Excellent post George!
Improving our public education system shouldn't be a Democratic vs. Republican issue. Vouchers are a tool, which if applied in the right circumstance, can do amazing things. The only reason vouchers are thought of by Democrats as some evil scheme, is because the NEA has drummed their ridiculous fearmongering propaganda into Democrats head.
Closing your mind to a tool, such as vouchers, is simple minded and foolish. No one should be turning their mind off to potential solutions to our public education problems. Everything, within reason, should be tried when so many of them are failing so dramatically.
Our literacy rate is embarrassing for a nation as wealthy as we are. Every child should be able to read by the 3rd grade. If they can't, then we should be screaming and hollering at the school to find a reason why. That's what teachers and principals are paid for. To teach kids (first) the fundamentals of learning. And you can't learn, if you can't read!
I don't care what kind of a lousy home you come from. If you spend 6 hours a day at an institution of learning, and the institution fails the critical test of teaching a child to read, something dramatic should be done. And if a child spends 12 years at that same institution and can't read their diploma. Everyone who ever touched that child should be shamed and held accountable. "Why did Johnny receive a passing grade in your class when he couldn't read"? Should be the least question to ask. Yet, every year, we hear about children who graduate from high school without knowing how to read their diploma! Why? Because the NEA protects the system at the expense of our children.
About two years ago, a dear friend of mine who taught 3rd grade failed a student because she couldn't read well enough. I can't begin to tell you how much flack she took from her principal and union who wanted her to "just pass the child". Seems the parents complained, even though she had been working with the child for weeks, and documenting her parents failure to make the child do the assignments. In the end, the pressure became so great she passed the child, under the assurance the parents would have the child go to summer school.
That's the kind of crap which has been happening all across the nation! Socially promoting children who can't read is simply wrong. And I don't care what dissertation written by some wanna-be educator has to say about self-esteem. Tough love gives far more self-esteem then some touchy feely social promotion ever did. Sometimes, kids and parents need a dose of tough love in the third grade to wake them up to the reality of life.
Since that incident, my friend has quit the teaching profession. She was as dedicated as they come. And she loved teaching. But she was sick and tired of putting up with the systems crap every day.
This small story is being duplicated hundreds of times, and in hundreds of different ways across our country every day. Teachers are quitting, largely do to frustration with a government system which demands too much control over every teacher, in every classroom. Freedom, to be creative, is being replaced by cook-book bureaucrats working from cubicles in Washington D.C. who often get kick backs in order to push this or that program into the system.
Pay is certainly another factor. And the current system wastes far too much money empowering administrators and bureaucrats, instead of teachers, parents and students.
We need new leadership, with new ideas to shake up the system of education. The current administration has failed to provide the leadership and vision necessary to improve our public education system.
Strong Texas women of the new Republican leadership are uniquely talented to take on the special interest groups of Washington D.C. for the good of our children. I believe Barbara, Lynn, Laura and the rest of the Texas Republicans are going to shake up our education system like no one has done in 30 years!
This is the number one reason I am so supported of George Bush for President. George won't be alone when he moves into the White House. He brings with him some of the most talented, inspiring, motivated and caring people our nation has ever seen. |
