Education System @ MindSay 
It's no secret that our Public Education system is in serious trouble. Are there those among us who question this? As an educator, of sorts, this is a gut-level frustration to me. Many educators have published papers branishing any number of ideas for the decline in our quality of education even as government spending increases. duh! The answer(s) has nothing to do with money.
But ... before we get into all that, perhaps we should investigate our expectation(s) concerning the type and limitations of education "needed" in today's Western Society. If we look at the history of public education in this country, it may be surprising to note from whence we have come in a relatively short period of time.
Horace Mann, dubbed the Founder of American Public Education, at a patriotic gathering in Boston, July 4, 1842, warned:
[I]n the name of the living God, it must be proclaimed that licentiousness shall be the liberty; and violence and chicanery the law; and superstition and craft shall be the religion; and the self-destructive indulgence of all sensual and unhallowed passions shall be the only happiness of that people who neglect the education of their children. (1)
Hmmm ... reads rather like a newspaper article. What Mr. Mann (and others) noted was the symbiotic relationship of education and personal character. What has happened over the last few decades is the proverbial baby was thrown out with the bath water. In an overcompensation, all morality and character training was also removed from the classroom in fear of crossing some ambiguous line in the sand. As a result, today's education has no shape and little value because there is no moral or character compass providing its foundational definition. In other words, without something that declares that mankind has some intrinsic value, the acquisition of facts (knowledge) has no framework upon which to build itself. This is why the catch phrases of this era include things like:
- what's the point?
- what's in it for me?
- why bother?
So ... What IS the point? Why is education important, or is it? What makes it an issue?
Further reading:
School: The Story of American Public Education
Horace Mann: The Father of American Education
Educational Contributions of Horace Mann
An American Imperative: Public Education
1. Morgan, Joy Elmer, editor. "The American Citizens Handbook," The National Education Association, Washington, D.C., 1941, p. 261.
I've volunteered, made phone calls, attended meetings, sent emails and snail mails all with little success. It takes half a school year just to obtain the smallest hint of cooperation between school and home. Teachers are overwhelmed, administrators are buried under legislation, parents are left in the dark, and the students are lost in the shuffle. 'No child left behind' should not be a code for 'Push them through and shove them out'!
Over the years I have watched my children's education suffer under massive state education program changes. "Whole Language Reading" programs along with the so called "New Math" are beyond ridiculous. Such educational tools are ridiculous attempts to improve children's test scores. The idea of teaching to test would have been called CHEATING in my day. Education is not about passing tests!
Damn money to hell. It's all about funding.
Screw funding! Teachers need to return to teaching students how to learn. Useless trivia will not create well educated, intelligent adults! The popular game "Are you smarter than a fifth grader?" is an excellent example of the failure of our education system. Useless information is forgotten in the real world. Comprehension is a million times more important than the memorization of trivial facts.
If a person does not understand the how and why behind the trivial facts of history; history will simply repeat itself under the guise of new names, dates, places, and things. Nothing changes!
I'm almost ready to believe that the current state of public school education has only one goal... "The Dumbing Down of America". After all, the masses are easier to control if they lack the ability to comprehend the current state of affairs. "Government for the people, by the people..." With the current state of our educational system being the dismal failure it is; how can anyone question why our economy is so dangerously unstable? Oh, that's right... our economy is 'just fine'. We should go out and do our patriotic duty and SPEND THOSE DOLLARS! We deserve the chaotic state of affairs we exist within today.
Damn money. Damn funding. I'd say 'damn the dollar', but it is already damned to failure.
Education is not the only thing suffering from our nation's overwhelming greed. It is my focus because I am a parent of school age children. I've always made it a point to be an advocate for my children in school without being an opponent of my children's teachers. It takes teamwork between school and home for any child to obtain a well rounded education. This teamwork has become nearly impossible to find thanks to what I can only call "burn out".
Teachers are burnt out from seeing 80 percent of their class fail on a daily basis. Parents are burnt out from failing to successfully obtain communication between school and home. Students are burnt out from the chaos of our current education programs. No one is happy with the current state of our education system. Worse, no one is finding success within the system. Our students are entering the world unable to function as competent adults. Teachers are switching careers instead of retiring with the knowledge they successfully changed lives. Parents are giving up on their children. Children are giving up on themselves.
Hell, after all these years of knowing my own education was well-rounded and designed for a lifetime of continual learning, I find myself failing to observe simple grammar and punctuation rules.
Who cares? Most of those reading won't even notice. After all... they read the same newspapers I read today. Editors seem to have forgotten to apply the rules of the English language. Their main focus is ensuring the paper is read. Keep it dumb and keep it sensational. The main goal is to sell those papers! You can't sell a paper to a person without the educational skill to read and comprehend the written news. U no wut i meenz? U doo? Awww... I <3 u to! ;^)
It's all about money.
My God, what have we done to ourselves?