Public Education is a Dismal Failure

Yep, it’s obvious: The public education system in the U. S. is a dismal failure.

If something is not working you first need to know what it is supposed to do. What is the purpose of education? The government values it for indoctrination and crowd control. Many parents value it for “free” baby sitting. Some value a classical or liberal arts education as prep school for a respectable place in society. But the bottom line is people spend the majority of their adult lives earning a living therefore, logically, that is what the primary purpose of education should be – to prepare a person for their life’s work. Quite frankly some people don’t need to know calculus. But everyone needs to be able to do basic “life skills” math. Some people don’t need to read “The Scarlet Letter.” But everyone needs to know how to read and read well. P.E. is a waste of time as a required subject. Athletic people will pursue physical activity regardless. The non-athletic will see P.E. as purgatory. We really need to cut to the chase.

Education should be about preparing kids to think independently and creatively while getting along in society. Basically, they need to use their talents and interests to make a living. John Taylor Gatto, author of The Underground History of American Education and a public school teacher for 30 years, stated “Traditional forms of instruction in America, even before the Revolution, had three specific purposes: To make good people, to make good citizens, and to make each student find some particular talents to develop to the maximum.”

It doesn’t cost loads of money to teach. We don’t need new textbooks every few years to teach math or language. If you want to dole out a few million then give good teachers a raise (and fire the bad ones while you’re at it). Homeschoolers have proven that you don’t need a lot of money to teach effectively and kids can learn a lot in 2-4 hours without the burnout and boredom of a typical public school day. No kid should have to wake up before the crack of dawn in order to go to school. If that means a complete shift in work schedules across the nation, then so be it. The future of our families and our nation is at stake.

Parents have to be a child’s primary teacher. Being their teacher is not something you choose. You either do it well or you do not. If you can’t handle the responsibility then don’t have kids. Really. Do what you’ve got to do – condoms, vasectomies, tubal litigation, masturbation – whatever. I don’t care. Prevent sperm from meeting egg. We (nor your potential offspring) don’t want to be victim to your lack of self-control.

The entire educational system must be recreated. Individual instruction is obviously superior though not a possibility for everyone. Every parent who wants to home school should be encouraged and assisted in doing so. If a public school system receives $7,000 a year per child then a homeschooling parent should as well without interference. If a person graduated from high school they should be able to teach that to their children.

As things stand Kindergarten and first grade should be combined. There’s nothing kindergarten teaches academically that Sesame Street can’t. Generations of kids were educated without kindergarten. Elementary kids should only be in school about three hours per day so that they can be kids and learning (that gets to the point in an entertaining manner) will still be fun and effective.

Repetitive drivel should be dropped. I home school my kids and plan to continue through 8th grade. Language books starting with the first grade introduce sentences, nouns, verbs, etc. They repeat this every year. By the 3rd grade when I opened the Language book my daughter said, “Oh, let me guess. ‘This is a noun.’ ” She was right and her eyes glazed over on day one. By the 5th grade it was a laugh-out-loud joke. We truncated all Language studies yet in the 7th grade she was tested at college level Language Arts. Since we homeschooled we could get straight to the point: Don’t know something? Let’s learn it. Know it? Skip the review and move on. There is so much to learn that no one person could make a dent in it in a lifetime yet the “establishment” insists on serving educational leftovers year after year dumbed down to extra-chromosome level.

Do the classics really offer such a great benefit? We’ve been “teaching” the same crap for a century and our literacy rate has fallen dramatically. “Ninety-six and a half percent of the American population is mediocre to illiterate where deciphering print is concerned,” wrote Gatto. Poor reading skills are the result of not reading. If kids aren’t reading shouldn’t we give them something they find interesting to read in order to encourage them to read? There’s no better way to turn someone off from reading than to require boring reading such as your typical school reading assignment. Human behavior 101 states that people do what they like and avoid what they don’t. You can preach and rant and whine but that will never change. We may as well get a clue and work with it.

Middle school should be about four hours per day but directed toward a child’s interests and strengths. (Yes, most 6th graders are quite clear about what they are interested in.) That leaves them more time to actually pursue their interests without total exhaustion. They still need about 10 hours sleep per night. What is currently considered sixth grade through tenth grade subjects should be covered in those three years. They don’t need to study the American Revolution every frickin’ year unless they want to be a history professor. You can never cover all relevant and interesting history so move on to something new without repeating the national hero propaganda that goes in one ear and out of the other. Obviously everything can’t be taught in that three-year time frame so the intelligent thing … the logical thing … to do is be selective. (Everyone should know who “won” the civil war. Everyone should know where Japan and England and Canada, etc. are on a map. Everyone should read the Constitution. Etc., etc.)

What is traditionally considered high school should be complete by the end of the 10th grade. It should be no longer than 5 hours per day which would still leave time to further pursue interests. There should be no homework unless it’s an occasional research paper or a few (20 or so) minutes of math. Ninth and tenth grades should be the equivalent of what is currently considered junior and senior high school studies that are directed toward the student’s strengths and interests. It’s the only way they will pay attention and retain information.

The next two years should be college-level, career-focused study whether it is pre-med, home construction, theater or whatever. This should include budgeting and finances – something the Federal Government needs to learn about. The first two years of a bachelor’s degree are off-the-point, glorified remedial high school academia anyway. Someone who wants to be an engineer should be required (and interested) in taking more advanced math. An artist should only be required to study “real world” problem solving math. Those who are more vocational or technically career oriented (plumbers, hair dressers, etc.) should be able to complete their training by the end of the 12th grade. They should graduate ready for employment or better yet, self-employment. The scientists, lawyers, doctors, etc. should be able to go straight into master’s studies or medical school, etc.

People who like to learn will continue to learn throughout their lives. People who don’t like to learn will not and no amount of teacher droning, rote exercises, and regurgitation of force-fed data on standardized tests will change that. Basically, you can’t make someone like it nor retain it. But the truth is the public education system doesn’t really care about whether or not our children are truly educated. Gatto states “The new mass schooling which came about slowly but continuously after 1890, had a different purpose, a ‘fourth’ purpose…. to serve business and government— (and) could only be achieved efficiently by isolating children from the real world, with adults who themselves were isolated from the real world, and everyone in the confinement isolated from one another. Only then could the necessary training in boredom and bewilderment begin. Such training is necessary to produce dependable consumers and dependent citizens who would always look for a teacher to tell them what to do in later life, even if that teacher was an ad man or television anchor.”

Public school is indoctrination for the purposes of social engineering. In effect it’s child “sacrifice” to the system and we are all paying for it not only with enormous amounts of money but quality of life for us all.