Caldwell's Corner

More money alone won't solve education crisis

Monday, March 8, 2010, 12:11 PM

In a recent column, Mort Kondracke calls upon the need for, and hope that, needed education reform will not get lost in the political squabbling currently occupying Congress. He points out:

“...A work-force report by the Business Roundtable warned that the United States is the only major industrialized country with a younger generation that has a lower level of high school achievement than the older generation and is second to last in college completion.

And, as Obama pointed out Monday, speaking to the America’s Promise Alliance, a third of U.S. children fail to graduate from high school — including half of all minority children, condemning most of them to lives of poverty and creating a huge cost to society.....”

So yes, the problem is easily identified. But the solution? Not so much.

Kondracke continues:

“...Obama wants to replace the NCLB’s goal of having all students “proficient” in reading and math by 2014 with that of having them “college and career ready” by 2020 and having their performance benchmarked against a common international standard agreed to by all states....”

What stands out is the changing from “proficient” in reading and math to “college- career ready”. The current bureaucracy can't even get more than a third of students to graduate under the current grade inflated, anything goes, you're all so special system.

It is naive at best to think that a system that has been failing students for over forty years is all of a sudden going to embrace the “reforms” necessary to get students “college-career” ready by the end of this decade.

While President Obama's goals are to be applauded, the same age old question remains.

Why is it that the only solution ever thought of by government and the unions is more money, more money, more money?

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that for 2006-2007 the United States spent on average over $9600 per student on public elementary/secondary education. (In 1970, the amount was right at $4,000.) Common sense would lead one to believe that such a dramatic increase in funding would see at least some sort of improvement.

Yet instead the system is WORSE today than it was four decades ago!

Somebody needs to remind these idiots that it wasn't laptops and the internet that got Apollo 11 to the moon, it was basic mathematics and American ingenuity.

No matter the latest and greatest new teaching “philosophy”, 2 + 2 is still 4, and reading and writing can still be done with a #2 pencil and a Red Chief tablet.

Multiplication tables are still best learned through old fashioned repetition and memorization that imprints them onto the mind for a lifetime of recall without need for a calculator.

And no amount of “whole word” gurgitating will ever replace the common sense and logic of phonics.

America achieved the pinnacle of her greatness with less money, less technology, and less government than could have ever been dreamed of forty years ago.

Yet all we hear from the unions and the government is more money, more technology, more this, more that, more, more, more, more.

“Trust us, just give us more and THIS TIME (wink, wink), we'll get it right, we promise.” (Pinky swear, really, we really, really will.)

Things may not have been the “best” in all schools those years past. Not all had the “latest and greatest” technology, or even year round air conditioning. Yet students managed to achieve the one thing that they're not doing today: They actually LEARNED something.

And before the “self-esteem, let's not hurt anyone's feelings” attitude took over the classroom students actually KNEW if they were learning or not. A,B,C,D and F were more than just letters in the alphabet, they were guideposts for progress.

Sure there were times the “self-esteem” was bruised, or you didn't get the grade you felt you deserved. But perhaps the most important thing learned in school back than was that life wasn't perfect and it certainly wasn't always fair. And you learned those facts while you still had a support system around you to deal with them.

Absent all the state, federal and union mandates, local school boards were actually in control of their own schools. In turn, the community and students shared in their destiny.

Yes, our educational “system” is broken, but the problem isn't with the students or the vast majority of teachers.

The problem is with the government, the politically correct parasites, and self-serving unions who have hijacked public education for use as indoctrination centers and private retirement plans.

Until the public, parents, and politicians of all parties, acknowledge that it is the entrenched educational establishment not lack of funding that is failing our students today there will not only be no meaningful “reform”, there will be never be measurable improvement.

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Arrogance, hypocrisy, and humility - Washington's 2 out of 3

Friday, March 5, 2010, 04:45 AM

About The Author

A fiscal conservative by nature, socially semi-liberal at heart, Geoff Caldwell is a mid-life Midwesterner just trying to "make sense of it all" in an all too often crazy world.

He longs for the America he once knew. A time when civility, respect, and common sense ruled. When government governed by compromise, consensus and founding principles forged two centuries past. When hard work and personal responsibility were not lost virtue but expected and rewarded. When all Americans were actually "Americans" and not hyphenated voting blocks. When the only time you had to press "1$B!m(B on a phone was to dial long distance, and "customer service" was not an oxymoron.

An America with actual schools, not the sanitized administrative indoctrination centers of today. Where students were taught by teachers teaching, not unions disseminating. Teachers who taught those students so well mind you, that they somehow managed to save the world for democracy, put men on the moon, and end the cold war, all with no educational "technique" fancier than the three R's. An America where taxes went for real services providing for real needs, not just to feed bureaucracies and political agendas. An America where children out of wedlock and showing your underwear in public were frowned upon and not a badge of honor.

He remembers an America that was proud of herself; that even though she stumbled, she knew she stood for freedom and what was right in the world. An America that didn't bend over backwards to "apologize" to the rest of the world for how evil and terrible she is. A nation of legal immigrants, assimilating as one, not notched out enclaves demanding bi-lingual everything and diversity to divide.

Yet, though the America he remembers is far from the America of today, he is an optimist with hope eternal. Hope that eventually the narcissism, racism, and divisiveness will be seen for the destructive forces that they are. Hope that the silent majority will once again steer this fine lady back to the place of greatness she so richly deserves.

Thanks for visiting The Corner. My objective is to inform and to facilitate conversation on area issues, people and political events. Agree or disagree with the posts, your input is valued, appreciated and will be read. If you don't wish to post a comment on the site, feel free to email me at: gc@caldwellscorner.com. As with my broader, national blog (caldwellscorner.com/blog), all ideas and topic suggestions are considered but please understand there is only so much time in a day.

Geoff Caldwell]