Anemone- You make a good point, but I don’t accept this as a valid reason. Instead, It’s more of an excuse. Public education should provide the basic knowledge that we all need to get along in the modern world, but it should also go beyond the three r’s. And not just to keep pace with the technological knowledge that people now need to hold a decent job, but to instill a more complete knowledge of history and finance and civic duty, among others. I don’t think it’s fair to today’s or tomorrow’s children to simply sit back and keep them just dumb enough to increase the paychecks of CEO’s.

SheaNC- Agreed. more value on education. More value on teaching. Better for society as well as the individual. And yes, our priorities are out of whack if a guy who can throw a ball far is worth more than the guy who teaches our kids math.

Windspike- As always, thanks for the comments. And of course, you are right when it comes to the primary crux of the problem. It is our societal attitude towards what we value-which seems to be money. You’d think then that the correlation of quality education to more money would be obvious. In reality, it’s about getting money for ourselves and to hell with everyone else, including our children.

Ottman- Thanks for stopping by again. You too hit upon a good point regarding the family structure and how we have changed its dynamics to the detriment of our children, again in favor of more money, beginning a viscious cycle of costs increasing so wages increase to meet costs on an upward scale, preventing all but the top wage earners from having a one income family. I know many parents who’d love to keep the kids at home with them but simply can’t without moving into low income areas which are rife with other problems.

By overcrowded, I don’t necessarily infer class size alone, although it can become overwhelming in some dense urban schools. I am also referring to the masses of students now occuppying schools built for populations a third or half their size. Many schools in the west have single wide mobile home like structures littered throughout thier campuses just to accommodate increasing student enrollment.

As for the spending problem, it is rampant and wasteful. But I’ll get into that again soon.

Finally, don’t be fooled by the standardized test scores. These measure those areas where the government mandates testing and thus are disproportionately “taught” by the staff. I’m talking about a well rounded education that includes knowing how to balance a checkbook, who the presidents were in the 20th century, what poetry is… These areas are certainly being not being given enough time.

JJ- Schools here have half days, and many more inservice days than we had when I was a kid, yet they keep clamoring for more money. For what, I ask? I’m glad to pay for infrastructure and materials and teacher salaries, but not too happy about overpriced and ineffective superintendents and their staffs, unneccessary consultants and the like. There is no money problem. There is an accountability and common sense problem.

As for the PC BS, you can check some of my earliest posts for my opinion on all that garbage and its detrimental effects on society and culture. Stop by again.

David- thanks for dropping by. I’ll have to check out the band you suggested. I sang in a band that did some rock, some blues, and some other stuff too. Many years ago, but still like to belt a few out now and again.

God Bless America, God Save The Republic

I agree with everything you mentioned in your list of “hypocrisies.” No doubt there are many things that conrtibute to the problem, but I am inclined to think the primary factor is poor parenting of students.

The basic unit of society is the family, upon which all other institutions are built. Unfortunately this basic family unit is crumbling in America. Many children are brought up in single family homes and/or with parents that simply do not care about them. I do not know how to fix this epidemic problem.

To make matters worse, we have this politically correct nonsense. With children not being diciplined at home, there comes a need to dicipline them at school. We cannot simply let them run rampant, doing whatever they want and threatening to sue if a teacher wants them to behave in a civilised manner. Because of political correctness students who are denied the discipline of parents at home are also denied the discipline of teachers at school. A society cannot continue to function when it labels the disciplining of young people as wrong.

As for the money problem, I do not think the solution lies with higher taxes. All that is needed is a RELOCATING of funds. A failing wealthfare system has supported generations of non-productive citizens, wasting millions of dollars. Professional athletes are arguably paid far more than is morally acceptable. True, economics would tell us that they deserve their salary because of the money they bring in (through tickets, merchandise, etc.). But sometimes we have a moral obligation to step in and make some changes. Practically speaking, I have no specfic ideas as to how these changes could or should be made.

From what my wife see, young kids barely out of diapers are today being pushed into daycare so their parents can go work and make as much as possible, then come pick them up and grab McDonald’s on the way home. This goes on everday. Infact near where I live, there is a Micky D’s right next to an upscale daycare center.

Kids are being taught by institutions from the get-go, and not by parents, so obedience is not included. This is also why kids today have such poor attitudes towards adults, including near zero respect. It is likely that someday this will come back to haunt the parents when their kids stick them in crummy nursing homes after retirement. As they say, what goes around…

Things were much better when I was growing up, when mom stayed home and kids could expect a good home cooked meal after homework, but alas those days may be gone forever.

I disagree with your assumption on crowded schools. At least in the blue state where I live, there are no bad schools outside the city, but there are too many of them, which sends taxes through the roof. I mean what are they going for, 10 students in a classroom or something? When I went to school in the 60’s and 70’s, there were 35-40 students in a classroom and it was not considered crowded.

In fact a brand new H.S. was built a few years ago with state of the art equipment costing like $100 million or some outrageous figure. And get this, there was just a new proposal for another high school that is to cost even more!

What these teachers unions are doing is trying to get as much money as they can for these buildings without any plan of action, cost or maintenance analysis, figuring they’ll just appropriate more tax money in new referendums whenever they want to. This has gotten to the point of no return where fiscal discipline has become non-existent.

I totally agree with you about the need to ensure taxes for education are not used for pursuing other agenda’s or spent on lobbying political groups. The Teachers Unions are notorious for spending money (originally earmarked for students), on campaigns for democrats.

I disagree with you on grades. What I hear is that education is doing better and students are getting much better grades now since teachers are being held accountable to actually do their jobs.

…if the community doesn’t care, change won’t happen. And indeed it does need fixing.

Where steroid laden ball players are paid exhorbinent salarys to swing a bat or toss a ball, teachers can’t afford to live in the cities within which they serve. On the other hand, paying teachers more is not often on the docket for politicians, local, sate or federal because that usually involves an increase in taxation. It is mystifying why people are willing to pay more to keep prisoners and build new state of the art prisons, but can’t seem to muster a few bucks per student to improve the schools. It costs more than 30K a year to house and feed and keep a prisoner. Students, on the other hand are substantially cheeper – less than 10K. Schools, good ones, keep people out of prison. go figure.

On another front, when Sun Micro Systems put up their new, brand spanking campus up in East Palo Alto, the local middle school was litterally falling down around the kids, teachers, administrators and parents. We have to ask ourselves, why is it that corporate folks wouldn’t think of going into a building that they couldn’t see out of the windows (as they were designed), but are willing to have the local kids founder in the dimly lit, moldy rooms that are a sad exuse for shools. What we need is capitalism with a conscience. If it is good enough for Sun, then it is good enough for the school five blocks away from the palacial spread of a campus that capitalism built.

When I was teaching Mathematics in a high school in Connecticut, and I dared to fail some students, the parents would go over my head and see if they could fudge the numbers up so little jonny or sally could at least pass out of learning fractions. I had parents outright lie for their kids and I had kids who did so many drugs over the weekend that they fell asleep in my classroom. Who’s fault is that?

As you hit the nail on the head, the solution lies in the whole of the society. We need a bigger hammer, and we need everybody swinging. Unfortunately, the federal government is so distracted by politicing that we end up with poorly funded new programs (no child left behind) and underfunded programs that actually work (head start). That, my friend, is twisted. In the end, the kids suffer, and our society needs to figure out what to do with unproductive, poorly educated work force.

As you can tell, the argument is cyclical. Like the chicken and the egg questions, you have to start with one or the other, but it is best if we work on all the fronts by talking about educational reform not from the stance as a school problem, but one that is a burden on the whole of society.

Our schools are only as good as the communities within which they are embedded. If the community doesn’t care, change won’t happen. And, indeed it does.