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1 posted on 08/03/2002 9:21:19 AM PDT by Mr. Mulliner
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I like what this guy has to say about government schools and their employees. Ever since President Reagan pushed for merit pay -- an appeal to positive incentives -- and the NEA waged war to the death against it, public educators have been trying to convince themselves and the rest of us that they are committed to excellence. In fact, the opposite is true because they've removed the incentive for excellence.

One way they carry on their charade is by setting up standards for hiring that exclude the best and brightest and those with the most experience in a particular field, but include all of those who go through their scheme: education ("brainwashing") courses. In working things out this way, it makes these teaching jobs appear to have very high standards for qualifications (President Bush couldn't get a job as a high school government teacher because he doesn't have a teaching license) and thus they feel justified in raising salaries and asking for more and more money.

One thing I learned last year in doing some research really struck me as the honest truth about public education. Entrance exams for education majors into graduate school are by far the lowest of all majors. In other words, if you aren't bright enough to make it in any other field of study, you can almost certainly make it if you major in education. Even math majors -- and many of them are foreigners -- score higher on average on verbal skills in their entrance exams than education majors.

The woes of public education, I'm convinced, have everything to do with incentives and motivation, as this guy writes. And the main barrier to healthy incentives and motivation in education is the NEA. Until they are disbanded and removed from the equation, so-called "solutions" are nothing that can be taken seriously.

2 posted on 08/03/2002 9:39:09 AM PDT by Mr. Mulliner
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To: *Education News; *Homeschool_list; madfly; 2Jedismom
Index Bump
3 posted on 08/03/2002 12:10:34 PM PDT by Free the USA
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