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Education Intro
Schools in America are failing. Liberals, beholden to the teachers unions, have entrenched themselves in a position of defending a failed system. They make the same lame excuses year after year, and they've been doing it for decades.
There are two main interests fighting against real education reform. There are the educrats, philosophically opposed to "testing" because the "pressure" is too much for children. "Educrats care if children feel good about reading. Educators care if children can read."[1]
Educrats have been around as long as education has been around. Every decade or so they recycle the same failed ideas and come up with grade-less or test-less classes or some other such nonsense. Naive but insidious, these people at least believe they are doing what is best for children.
The second group fighting against reform is the entrenched bureaucracy desperately trying to hold on to its power. The prime culprit of this group, the National Education Association (NEA) fights vehemently against any qualifications standards for their members, ensuring a system capable of mediocrity at its best. Their power structure is made up of career bureaucrats more interested in Washington politics and maintaining their power than education.
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The Failure of Government Education
High school educators often state their goal is to prepare children for college. If this is the goal of government education, the result has been unequivocal failure.
And this is a test taken by those who intend to go to college. If all students were included, the outlook would be much worse.
John Stossel has been vigilant in exposing the failing education system and a staunch advocate of breaking up the government monopoly on education.
A 2005 government hearing on education reform highlighted some shocking statistics on the state of education in America.
- One quarter of America's high school students read below basic levels;
- America's 15-year-olds performed below the international average in mathematics literacy and problem-solving, placing 27th out of 39 countries;
- 30% of students do not graduate from high school; and
- 50% of African-American and Hispanic students do not graduate.[5]
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Solutions
First, I'd like to explain what is not a sufficient solution. Spending more money will not solve our education problems. We score worse than countries that spend far less per student than we do. In fact, the U.S. ranked near the top in spending on primary and secondary education.[6] And yet, in 2003 the U.S. ranked 6th lowest in mathematics.[7] In addition, both the average class size and student to teacher ratio in the U.S. are approximately equal to the international average.[8] Despite all this, American performance is well below average.
The problem is not funding; it's not class size or any of the other common excuses. The problem is systemic to the model we use. Simply put, schools simply have no reason to perform. No doubt there are many excellent educators who want to provide the best education possible for it's own sake, but history has shown that is simply not adequate, there must be serious repercussions for failure in order to inspire innovation and efficiency. One would think the United States of all countries would understand this basic economic principle, but when it comes to education such understanding has been sorely lacking.
The solution to our failure in education is so simple it's amazing it hasn't gained serious traction (maybe not that surprising when you consider the many self-interested groups with reasons to oppose progress): give the people the same power in education that they have with any other good or service they desire. Specifically, give them the power to choose their provider. Competition will ensure quality education when schools with failing models lose students as higher performing schools gain them. The necessity of performing in order to stay in business will weed out those educational models that have already been shown time and time again not to work but keep coming back because educrats have little to no requirements attached to their funding. End the government monopoly on education and embrace the free market principles that have made this country prosperous.
This isn't as radical a change as it sounds, and it isn't a complete separation of government and education. Instead, it's a separation of government from the day to day running of schools. Instead of the current system, attach a dollar amount to each student (the current average student expenditure is about $12k) that then goes to whatever school the student's parents choose to send them to. Instead of dictating attendance by residence, parents can choose schools based on performance. This simple economic empowerment will ensure that successful education models persist while failing ones are finally allowed to die, resulting in higher quality education for all.
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Documenting Liberal Indoctrination in Public Education
Not only are many educrats refusing to teach basic skills and the foundation children need before they can apply those skills, they are using their position of power to advance extremist causes that they failed to advance at the ballot box. Because they cannot achieve their radical agenda through legislation, the left has hijacked the educational system so they can brainwash our children!
So while schools may not be succeeding in teaching children how to read, write or do basic math, they are spending plenty of time making sure kids get as much liberal indoctrination as possible.
With geography teachers like this, it's no wonder American students are considerably behind the rest of the world in understanding geography. This problem goes a lot further than just rogue teachers, however. Misguided legislatures are using classrooms to promote their social ideologies.
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Sources
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