Education

Education as a platform or a plank

No child left behind is an abysmal program and has only further plunged our education system into a hole so deep can we as a nation ever compete successfully in a world market.

One might ask how I can say the latter.

My wife has spent over 40 years in education. Many early years were devoted to economically depressed communities, schools with no supplies and non-existent equipment. Yes the majority of these schools were minority based for years.

Public education depended solely on the teacher’s ability to teach in nearly third-world conditions. A teacher used their own resources to creatively create many of the teaching materials needed to educate and challenge the students.

Do higher income levels and/or better benefits guarantee that a teacher will produce a better product in the form of a student? The answer is unequivocally “no” as evidenced by the last forty year level of performance of the US education system. The only thing evidenced by pay and benefits that more will enter education programs due to the pay and benefits rather than the ideology that one can help individuals to reach their potential.

Federal programs have demonstrated in the last forty plus years that some are good and most create an atmosphere of socialism that retards the educational growth of exceptional students. This is especially critical to those that do not possess the ability to become exceptional students, however, due to the federal program they will not be challenged to even attempt to achieve higher standards. No child left behind does not allow for exceptional student growth. It may in theory; however, it does not in practice. Exceptional students achieve higher education in spite of the educational system.

What is the equation for success and failure in education? Oversimplification – prove it.

Student + teacher = education (Success)
Student + teacher + Federal involvement + Central Office = (Frustration * Failure)

One of the serious problems that we face in education is that many of the people that leave the classroom and take other positions other than that of a “classroom teacher” do so because they failed or have flawed views of the education process. How is it then that we put those that can’t teach in positions of authority that critique and measure the performance of those that do teach?
Giving a test to a prospective teacher measures only the level of success or failure of the questions that are asked, it like many tests do not measure the ability to teach or complete tasks that are assigned.

I am sick of it – 40 plus years of trying to implement failed theories, when will someone actually address the issues and return education to a system that works and prepares the student to enter a “millennial” workforce.

As the baby-boomers enter retirement how will our government address how to do everything with less? Simply stated with less taxpayers comes less tax revenue.
Political rhetoric will not fix the serious problems that we have and those problems are cumulative which means they will only continue to get worse. Which will provide even more fuel for the next round of political rhetoric? This type of circular politics ultimately leads to failure and is at very least a disservice to the American people.

As the world sees an opportunity to gain leverage in the workplace with educational objectives that are designed to meet the needs of the workplace, it will be the union of the workplace and the qualified that will drive the success of a nation.

With the current reputation of the graduates that the US is turning out, I too would shop for employees in other nations.

Colleges operation under the philosophy of “butts on seats” (BOS), what does that mean well simply stated; who is the bos (sp)? Well that’s simple to answer it’s the student and their ability or capacity to pay and/or the number of federal programs that will disburse funds, Pell grant, supplemental grants, college work-study, VA and rehabilitation programs and low interest federally back student loans.

What does this mean –?
Colleges have grown to a size that is no longer manageable with reasonable budgets.
Well to me it means that we’re producing a lower standard of college graduate compared to those of pre-sixties.

If the federal government provided all the resources to fund the education of a college student, one still couldn’t guarantee that anyone will hire that student. Why one might ask? What are the educational requirements that the US must address in order to meet the needs of the world job market?

If we think education is a business then we will never succeed, we simply cannot accurately solve the education business model.

We need to pull successful teachers out of retirement and empanel them to offer suggestions and resolve the education crisis in American. Don’t waste our time and financial resources on superintendents and non-teaching personnel. Let’s empanel the professional teacher that spent a lifetime in education as a career that received salaries of less than $4,000 less per year. Let’s explore why they entered a job that had poor pay, poor benefits and little respect. Let’s invest time, money on the true expert and let them solve the issues in education.

Now we get to the true problem. We won’t implement their solutions and suggestions because they are no longer socially acceptable and have been legislated against.

Are we as a nation/society willingly to fix just one problem? What do you think?