why??? cause they get PAID!!! good or bad...
Posted on 03/02/2010 1:52:10 PM PST by BruceDeitrickPrice
One of the most striking things about education is that everyone has a theory.
A lot of these ideas are extreme. Some are what I call swaggering defeatism (everything is fixed, game over, no use fighting). At the other end are blue-sky utopians (we have to level the schools and start over a different way). Truthfully, a lot of this is not very helpful. Smaller, immediate goals are usually going to produce more progress.
But here’s what is most profoundly troubling to me about all these ideas. They give cover to the people who are the real problem, namely, our Education Establishment.
These guys always want to blame somebody else. First, they say it’s the kids’ fault because they don't try. Then it’s the parents’ fault because they don’t care. Then it’s society’s fault because we don’t spend enough money, etc.
Our top educators are in perpetual CYA mode. The last thing they want is that anybody actually look in their direction. Can you imagine HOW GRATEFUL THEY ARE that most of the people in this country use up their reformist energies discussing split infinitives, planning new kinds of schools on the moon, or just giving up?
In every industry, and every kind of human activity, when you have a bad year, the first reaction is to fire the coach, get a new CEO or whatever. But we never do that in education. We let the same people (quacks and hacks, I’m afraid) mess up year after year; and when we identify a problem, we let these people replace the old stupid idea with a brand-new stupid idea.
I’d suggest we need new people, and a new class of ideas. To get there we have to stay focused on the real culprits.
(The thinking above led to the YouTube video. Only 3 minutes. Makes the same points in a light-hearted way. Please use whichever one you think might help.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN-dY1HBqsQ
Mostly because of the NEA, one of the most nefarious organizations in the country
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Socialist schools are the root cause of why we have the NEA!
Just getting rid of the NEA will not fix socialist government schools.
Please read John Gato’s history of socialist government schooling.
The very **goal** of the Utopian progressives who pushed so hard for compulsory socialist schooling in the mid 1800s was to produce mind numbed citizens who would be willing workers for the fascist state!
Socialist government schooling has **always** been a failure. That we had FDR for four terms is proof of this.
Why Don’t Public Schools Do A Better Job?
They don’t care.
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Socialism never cares.
Socialist government schools **are** socialism. They have **always** been socialism. They have **always** taught children to be comfortable with socialism because government schools have **always** been socialism.
Yes, provided that the vouchers or tax credits would eventually lead to **complete** and total privatization and **complete** separation of school and state. That means parents pick up the entire bill and charity funds the poor.
On the college level, the problem with the Pell Grant vouchers is that every time the voucher is increased, the colleges and universities raise their tuition. This means the more and more of the middle classes must look to the government for a voucher to pay the tuition, and students are burdened with more debt that the voucher doesn't cover.
If we have vouchers for K-12 education we **will** see the ***same** thing! Private school tuition will continually increase.
I support vouchers but only as a stop-gap measure. The only permanent solution is complete separation of school and state.
Today the cause is "social equality". Any oddball group including gays has a social stature above what exists in "normal" society. In time, with enough students pushed through the mill, abnormal becomes mainstream. That is exactly why young people favor normalization of homosexual behavior, legalization of drugs etc. in higher percentages than the rest of society.
2. For generations teachers have been revered as underpaid martyrs giving up economic success for the good of "the child".
They have institutionalized that image but, many teachers become teachers because that's what is left over after the better paid career fields are filled with more qualified people.
3. My personal experience is that many teachers have a security blanket in the school system and they never have to encounter the real world. They go to school for 12 years, participate in all the school activities become prom queens or cheerleaders or athletic stars. Many continue this never-never land experience through college. When they return to the same environment to teach, they continue to live their "glory days" vicariously through their students.
Don't flame me for the last comment. I retired from teaching two years ago with 25 years credited.
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And...It is discouraging and amazing to me how many conservatives think:
1) Their child's school is “different”.
2) That socialist-model and socialist funded government schools can some how be reformed if only the NEA shut down,... if only the Dept. of Education were abolished,... if only we could return to the 1950s,... if only we had 2 minutes of prayer sprinkled in the school day,... if only the socialist schools were local controlled... if only we returned to the basics,...if only phonics were taught...( whatever!)
Socialist funded and socialist model single payer government schools can NOT be reformed because it is **IMPOSSIBLE** to reform socialism! ( Yes, I am shouting. I am exasperated.)
why??? cause they get PAID!!! good or bad...
Socialist government schools have **always** been proving grounds for liberal causes.
Hey! It was the Utopian progressives who lobbied for socialist, compulsory, single payer government schools in the mid-1800s!
The goal in the mid-1800s, of the Utopian progressives ( and industrialists) who politically worked sooooo hard to impose socialist government schools was the creation of a compliant and mind-numbed worker for the fascist state.
When the first child stepped foot into the **first** compulsory socialist government school in the mid-1800s that child learned to be comfortable with taking money from his neighbor to pay for a socialist need that his parents wanted for tution-free.
The Utopian progressives from the mid-1800s onward have **always** been pushing for a more and more liberal and a “progressive” curriculum. They have **always** been in charge of teacher training and curriculum development. The push has **always** been to the left and now we have outright Marxism being taught in our socialist government schools.
“The ONLY problem with public education is the failure of parents who sit on their rear ends doing nothing but complaining.”
I’m a doer. Not a sit-on-the-sidelines’er. We homeschool.
However, we have had to learn about our local high-schools because we have had foreign exchange students over the years who must go to a public school. And we are active host-parents. So we have seen both homeschooling and public school up close and involved.
Frankly, you are completely wrong in the language I quoted above. That is teacher’s union argle bargle. Our local highschool has: (1) At least 32 assistant principals (mine had 1 and was a bigger school); (2) A history teacher that tells the class the Spanish American war was an example of American paranoia about communism; and (3) An art teacher who can’t spell; and (4) An English teacher who cannot spot a triple-run-on-sentence. And that’s a small sample of the things we have learned over the years.
If you regarded the schools as a division of a company, they are producing far inferior product now than they did forty years ago at about four times the cost per pupil in real dollars. Plus, they have become a propaganda arm for every silly leftist cause you can imagine. If they were the division of a company, that would be the equivalent of the division actively promoting blowing up the company’s operations facility. In any sensible world, the division would be shut down and started over after decades of aggressive failure. That’s a radical solution to a radical problem.
It’s not just the schools.
It’s the fact teachers have to get thru education school before they can be teachers. And education school apparently consists of a lot of “how-to-teach” courses that make sure they can’t teach and little time teaching them about the subject matter of their classes.
Its the the fact that educrats control most of the boards locally and nationally that decide curriculum and text books.
It’s the fact that both my wife and I have considered running for school board. But the political reality is that anyone who does so and who is not a toady of the Teachers Union has a great big bucket of union money thrown at them in the election and will probably be defamed in the election campaign with it.
So if you pull out any leg of this structure, the other legs will just rebuild the stool. That’s why folk pose radical solutions. Radical solutions are necessary to make any change.
Parents have little say and that is deliberate. Financing used to be local. When things went south in the schools, the board faced the actual folks who were paying their taxes. Between the Serrano v. Priest type decisions, the Dept of Education etc, school money now comes mostly from States or the Feds. The guys that write the checks aren’t the parents anymore. The schools don’t care about the parents as a result.
The only general fault on the part of parents is that they don’t pull their kids out and drop the entire structure because noone shows up for school one year.
Two words: TEACHER’S UNIONS
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One word: SOCIALISM!
Socialist funded government schools are socialism. It was inevitable that we would eventually see Teachers’ Unions.
If we have socialist funded single payer health care, in time we will have DOCTOR’S UNIONS! ( Believe me. It will happen!)
The underlying problem is that socialist government schools are socialism. Socialism can not be fixed. It must be abolished.
Why? So that you can fight the voting mob that wants to impose their politics, corrupt culture, and atheistic worldview on your children and your community?
The fundamental problem with socialist, single payer, government schools is that they are socialism. Socialism can not be fixed. It must be abolished.
Simple!
Excellence is the result of existential competition and government is either entirely immune to it or, on rare occasions when it does exist (when neighboring states compete), oblivious to it.
The prime mover in government is power and politics and they are completely unconnected from "doing a better job."
One can successfully argue that our government (and in parallel, our school administration) is incompetent, inefficient and inept. Test scores are in the commode. SATs altered their scoring structure a number of years ago in order to provide the illusion that schools continue to teach without degradation.
But the argument for conspiracy is also very plausible; that our children are intentionally indoctrinated and "dumbed down". They are not educated, cannot think critically and logically and are taught liberal ideology. But they do know how to put condoms on bananas.
How can both of these be true?
What if both are true?
Eph 6:12 - For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places].
Satan takes advantage of our ignorance, sloth and ineptitude to forward a society that is destructive in nature; it is destructive to us as humans, and antithetical to a right relationship with God. His plan and efforts are well coordinated and effective.
As parents, we have a responsibility to ensure our children are properly educated; that they know scripture, history, math, science, logic, critical thought, scientific method, etc. As citizens we must pay attention to what is happening in our schools and our government and fight for what is true. If we do not make this happen we can kiss America - what is left of it - goodbye.
Two reasons, it is GOVERNMENT in education, and the massive, powerful teachers’ unions
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Socialism **always** produces massive political voting blocks and powerful lobbies. Socialism produced SEIU and AFSCME.
It was **inevitable** that socialist, single payer, government schools produced powerful teachers unions!
If we have socialist, single payer, government health care it is **inevitable** that we will have very powerful Doctors Unions, Nurses Unions, and Health workers unions. Maybe it will be in one giant union!
Socialist, single payer, government schools ***are** socialism. Socialism can not be fixed. It must be abolished.
Really? Parents don't care?
Then why are there lines around the block for lotteries for the few available seats at charter and voucher schools?
Did you see John Stossel’s program last week? 5,000 parents showed up for a lottery for a handful of seats at charter school.
Well said. We have mixed home schooling w/ public school. We are also fortunate that our schools are not nearly as far gone as some. In instances where we needed to resist we have been successful, but it was not easy; it was a fight every time. We will graduate the second of four this spring. They are doing well.
is there’s no accountability for failure
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There is never any accountability with socialism. Why would there be with socialist, single-payer, government schools?
Socialist, single-payer, government schools **are** socialism. Socialism can not be fixed.
Socialist, single-payer, government schools in many ways resemble prisons. We should not be surprised when we see similar social pathology in socialist, single-payer, government schools that we see in prisons.
By the way,... It is likely that every prison in the U.S. is a socialist-model, single-payer, prison!
Simple! Excellence is the result of existential competition and government is either entirely immune to it or, on rare occasions when it does exist (when neighboring states compete), oblivious to it.
The prime mover in government is power and politics and they are completely unconnected from “doing a better job.”
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The above is the very definition of socialism!
Socialist, single-payer, government schools can not be fixed because they **are** socialism. They have **always** been socialist. Socialism can not be fixed.
Agree. The public schools are engineered to create mindless drones to worship at the altar of government.
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