I Am Frustated About the Current Educational System
40 Years Of Racing To The Bottom: Our Education 'industry' Gets Richer While Our Students Get Stupider
By:
Southpaugh
Written on June 1st, 2012
From City Journal: Spring 2012.
Marcus A. Winters
Better Schools, Fewer Dollars
http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_public-education-spending.html#cform
The essence of the article is that we don't need to spend more money on our K12 system; we need to spend the money we have more wisely, including giving parents and students more choice through vouchers, which also creates more competition between schools to attract educational dollars by offering better programs. Spending our educational dollars more wisely includes, of course, cutting spending on the unnecessary bureaucracies of teachers unions, governmental 'programs', and other mysterious 'administrative costs'.
The crux of issue then becomes weaning unions, school boards, teachers, and attendant 'experts' and 'consultants' of unearned, ineffective and / or unnecessary salaries, benefits, entitlements, and / or administrative control. Short of an educational calamity of biblical proportions, creating the political will to stop this deeply entrenched juggernaut will be an Herculean effort. Make no mistake, this is nothing short of wresting power from a group of people who feel absolutely entitled to, who are absolutely addicted to, and who are absolutely willing to do anything to maintain their life of largely unearned and unquestioned power and influence. This is akin to taking a candy bar away from an obese child in the super market.
The Americans in 1776, the French in 1789, and the Russians in 1918 had to mount full blown revolutions to take down the power elite; containing teachers unions, boards of education, and governmental 'programs' will be only slightly less difficult.
Considering that what’s at stake is the future of our country, it is depressing how long even small changes have taken, but also infuriating that the health and welfare of our children has become a pawn in a childish and moronic turf war.
I have long said that the staggering amount of money wasted on local, state, and federal government educational administrative ‘costs’ would be enough to solve most if not all educational problems: including providing decent teacher salaries; securing proven educational resources; addressing cognitive-, socio-economic-, and/or physiologically- based learning gaps; and producing better student academic achievement, critical thinking, and work ethic.
It seems this is a correct notion.
Marcus A. Winters
Better Schools, Fewer Dollars
http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_public-education-spending.html#cform
The essence of the article is that we don't need to spend more money on our K12 system; we need to spend the money we have more wisely, including giving parents and students more choice through vouchers, which also creates more competition between schools to attract educational dollars by offering better programs. Spending our educational dollars more wisely includes, of course, cutting spending on the unnecessary bureaucracies of teachers unions, governmental 'programs', and other mysterious 'administrative costs'.
The crux of issue then becomes weaning unions, school boards, teachers, and attendant 'experts' and 'consultants' of unearned, ineffective and / or unnecessary salaries, benefits, entitlements, and / or administrative control. Short of an educational calamity of biblical proportions, creating the political will to stop this deeply entrenched juggernaut will be an Herculean effort. Make no mistake, this is nothing short of wresting power from a group of people who feel absolutely entitled to, who are absolutely addicted to, and who are absolutely willing to do anything to maintain their life of largely unearned and unquestioned power and influence. This is akin to taking a candy bar away from an obese child in the super market.
The Americans in 1776, the French in 1789, and the Russians in 1918 had to mount full blown revolutions to take down the power elite; containing teachers unions, boards of education, and governmental 'programs' will be only slightly less difficult.
Considering that what’s at stake is the future of our country, it is depressing how long even small changes have taken, but also infuriating that the health and welfare of our children has become a pawn in a childish and moronic turf war.
I have long said that the staggering amount of money wasted on local, state, and federal government educational administrative ‘costs’ would be enough to solve most if not all educational problems: including providing decent teacher salaries; securing proven educational resources; addressing cognitive-, socio-economic-, and/or physiologically- ba
It seems this is a correct notion.
By:
Southpaugh
Age:
18-21
