them, or abolish the education property tax and let parents do it themselves (my preferred option since I homeschool).
Bust the unions in the public sector. If there should be any group thats a right to work group it should be public government sectors.
You will never fix the education system until they actually start to educate the students, especially how to be parents.
Well, everyone who thinks all the schools in the US are screwed up can send their kids to another country for an education. They won’t because deep down they know the US has the world’s best education system that provides us with the best workforce in the world.
The biggest problem with the public schools are the parents. They want tough rules enforced...except against their child.
Try enforcing anything or requiring anything from students and see how long it is until parents are calling the principal or threatening a law suit.
Get ready. Here come the typical education bashers to gripe and complain without admitting they are part of the problem.
This was true decades ago before the 'central government' took over and changed the face of American education forever!
I say forever because once the evil central government gets their hands on something that should be run locally they never let go.
The parents who know that the system is screwed up and should be fixed are by and large actively involved in their childrens' education.
Those parents that don't seem to give a damn are supportive of more and more federal and state government interference in education: they want someone else to be responsible for their kids' education ... or lack thereof.
Reagan should have killed the DOE when he had a chance.
One of W's greatest mistakes was giving the DOE more power through the "No Child (Illegal or Otherwise) Left Behind" Act. He has given every future president an open invitation to get the feds more and more involved in local education.
I haven’t shopped for private schools, but surely you could find something for $10,000 a year better than public schools.
I can only imagine what competition would create among private schools, churches and businesses creating education opportunities to capture that potential market.
I agree get the state out of schools. More competition will create better schools, more innovation and reward the best teachers.
Unfortunately, the fat cat educrats will have to find some other form of corruption to enjoy.
Why should we pay to have the gubmint dumb down and indoctrinate our precious chilren?
Our system is best because it is based upon the Law of the Survival of the Fittest: improperly trained teachers, poorly maintained infrastructure, incompetent administrators, and woefully mispent funds combine to guarantee that only the most self-reliant students will make it through K-12 actually learning something.
Most of the kids will fail the test and end up working for Walmart or similar, but the valiant few will go on to working on Wall Street scheming up ways to take what little money the unwashed masses can manage to save up in their checking accounts and 401-k's.
There is a real crisis in public education, and that is where reform should take p[lace. TEACH UNREVISED AMERICAN HISTORY! TEACH PENMANSHIP! TEACH THE IPORTANCE OF INDIVIDUALISM! REWARD ECELLENCE AND FLUNK FAILURE! KEEP “UNDER GOD” IN THE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG. PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG EVERY MORNING! Just for starters.
Reagan campaigned to abolish the DOE. Once in office, he ran into the buzzsaw of the NEA.
Folks, until we solve the problem of socialist indoctrination of the kids in the government schools, nothing else we do will make much difference. That process over the past 100 years didn’t just make Obama possible, it made Obama INEVITABLE.
GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS THEN AND NOW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0lR1KQq2-U
BTW, FREEDOM HAS AN ADDRESS: IT’S HTTP://WWW.JBS.ORG
Been that way for years, Ever since the Dept. of Ed established. The students get brainwashed and not educated. The politicians and the educators get fatter financially and the Nation works it’s way down the disaster drain.
Typical per student cost to the taxpayer, between $7-12k a year for a substandard education. I will never get used to this.
We homeschool. It costs virtually nothing and the kid never tests below 99th percentile on standard tests, so it must be working.
Now, I don’t need the dough, but fair is fair. Homeschoolers ought at the very least to be rebated their taxes, which in this area don’t amount to beans, but overall in the state of PA it’s in the thousands.
Homeschoolers tend to be better educated, and they should be acknowledged and not required to pay thousands per year for someone else’s education, especially when that someone else is getting a clunker of an education at the hands of the government.
“since uneducated adults are more likely to become dependent on federal and state services, pervasive failure in American classrooms adds to our tax burden and ballooning government deficits.”
To paraphrase the above quote, federal and state governments have a vested interest in pervasive failure in American classrooms .
Get the federal government OUT of education. The highest scores on the SAT were recorded in the early ‘60s, before the feds started messing with the schools, beginning with integration. From then on, the scores have plummeted, in spite of relaxing the standards and awarding points for being able to write your name in the correct blank.
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