WHY WE FAIL!

I read this morning an article describing the state of the American Educational System by former Labor Secretary William Brock - who is leading the "New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce."

(Most of you will sigh about another "Ken rant" centered on teachers and our failed educational system....sorry!
Someone has to keep bringing this stuff up until it's fixed! Woefully, it seems nothing has changed for the better during the last three decades as far as our educational system is concerned!)

Brock states in the article, that during the last 25 years educational spending has risen 240% while performance has barely changed. Today only 68% of students graduate from high school and many states only require an eighth-grade skill level in reading and math to get a HS diploma!! I'm not surprised, from what I've seen and experienced that "eighth-grade level" may be being a little too generous.

From time to time during my "driving" week, I speak to students of HS age while getting lunch, or at a customer site. From what I've seen, many of these kids are barely literate! None of them want to look you in the eye when they're speaking to you, and a vast majority of them speak a language I'm totally unfamiliar with! And it doesn't matter whether they are male or female or whether I'm up in the Bronx, or in Morris County New Jersey - or in Poughkeepsie New York, or Saratoga Springs, Upstate....none of these kids can talk! (And with the boys for sure - none of them can carry on a conversation without "grabbing themselves" and using hand gestures, while they each ask me if I understand what they are saying! You know?)

Are the kids 'wrong' for being this way? I think it's too easy to blame the kids entirely for learning the wrong things. Geez, they've all "learned" cellphone and "texting" pretty damn well, so they have to have "something on the ball" as my Dad used to say. But English grammar, or American History, or Civics, or more importantly elementary math skills involving change making.... NAAAAAAAAAA! Not a chance. But I can't blame the kids alone.....

I place some of the blame on a society that almost requires both parents to have full time jobs now-a-days in order to "have some paycheck left over at the end of the month!" I blame teachers that fail to make education "come alive" for students, like mine did for me - (and I was only a mediocre student, but loved going to school!) I blame the schools for "dumbing down" American elementary and high school educational curriculums, in order to make everyone feel included, and to elevate the "self-esteem" of all students. All these schools have accomplished is to remove the competitive nature from our children, and create generations of kids who EXPECT rewards for mediocre performance. Kids we push along who enter first the university, and then the business arena, completely unprepared for the reality of world-class competition and avarice!

But mostly, MOSTLY, I dam the educational unions in this country... The UFT, the National Education Association (NEA), the American Federation of Teachers, and their leadership.

Parents, you want to know the truth? You've got no chance changing the way your children are being taught in America. Let me state it more plainly....parents have ZERO effect on changing the way school systems educate their children. The UNIONS decide that. PERIOD! END OF DISCUSSION!

Need convincing? OK, just think back to the last time parents got meaningful change in a curriculum through a school board. It just doesn't happen. The Unions block anything that will shake up their status quo. The UNIONS tell the school boards what will be taught, what books will be used, and who will teach it. Don't believe me? Think back to the last time you heard of a UNION allowing a school board to fire a teacher! I'll bet if you've heard of a teacher firing in your school system ONCE during the last ten years, that's a lot! And it's not because all the teachers are so great. The UNIONS protect shitty teachers. And the UNIONS, not the school board, not the parents, and certainly not the government, decide what's taught in each curriculum.

Unfortunately, this explains why most public school boards of education, most public schools, and certainly a majority of the public/state universities in the country are staffed by a preponderance of liberal educators, teaching from books written by liberal authors. Need an example? OK, here's one. When I was in school learning about American History, I was taught that "The Boston Tea Party" was carried out in Boston harbor by a number of American patriots dressed up as native Americans, who sneaked onto some English ships and broke into the cargo of tea, and threw the tea into the harbor to protest the tax King George was placing on tea and other goods. In today's textbooks, (I'm told that) the same incident is described as "schoolboy vandalism" involving some spices being "accidentally knocked" into Boston harbor.

Need more evidence? In Minnesota, a popular textbook used as early as in the second grade, includes the "pledge of allegiance to the flag," but in the discussion list to be used by teachers the words "under God" appear nowhere. Also the phrase, "and to the Republic for which it stands" is left entirely out of any discussion of the pledge. This is explained in an accompanying lesson worksheet which states, "that we teach children the pledge to honor the flag, not the republic for which it stands." WHAT? How can you do that?

Recently, it was documented that only 4% of the 800 member faculty at the University of Colorado were conservative. That's 30-32 of 800 faculty members. Still wondering why nearly all of the faculty and over a third of the 30,000 student population took part in a "pro-marijuana" rally on campus early in May 2008, or why Ward Churchill remained at the University so long after making his "little Eichmanns" statements following September 11th? At Princeton University early in 2008, every - that's EVERY - faculty contribution to the Presidential campaigns had gone to Democrat candidates. Shocked? In fact, only Ron Paul had received a contribution on the Republican side...and that came from a graduate student! And you wonder why all the college kids today are so enthralled about Baracka Hussein Obama? Find out what some of the schools teach about American History and you'll see why Obama is seem as such a "savior" to so many of the young.

Do some research on your own if you don't believe me. Talk to some high school aged kids - or some college students or recent graduates. Involve them in discussions about history or the upcoming Presidential campaign. I'll think you'll be as shocked as I have been. American kids today can't even give you the dates or place into context important American historical events - European and Asian students can though. While American students are learning about the newest digital cell phones & the importance of separate musical ringtones, foreign students are learning about money management and setting up their own fledgling businesses.

While American teachers unions are fighting to keep the American educational process locked into the 1950's - this morning most shocking statistic was unveiled .......... as of next year, 90% of all engineers in the United States, will come from somewhere else!

"ATTA BABY" American educational union members! Keep shooting for that "less than mediocre" objective, You'll make it one day!

For this crap educational spending has gone up 240%? What a joke!

Dum Spiro Spero!