The State of our Schools

For someone who doesn't have a horse in the race, I sure spend a lot of time considering where the race went wrong. Not to take the metaphor too far, the state of public schools, in general, is pretty bleak. There are dozens of reasons why, very few of which can be corrected with any quick fix.

It is difficult to decide where to start when listing the issues facing our schools, so let's begin with one which many people find controversial. Equal rights for women. Don't get me wrong, of COURSE women should have equal rights and equal pay for equal work (and by the way, we still don't). But over the course of a generation, we went from women being ALLOWED to work, to women WANTING to work, to women feeling they SHOULD work, to women feeling they HAVE to work just to make ends meet and survive - especially in this economy. And though this is fantastic for women's rights, it means that many children spend eight hours a day at school then two or three hours at daycare or home alone, and what little time they HAVE with their parents is spent doing homework, or rushing to sports, or fighting over chores and housework. Many children spend more time with their peers, learning bad habits and street smarts, than in the loving embrace of their parents and family. Parents don't have much time to PARENT - to share their values and resources with their children. The children suffer for it.

Let me be clear - I do NOT blame working mothers! This is NOT a judgment, it is simply stating a fact: generally, children spend less time with their parents than they used to. Might this contribute to the problems our schools face? I think it might.

Though it will not be popular to say, women's equality has affected our schools in another way. Fifty years ago, if a woman wanted to work, and make a difference, outside the home, she had two choices - to be a nurse or a teacher. This meant that the smartest and most dedicated women were in two of the most important, and influential, positions. With our new found equality, there is no end to the opportunities for women, which often means that nursing and teaching positions are left open, or filled with less than the MOST qualified applicants. This is not to say that there are not loving, dedicated and qualified teachers out there, just that not EVERY ONE of the teachers in schools is.

In that same fifty years, teachers and nurses' salaries have not grown enough to compete with some of the other careers available. Teachers are responsible for molding and educating the people who will one day run our world - should they not be paid accordingly?

Another issue is that, in many states, a school's hands are tied when it comes to terminating a bad teacher's contract. John Stossel wrote about an example in New York City: It took years to fire a teacher who sent sexually oriented e-mails to "Cutie 101," a 16-year-old student. Klein said, "He hasn't taught, but we have had to pay him, because that's what's required under the contract."

Only after six years of litigation were they able to fire him. In the meantime, they paid the teacher more than $300,000. Klein said he employs dozens of teachers who he's afraid to let near the kids, so he has them sit in what are called rubber rooms. This year he will spend $20 million dollars to warehouse teachers in five rubber rooms. It's an alternative to firing them. In the last four years, only two teachers out of 80,000 were fired for incompetence. Klein's office says the new contract will make it easier to get rid of sex offenders, but it will still be difficult to fire incompetent teachers. You can read the entire article here.

Let's be frank: there are plenty of AMAZING public schools - there are thousands of FANTASTIC teachers. But until every school is amazing, and every teacher is fantastic, there is much work to be done!

Parents' attitudes have changed over the last generation as well. Maybe it comes from the guilt of not having enough time with their kids. Maybe it stems from their visions of their own childhood injustices. But, when I went to school, if you got INTO to trouble AT school, you got into MORE trouble at home. Today, if a child misbehaves at school, the parent(s) come in and cause holy heck, make excuses, and get the punishment reversed, or threaten to sue. (This harkens to our overly litigious society, but I think that is another post altogether!) As a result of the parents' actions, teachers' authority has been so undermined, that teachers have no power left to hold over the student.

Money is a problem which needs to be addressed, but it isn't necessarily that there isn't enough money in education, just that it might be used more efficiently.

Teachers are clearly overworked. The red tape, paperwork, statistical analysis and record keeping take up HOURS of non-class time. During school, teachers are so busy trying to get kids to sit still, be quiet, pay attention, and focus, that they have so little time to teach. And don't forget that children are being pulled out of the classroom to be medicated, or for Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and / or Speech Therapy, or to go doctor's appointments and dentist appointments. Then there are weeks of preparation for mandated standardized tests (upon which many teachers' future salaries are based either directly or indirectly). WHEN are the children supposed to LEARN something!?

Teaching-to-the-test seems to be a fact of life these days. While I understand the need for a nationwide minimum standard, it would appear that these tests have taken over most, if not all, of each year's academic focus. This limits a teacher's ability to excite and inspire his or her students. A young child has an innate love of learning which is systematically beaten out of him or her within a year of starting formal education.

There have been dozens of articles written about the state of our schools. It doesn't do any good to rehash them, so I will simply list them at the bottom of this post. But, how to FIX things? Well that remains to be seen. The lack of solution, I think, stems from the problems being so sweeping and wide spread and deep and broad, that they seem overwhelming. Where do we start? What do we do? Many times grass-roots solutions, those that start at the bottom and work up, are the most successful. Herein, lies another obstacle to the solution: grass-roots organizing requires years of work - people gathering to discuss and improve issues at their core. But when something requires SO MUCH time to work through, the people "in the trenches" have kids who age out before a solution is found. That makes it difficult to recruit those grass-roots soldiers!

So while we wait for "someone" to rescue our schools, we must each do what we can to help our kids - for Whitney was right - they ARE our future, we must treat them well! For some of us, homeschooling, or private schools, is the solution. But however our children are educated, we must commit to staying involved, parenting properly, helping with homework, supporting teachers, loving our kids and doing our number one job as parents: providing a safe, happy, loving environment for children who will grow up to be productive, happy members of society.

Stupid In America by John Stossel

American Education Problems by Sandra Price, Reason to Freedom

Problems Facing American Education by Boyer and Hamil, Mississippi State University

Problems of Education by Pearson Allyn and Bacon, Social Problems Supersite

Education Problems in Public Schools by Ningthoujam Sandhyarani, Buzzle.com

Problems in Education and Society by unknown, Cyber Essays

Officials Identify Education Problems by Cameron Dux, GW Hatchet

Public Education System Problems by C. Johnson, Ex-Teacher

STOP! WAIT! Hold everything!

Yesterday on the news, I heard that the USS New York was being dedicated. The newsworthy part of the story was that the ship was built using about seven and a half tons of steel from the fallen World Trade Center buildings. Cue the dramatic music! Cue the double exposed view of the ship, with an American flag washed across the screen.

STOP! WAIT! Hold everything!

Seriously, back up a second. The Navy commissioned an assault ship to be constructed, in part, of reclaimed steel from the buildings that collapsed on 9/11. But according to the official story, that steel melted at temperatures FAR lower than it should have. (Steel generally melts at 2500 degrees, where jet fuel tends to burn at 550 degrees.) So why on EARTH would the US Navy commission the construction of a ship using this compromised steel? Is anyone worried about this?

And wouldn't building the ship have proven more difficult given the odd characteristics of this steel? Surely this metal, which has a melting point 1/4 the temperature it SHOULD have, made the construction of the ship problematic?

And shouldn't the public be a) outraged at the company that manufactured this faulty steel to begin with, or b) worry for the safety of every person who works in any tall building, or c) be curious why, except for September 11th, 2001, no other building, in the history of civilization, has never collapsed into its own footprint without controlled demolition?

So either, we accept the official story, and worry for the safety of the men and women who will serve aboard this ship, or we don't accept the official story, because this is just one more hole in it. Think about that.

There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of reasons why we shouldn't accept the official story. Set aside a few minutes to think about just ONE of the holes in the story. It really is mind-boggling. One example is the fact that WTC7 fell to the ground in dust, despite the fact that it was not hit by a plane!

There is an old Chinese proverb that says: A wise man makes his own decisions; an ignorant man follows public opinion. Do some research; ask some questions; look for answers.

It is in the unanswered, or inaccurately-answered, questions that you will find your OWN opinion.